At it’s best art gets us to consider ourselves and others within the world around us.  With that in mind photography is a direct medium that can be used to hold a mirror up to the world around us.

Vitaly S. Alexius photo journal about the ship breakers of Chittagong, India does just that.  The visuals and the story stop you in your tracks and make you question how a person can live like that and how our world can allow a person to live like that.  It’s an amazing combination of photos, Google maps, and journal entry. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend I headed down to Grouse Mountain and did some night riding for Mel’s birthday. Grouse is located in the mountains around the city of Vancouver giving an amazing view of the skyline while you enjoying some night skiing. I was a bit skeptical when the idea of night skiing at Grouse was first floated. Understandable, why would a group of Whistler locals want to drive away from the best Mountain in North America to visit a local mountain with only two lifts and a handful of runs open at night…..and to top it off a storm was bearing down on whistler promising to bring 12+ inches of new snow.

As it turns out Grouse Mountain is a great time if you want to mix a bit of skiing with some late night festivities. The group had a great time messing around on different equipment (a handful kept it real with snowblades). And then we danced the evening away while still in our ski/snowboard gear….including boots. While the Polaroids have been censored to protect certain parties I did receive permission to release a few photos.

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Great web site design concentrates on the small picture as well as the big picture. Little things like icons and graphics turn a web site into a memorable browsing experience. The next time you’re looking into a new product that you might purchase take a look at the company’s web site and look at their visuals. More often than not, if they have great images or icons they probably have a great product - look here & here. The thinking is if you’re going to spend hours, days, and weeks obsessing over the graphic imagery of your web site, you’ve probably spent twice as long designing a great product that will satisfy you’re customers.

I just returned from a trip back to the Bay Area to help one of 2 Out of Three’s clients with this idea - delivery on the small things. We spent four marathon days capturing creative and high quality product and lifestyle images for the Neela Bags‘ website, which will be launching in the next few weeks.

We went into the four days of shooting with ideas for eight different types of shots at six separate locations around the cities of San Mateo and Burlingame. Everything from detailed product shots, to lifestyle shots, to images of the company’s founders we’re taken. It’s fun to look at some of the numbers involved in our 4 days of shooting.

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A new year has arrived and it seems like a good time to post some pictures from the past month. I was slacking in blog posts for the month of December so I have pictures from Whistler, Vancouver, and Christmas with the family in SF to show you. I should also have some designs and a soundtrack to my life to share with you in the coming weeks. I hope everyone is looking forward to a creative 2008.

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Last week we packed up the 2 Out of Three design studio and moved our operation north to Whistler, BC. Rowdy the Audi [remember kids it's important to name inanimate objects] was packed with all the standard office essentials including our trusty Mac Book Pro, a snowboard, and a warm jacket. The trip went smooth and a few days after saying goodbye to our San Francisco friends, family, and our two year home in Duboce Triangle we made the border crossing at the Peace Arch. Less than an hour later Double A was showing us around his home town of Vancouver. Later that day we pulled into our new place in Whistler, BC - just a couple minutes drive from the resort village.

Below are a few pics from Van + Whistler

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New Mexico is dry and dominated by the colors brown, red, and yellow. I learned that and a few others thing over the past five days while I was visiting my Mom in Albuquerque. My sister Yasha also joined us for a few days making a family reunion out of it. It’s was great to spend a few days living with my sis’ and Mom, almost like being a kid again.

When I was not laid up by the flu, which combination with the natural desert dryness was not fun, we spent time walking through the desert, visiting healers, and catching up with each other. My Mom has an article about the statue on top of the US Capital, Lady Freedom, that is being published next month in the US Capital Historical Society Magazine. And Yasha is getting ready to go to Miami for Bridge Art Fair, as well as pondering her future and weather it should be spoken in French, Italian, or German.

The shades of New Mexico also turned out pretty well through the lens of my camera. Here are a few photos taken over the past 5 days in Abq.

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Hiking is an activity I’ve been overlooking a great deal in the past few years. As a kid my father would take my sister and I for regular hikes in the East Bay hills, occasionally we would even motivate to get over to Marin and explore a coastal trail. With a bit more free time and my impending departure from San Francisco, for an extended trip, I’ve been reacquainting myself with some of these hikes.

Using my childhood memories of hiking locations and the Bay Area Hiker website I’ve been exploring trails all over; reservoirs paths on the Peninsula, trails that terminate into the Pacific in Marin, and Eucalyptus covered paths in the Berkeley hills. On most of them I’ve been snapping away with a camera and I thought I share a few photos with you.

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A generation ago it was not unusual to spend your entire career, 30 plus years, at a single company. Maybe it’s Silicon Valley, or the gaming industry, or generation X & Y, but six years has become a long time to spend at a single job. It’s strange to think I’ve been an employee at Electronic Arts for a longer period of time than I was in high school. But all good things must come to an end and today is my last day down in Redwood Shores. As for me, I’ve decided there are some new challenges and growth opportunities for me outside my cube. I’ll be doing a number of freelance design projects, but for most of the next year I will be traveling in order to spend more time in the ocean and on the mountains.

Looking back six years ago I don’t think I could have chosen another company where I would have learned as much - with the obvious exception of Google, I mean with all those stock options I could have paid Stephen Hawking to be my tutor! Very few companies combine technology and art like EA and I feel privileged to have participated in a number of great projects that helped me become a better designer. In thinking over my time at EA there are a few esoteric numbers that come to mind:

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Conde Nast Traveler is having a “Live The Cover” great travel memories contest. You upload a photo and an explanation of what made that moment so unforgettable. Having done my fair share of traveling and photography over the past few years I decided to submit three photos. It also does not hurt that the winner gets a free vacation to the Maldives, one of my dream destinations. The rest of this blog entry has my photos and descriptions but I would also encourage you to go over to their web site and vote for my entries (and Kenny submitted a few as well).

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My good friend Kenny has been spending the summer living in Montreal, Canada which gave me a good excuse to get out of California for a five day visit. The timing also worked out to meet up with Shaun and Ashley as they decided to come up from Maine after attending a wedding.

We spent most of our timing walking around the city exploring everything from the cobble stone streets of Old Montreal to the nightlife of Boulevard Saint-Laurent. I really enjoyed the outdoor dining and old world charm of Montreal. I may have been deceiving myself due to the French coming from the locals and the late night dinning but it truly seems like Montreal is more a part of Europe than North America. Everyone we met was great and eager to talk and share their story. Local friends, cute bartenders, and the owner of the Turkish Tea House all spent time telling us the things to do and the places to be.

If you get a chance I recommend a trip up north. Although I’d make sure you do it in the summertime, that far north the winters can put a chill in you’re bones. In the meantime enjoy some of the random pictures I took.

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