Asian streak

Peaceful Moon panels for a customer of Mission Tile West

Waves inspired by an ancient Chinese ink painting

Koi fish and waves

Bamboo panel meant for Mark Cherry's shower

My interpretation of an Ernest Batchelder tile

I started out reproducing Batchelder tiles. After about 25 years I seem to be developing my own style with an Asian slant.

Week 7: SEO + Keywords

SEO and Keywords for the beginner

week#5 Robert S. Evans III

This is the last installment for my mannequin hands food project. I was shooting some Cognac this past Monday. I decided to take a dark, moody approach because of it being month of all hollows eve. Not to mention I have been reading Edgar Allen Poe this past month and I was inspired by a couple of his poems/stories. For the first time in this series I was frustrated with my food/beverage. I was having trouble with the liquor being way to dark and not glowing as much as I would have like it to. However as a whole image I am happy in the way it turned out.

Introduce Yourself

Introduction Letters

How to write an introduction letter that makes a good first impression:

Address your letter to a specific person, whenever possible.

Begin your letter by stating your name and your position or role, if relevant.

Tell how you got the reader’s name, if applicable.

State the purpose for your letter.

Indicate what it is that you hope to accomplish by sending your letter
For example, set up a time that you can meet in person with the reader or what you would like the reader to do in response to your letter (such as grant you an interview).

Include any other important information about yourself or the purpose of your letter
For example, include your contact information, brief history of your organization, your goals, or the like).

Close by thanking the person, and end on a positive note.

For examples and tutorials on writing business letters go to WriteExpress, they have a large selection covering everything from Apologies to Reprimands to Thank You letters. Go here. 

Week 6 Damon Casarez

These are two of the better shots for fashion this week. I have been struggling in this class for the last 5 weeks and I have finally shot some images that I like. Paul has been insisting that I have more movement and narrative in my photos, both for fashion and my personal work. I finally showed him a couple books of photographers that I look at and he was glad I brought some work and he understands what I like now. I don't shoot a lot of movement in my photographs, but I always try to include narrative. I included the lights and cords in the shot to add a bit a narrative to the shot.

Week 6: Karla: Photographer

I'm posting these photos with that "food glorious food" song from the play "Oliver" stuck in my head. My personal goal this week was to photograph some donuts. They're fun, colorful and I got to eat them when I was done shooting them so it was a win win situation. I like color and just can not make a moody brooding photograph to save my life so I tend to go for happier colors and things. It's cool because I feel like regardless of what I shoot it just kind of shows how I feel and most of the time I see things in a positive light. So with that said I'll leave you with some donuts to look at. Next time I'll post another drink photograph that I just shot and have yet to edit. In my last post I mentioned I'd shoot with fake ice and it was horrible so I wound up shooting real ice again. But that's next weeks post, or this weeks post depending on how you look at it ;)

Keywords are Breadcrumbs

10 Basic SEO Tips to get you started

by Peter From on Flickr

Week #6: Rules

Week 6: online life

trade show

This was a shot of my booth at the Craftsman Exposition last weekend. You could see the tiles when you got closer. I did not spend much time designing the booth, and I was sick, but I think I got some good response.  Sold some tiles as show specials, and have a couple of projects lined up. Gave a talk on designing Craftsman fireplaces. I need someone who can take pictures of them. The gray fireplace is badly lit. In real life it is really very nice, with oak tree carvings. It's located 2 minutes from Art Center.  Google Analytics shows spikes in my website viewings. It's good to be with people who appreciate your work.

Week 5 Damon Casarez

This term I am taking Non-Profit Photography with Pato Hebert. In this class, each student gets to work with and develop photography projects for one of the five local non profits that decided to participate in the class. I decided to work with Outward Bound Adventures. OBA is a Pasadena based org that works with at risk urban youth by developing their social and academic skills in the classroom and in the wilderness. The main goal of OBA is to bring these kids out into nature to gain a better awareness and appreciation for the outdoors while at the same time improving their academic/social skills. For my project, I proposed create a small series (3-5) of well lit, well composed, staged photographs that will show some of the most important aspects of the org. This photograph was not staged but was taken on our first meeting with some of the teens in the after school program. So far this has been an amazing, real world experience. I'm looking forward to working with them more and learning how non-profits work and how photography can be used in the non-profit world.

