The new series “United States of Tara” debuted on Showtime last night. I did this pitch over a weekend back in May of 2008 for Colourmovie. Although I didn’t have too much time to put it all together, it was a great opportunity to do a board using just my photography. I wish I had more time to evolve the look and ideas further, but it gives the taste of what the titles might have been like if this direction had been chosen. I watched the first episode this morning on Showtime.com, but haven’t seen the main titles yet. I look forward to seeing what the show ended up choosing.

I always request a window seat when I fly, unless it’s an overnight flight. Of all the photos I take from airplanes, very few are worth showing. It’s usually too hazy, too dark, too high, or just simply too boring to get a great shot. But if you wait, watch, and are patient….sometimes you get lucky with the perfect moment presenting itself only momentarily (depending on altitude) with the perfect cloud formation, lighting conditions or fleeting landscape. Hope these make you want to fly.

I visited Washington D.C. for the first time in November of 2008. One of my favorite parts was visiting the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I’ve always been fascinated by space travel. So, the combination of graphic design with space travel can’t help but intrigue me. I took photos of these two space patch designs for the Apollo 10 and 13 missions since they really stood out to me as solid designs. If you like these two, there’s a great website that chronicles Space Mission Patches and gives some history behind their design.

These are some textures I’ve captured over the past year from travels, work projects, etc. These were shot using either a Canon 20D or 40D, depending on which I owned at the time. Also viewable at my Flickr.

Living close to the beach in Santa Monica means there are some nights where heavy beach fog rolls in off the Pacific Ocean and is usually the most dense in the early morning hours of the night. These shots were taken between about 2-3 am on an October night close to Halloween. The diffused lighting makes for some eery and interesting lighting setups. Since shooting these, I bought a flash and am hoping to get better results with shooting at night. You can see these on my Flickr also.

Darkel – “Be My Friend” (from the self titled album “Darkel” released September 06)

I recently stumbled onto a song called “Be My Friend” by Darkel listening to The Knife Radio on Pandora. The singers voice sounded so similar to Jean-Benoit Dunckel, one-half of the French electronica band AIR. So naturally, I created a new station just for Darkel on Pandora and also went and bought the self-titled album off Amazon MP3. I found that this album has been out since September 2006. A shame I didn’t know about Darkel sooner.

I absolutely love AIR and saw them play live at the Greek Theater in September of 2007, so anything that comes from either Nicolas Godin or Jen-Benoit Dunckel who make up AIR is gold to me. Here’s the first track I mentioned – “Be My Friend”. If you’re a big AIR fan like myself, you’ll be hooked on Darkel.

This series of photos was the basis for a concept I pitched with Eyeball NYC. Since the project got put on hold and I can’t yet show the project in full as I hoped, I offer you these teaser images for now. I might end up adding some design and color touches to these in the future. Click anywhere on image in slideshow to see a larger version or check out the set here on my Flickr.

My niece was born in November of 2008 to my sister and her husband. They picked out a beautiful and unique name once they knew it was a girl – Katya. So I spent a Saturday morning playing around with some unique lettering for her name. This was later was hand stitched into a baby blanket by Anneka who spent alot more time working on the blanket than me on the lettering. After working on just 5 letters and trying to get them perfect, I have much more respect for talented hand letterers who must possess an incredible amount of patience.

I plan on doing more experimental color photography because each time the results are so unique. Most of these were created by mixing food coloring with clear egg whites and then waiting for the best moments to happen.

I recently Netflixed the movie “Control” by Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn after a rave review from my friend Mike Slane about the English band Joy Division which formed in 1976. I honestly didn’t know much of the backstory behind the band, but being a fan of New Order and having listened to Joy Division off and on for the past couple of years, this film renewed my interest in the band to say the least. I’ve been listening to them alot lately.

For anyone that remembers the days of real music videos, you’ve undoubtedly seen the work of Corbijn for bands like Depeche Mode, Joy Division, Nirvana and Metallica. I could think of no one better to direct this film and the choice to do it all in black and white was perfect. The performances were amazing onstage and off in the film with Joy Division’s music driving the whole film.

After watching the movie, I was intrigued to learn about the cover art for “Unknown Pleasures” with its minimalist lines crackling with vertical soundwave energy down the middle. The album cover was designed by Peter Saville who I remember studying in design school. As described in Saville’s biography from his website:

“Saville created a new style with the covers for Joy Division, from which New Order were later to emerge, which made him famous. This style distinguished itself by a down-to-earth, “post” modern appearance that played with various image categories and historical sources, functioning as a sublimation of signs. ”

In my research about the album art, I discovered here (from Sleevage.com) that the lines are actually 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered PSR B1919. If you click the link there’s a scan of the original technical illustration from Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy which looks the same as the design used by Joy Division on “Unknown Pleasures”. Saville pretty much inverted the colors. Regardless, I find Saville’s choice or instinct to use something obscure like this and the right moment to use it fascinating. These lines have in large part been the most recognizable branding of Joy Division and they simply work as a design for the album regardless of their origins.

All this fascination with 100 pulsating lines and Joy Division made me curious how I would recreate this and animate the lines to a Joy Division song. One of my favorite songs of theirs is “Shadowplay”. Here’s a teaser video of what I have begun building and animating in Cinema 4D. As I find time, I hope to update this video with more animation along with the music.