Week #5: Karla - Photographer

This is a photograph of some punch that I took a little over two weeks ago. I'm hoping to add it to my growing food photography portfolio. The ingredients are real and I'm specifically talking about the ice. I was told ahead of time that real ice is very difficult to shoot and I am not so sure about that. I bought plenty of ice and kept it in a cooler so when it started to melt I just put more in. Next week I'll be trying a shoot with fake ice so it'll be interesting to compare and contrast the different types of ice. This is my first attempt at shooting glass and liquid since product photo class a few terms ago. Over all I am pretty happy with how it turned out, I'm interested in photographing more drinks to see how I improve with practice.

Jason Hindley /Photographer

Jason Hindley
Nice flash site with this in his source code:  

NAME="description" CONTENT="Jason Hindley is an award winning studio and location photographer represented worldwide. Enter to view his portfolio online. "> 

This is what Google will crawl and I typed in "communication arts best promo awards" and his site was the 8th site from the top. Your description is very important; something to think about when you do the code on your site.

 "Head" Tags and Keywords: 

The meta (often called the head tags and keywords) of your page are special code to help search engines find your page. If your designer ask you for these you should provide the following: a description of your company/site (this can be several sentences that include your company name and a few keywords about what you do); page titles (what you would like each page of your website to be titled - this shows up in the browser window); keywords (these are single words and short phrases that you believe your visitors might type in a search engine in order to find your website).

Week 4: Karla Gotcher, Photographer

I have a guilty pleasure, can you tell what it is? As if you couldn't guess by looking at this photo, I have a little thing for country music. In a way it reminds me of home...where there's nothing else to do except for pile in the truck, turn on the honky tonk and star gaze for a bit. Most of the time I get strange looks from people when I try to describe the beautiful simplicity of it all but whatever :P
Anyway, finding a true country girl out here was too entirely difficult so I wound up casting an actress who swore up and down that she loved country music. Turns out that she fooled me because she was most definitely not interested in the country music blaring from the speakers at the shoot :P However, I think she did a great job of pulling off the look of a country singer which is what I was going for. Thanks to Marisa I bought this amazing floral wallpaper from a place she suggested and the styling as far as clothing, props and jewelry go was all me.

The Tarot

Marisa. Inspiration from Salvador Dali's Tarot card series:

The Gothic Cookbook

Robert, consider shooting something along the lines of food during Mary Shelley and Lord Bryon's time.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882) was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Prepare to Shoot More for Mobile, Less for Print

"CEO Eric Schmidt’s “mobile first” message to the NAA earlier this year, Associated Press CEO Tom Curley warned publishers today that the mobile future is coming a lot faster than they might think—and will have a much greater impact. As part of its planning, the news coop is expanding its mobile white-label effort from smartphones to the iPad and other possibilities, prepping for a time for a very near future when there are more touch screens than front pages." Go here for the full article 

Week# 5: iPad vs. Printed Portfolio

This is a Must Read from APhotoEditor:

Ask Anything – Printed Portfolio vs. iPad Portfolio

Former Art Buyers and current photography consultants Amanda Sosa Stone and Suzanne Sease have agreed to take anonymous questions from photographers and not only give their expert advice but put it out to a wide range of photographers, reps and art buyers to gather a variety of opinions. The goal with this column is to solicit honest questions and answers through anonymity. 

Go Here for the full article: A Photo Editor

Week #5: Marketing Resources

Thank you Ann Cutting!
Promotion Resources:

Source Books and Web sites:
At-Edge
Workbook
Photoserve
LeBook
Blackbook
Viisual
Alternative Pick
www.dripbook.com
www.ihousedesign.com/
www.livebooks.com
http://www.foundfolios.com
http://bigblackbag.com/
http://www.oneeyeland.com/
http://www.designtaxi.com/index.jsp
http://aphotofolio.com/
http://www.wonderfulmachine.com
http://www.thecreativefinder.com
http://www.krop.com


Template Websites for Photographers:
APhotoFolio
SiteWelder
FolioLink
LiveBooks
Other Peoples Pixels
Click Booq
Evirium
Blue Domain
Picaholic
Site Design Works
Big Folio
Parade
Creative Motion Design
Pixel Post
Movable Type/
Wordpress (Big UP)


Statistics: google analytics

Mailing Lists and Databases: Adbase (www.Adbase.com), Freshlists, Agency Access, Adweek list


Portfolio Supplies:
Brewer Cantelmo: www.brewer-cantelmo.com
House of Portfolios: www.houseofportfolios.com
Lost Luggage: www.lost-luggage.com
Kolo Books: www.artsuppliesonline.com
Light Impressions: www.lightimpressionsdirect.com
Hahnemuhle: http://www.hahnemuhle.com
Kate’s Paperie: www.katespaperie.com
Molly West Handbound Books: www.mollywest.com  )
Pearl Paint: www.pearlpaint.com
Book Binder Alice Vaughan: http://hudsonriverbindery.com/

Alternative Promotion and Entrepreneur info:
Kick Start (pledged funding for start ups) http://www.kickstarter.com/
MINT Entrepreneurial Organization at ACCD www.mintla.org
Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum http://www.entforum.caltech.edu/
CMYK free student portfolio C(MY)K
Kriystina Castella http://krystinacastella.com

Print on Demand Books and Publishers:
Blurb : www.blurb.com
Asuka Books : www.asukabook.com
My Publisher: www.mypublisher.com 
A&I lab: http://www.aandi.com/
http://www.leathercraftsmen.com/index.html
Paperchase: http://www.paperchase.net
Moo : www.moo.com
Modern Postcard: www.modernpostcard.com
magcloud: publish your own magazine http://magcloud.com/browse www.modernpostcard.com

Week 4 Robert S Evans III

So this was a metamorphose AD that I collaborated with an Advertising student Christain Chico my ACCD Shoot Sell class. This was a fun project we got the comp Metamorphose were we had to take two objects and merge them to create another object. So we decided to use Hebrew National hot dogs and a Weber grill. After a couple weeks of brain storming and we came up with this answer to our project. This project was a lot of fun, however the problem that accrued while trying to fabricate the grill in the shape of a menorah was the hardest part. Though in the end the final project was most rewarding.

Casey Harris - Please Please Tell Me Now!

This particular character, named Trixis, came from the images that fluttered through my head while listening to Duran Duran and Wham! Particularly "Is There Something I Should Know?" by Duran Duran. Its one of my favorites. Its pure British 80's pop nonsense and I LOVE IT.

I really tried to incorporate more of a sense of the style of the period, more of a caricature of the style, rather than base it purely on existing fashion pieces. I tried to embody the feeling of the music and the imagery it inspires.

Canon: The Making of the Pixma Campaign

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Opinions from Agencies about Direct Mail

Jigisha Bouverat, TBWA CHIAT DAY Advertising, Inc.: I think each of all of the promotional tools for photographers has its specific use. Direct mail is the best for initial contact and keeping the industry abreast of new work. Websites are great to show a wider range of commercial and personal work—we often use them to show Art Directors a photographer’s work before we commit to calling in the book. Both promotional mailers and websites are valuable reference tools at the research phase of a project. Print portfolios are best once a photographer is being considered for the project. Art buyers and Art Directors are able to see a full range of work in a tangible manner. In almost every situation, our Art Directors do not make a decision on choice of photographers until they have seen the portfolio books a number of times.

Chris Keefe, Pacific Communications: Whatever you do don’t send a post card! Everyone sends them and they end up in the trash. (Sorry.) The best direct mail promo I received recently was in a mailing tube and it included a sample photo with a “giveaway” item in the tube that related to the photo. It was unique and got me to take a look at the work. The next, and best, way to get work is to go to ad agencies with or without a rep and meet with the Art Directors. It is the best way to get people to actually look at the work and for them to get to know you; most people want to work with someone who is a good artist as well as a good person and personality.

Two Thirds / Collection

A very interesting way to market a new fashion product, a film within a site. Check it out Two Thirds Collection

Two Thirds Collection

Casey Templeton's $15K promo piece

Casey Templeton sent out an amazingly well put together promo piece to 290 art buyers. The response from the buyers was in his favor and they all commented on how well done and inspired his piece was, inspiring enough to venture to this website to look at his work. Take a look at his promo piece here. What do you think?

Lewitt-Androcchio: A Photograph Collection Idea

Using glassine envelopes and a fake book box to showcase photographers.
Other title	Lewitt Androcchio graffiti photographs
Publisher	1976-[19]84.
Description	[60] sheets : col. photos. ; 89 x 134 mm.

468 examples of direct mail pieces

Flickr user Aphotoeditor posted 468 examples of direct mail pieces that was sent to him on his flickr. Check them out and see if you are inspired to call up anyone of the senders. Go Here.

Slide show

468 promo cards

James Worrell: A photographer ponders eblasts

From James Worrell's blog Less Is More

Print Promo vs Email Blast

"it is the opinion of this photographer that we have to do everything.  Just like how the web never completely put out of commission your printed portfolio... (perhaps the iPad will?) We need to do a little bit of everything and as a small business with limited resources that can be a challenge.  It can also be a fun problem to solve." - James Worrell
To read the entire post go here.

A Photo Folio Competes with LiveBooks

A Photo Folio: One-time setup fee: $1000 / Monthly hosting fee: $17

**Iron clad money back guarantee: If you are not satisfied for any reason call or email us within 31 days of purchase for a full refund. No questions asked, but we love feedback, because we’re committed to customer satisfaction.
What’s included:

• A Blog (installed at the time of purchase or anytime after that)
• 50 Email addresses (7.3 GB of storage per address)
• Virtually unlimited storage and bandwidth
• Unlimited pages, images, galleries and categories
• Video (integrated into the design)
• Deep Linking (a unique url for each page on your site)
• Google Analytics (paste the code and you’re set)
• HTML Mirror Site for SEO
• iPad Mirror Site
• iPhone Mirror Site
• Mobile Mirror Site (for Blackberry and Palm phones)
• Image Captions
• Custom logo, color and font support
• FTP access

An Example of one of their designs: Erik Skarr

Erik Skarr

Sugar Reps

Izabela Berengut: ACCD Photo Grad'97. Izabela opened up Sugar Reps to promote new talent; with her passion for creative imagery she has created an agency that looks at what is going to be the "new". 


SUGAR REPS:
a young, fresh and innovative artist management boutique, which provides representation to top-quality photographers in fashion, editorial and advertising industries. Sugar Reps is based in Los Angeles, but available nationwide.


Site: Sugar Reps

Sugar Reps

;

Biscuit8 Reps

A nice site I came across today: Biscuit8. Jax Harrison and  Annette Morecraft run Biscuit8, both have experience with on air talent, image management and curating and public relations.
Blog: biscuit8blog
Site: biscuit8

B8

Edge Performance

I have been reading The Power of Pull by Hagel, Brown and Davison. It claims that we used to rely on acquiring sets of knowledge for success in our fields.  With information flowing so fast in this Internet age, that is no longer adequate. To shine one needs a community. Now that community can be the whole world, and it could be from seemingly diverse and unconnected fields. In this class we are learning how to attract people to our causes.  With this power of pull we can gather like minded individuals from around the globe, shape serendipity to likely outcomes, form creative spaces to achieve new heights, and transform institutions. It's an inspiring book.

I am still a beginner in this process. The above 3 pictures illustrate the happy results of introducing new points of view, albeit old school.  The red tree is a 36"x24" fused glass panel where colored chips of glass make up the negative space. To achieve the intricate outlines of the tree I used vinyl cut stencils that sign makers use. Traditionally the 2 fields are somewhat unconnected.

The peonies bowl combines my expertise in sculptural ceramics with glass slumping. I have not seen the application of glass color done this way before. It's a little bit like pate-de-verre, but more free flowing.

The hummingbirds panel combines sculptural ceramics with fused glass. The result is not the smooth clean surface one thinks of ceramics, but it does have its own virtues. Now that it is made, maybe someone will find it worthwhile.

I enjoy taking techniques to the edge. Fortunately I have a wide range of experiences and the willingness to cross borders. I am hoping to expand my community to nourish some of these developments.

Week 4 Damon Casarez

These are 2 shots I did for an assignment to shoot a child. This 6 year old was great to work with, he took direction very well and got into character very quick. I've been trying to get a little bit more aggressive with my composition and photographed the 2nd image with more environment and a slightly higher point of view. My favorite is the 2nd shot but my teacher and other students have chose the 1st one as the more successful photo.

This picture was inspired by the children I often see riding bikes and scooters by themselves at night in North Pasadena, usually around 10-11:30 pm. I was always both shocked and intrigued when seeing these kids. I had always wondered where their parents were, or if their parents knew that their kids were gone. I am interested in how people would read the photo and if my idea came through the photograph or if they just view it for what it is, a child at night.

Week #4: Marisa Howenstine, Photographer

When Concepts Go Kaput

While a lot of my conceptual imagery succeeds in being discernible to my audience, that's not always the case. There's nothing more disappointing than creating an image that I think is bullet-proof, only to have it met with misinterpretation. This was the case with my image "Queen of the Ants," which looks visually interesting, however, very few people understood the meaning behind the photograph.

My assignment was to incorporate nature/animals into an image, and I wanted to shoot something that wasn't going to be a generic cover for Bark (the dog) Magazine. Once again, props never fail to inspire me, and I came across a package of oversized ant magnets at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Hollywood. The ants were about an inch in length, and if I cut off the magnet from their base, I knew I had a perfect "animal" to work with (the assignment didn't say the animals had to be alive, and it didn't exclude insects as animals!).

So I came up with the idea of creating an ant farm, complete with tunnels and dirt. And I was emphatic about incorporating a person into the picture, as people are what I shoot. I thought it would be interesting to create an image that had a woman – not an ant – who was the queen of her ant farm. And because she was a queen, I thought instead of having the dirt be colored brown, it should reflect a heavenly quality and had my scenics paint the textured dirt blue. The queen's hair extensions were supposed to mimic ant tunnels. However, the general consensus was that the woman was an octopus underwater with ants crawling all over her octopus arms. There were a few who got the ant tunnel reference – particularly when I cited the name of the piece, "Queen of the Ants." But overall, the image's interpretation fell flat with my viewers.

Ah, well. You can't win them all….at least I've got an cutting edge photo for a Raid advertisement, as ants crawling through your hair is a pretty horrific thing!

Graph Paper Press Wordpress Themes

Graphpaperpress has great Wordpress templates that are suited for artists and photographers. You can download a theme for free.

Wordpress themes

How to Post on Wordpress

Here is a great video tutorial on how to post on a Wordpress Blog. Go here
On wordpress.tv there are a series of "How-To" that are easy and informative, great for building that great your Wordpress blog.

John Casey Harris - Where's the Wand?!?

This was an assignment from last term. We were asked, "if we could view any event or period in natural history, what would it be?" Naturally I responded "DINOSAURS! I WANNA SEE DINOSAURS!"

Then the twist. The same question had been given to a group of local first graders and each of us was given one of their responses written on a small piece of paper. Our assignment was to combine the two responses into a series of images.

Mine read "Where's the w**d?!"

Which wasn't that bad. My friend got "I wanna watch Jesus and RoboCop have sex," but REALLY?

Weren't these supposed to be first graders? As in 7 years old? How do they even know about these things. I'm pretty sure RoboCop was rated R... AND CAME OUT IN 1987!

Despite the obvious interpretation, I choose to believe (go denial!) that the kid had been a Harry Potter fan, thus this illustration was born!

The idea for the comic was that the young wizard performed a spell horribly wrong, thus catapulting his wand somewhere into the distant past, where it is found by a precocious juvenile tyrannosaurus!!!

Week#3 Robert S. Evans III

These images are the next installment for my food and mannequin hands series. The top image is an experiment with different colored light as-well-as using a mannequin torso in a Cheddar broccoli soup recipe shoot. The Cheddar broccoli soup images consist of 1 ingredient shot and a recipe shot. Next comes my orange inspired food shoot.

Week 3 - JP Agustin

My second shoot with A-List International, but this time the wardrobe stylist was filming for his reality show called Style Protocol and they did the behind-the-scenes . I wasn't really nervous about it until they started to interview me and I couldn't articulate myself one bit. I doubt they'll use it for the show since I sound like a 14year old stoner saying 'ummm' and 'uhhh' a lot...
anyhow the theme was a spring color block concept. I didn't see the pieces before the shoot, but the creative director told me that he'll be using bright hues and was going for something energetic. I decided to light the crap out of the model with 8 lights. I just finished 2nd term and got access to use all the strobes at art center, so i went buckwild and as I look back, I definitely overlit. I felt that the cyan background contrasted well with all the colors and it seemed to work out well, and the crew was happy with it and I was stoked since I didn't have to change the backdrop for every look. They selected the photos, which I wasnt too stoked on b/c there are better images than the ones they used. They also warmed them up a bit and added too much contrast for my taste. oh well at least it was a cool experience....

-jp-

style protocol promo reel video
you can see the back of my head for 1.2 seconds