I totally forgot about this 1st month archive page that i made about one month after I started Greyscalegorilla. It made me quite nostalgic to scroll though about six thousand of my very first shots. I just wanted to share this with everyone again. Do you remember your first month shooting?
Also found in the archives - One Year Of Greyscalegorilla video.
I just finished helping design a site for the subtle yet ridiculously over the top comedy series michalstahldavid.biz behind the star. He just wrapped up filming and the show has gotten funnier every week. Make sure to start from the first episode if you’re new to the series.
Photo by Here’s Kate
I used to be a tutorial Junkie. Especially as I was learning Cinema 4D. Tips, tricks, and how-to tutorials were everywhere. I watched them all. I felt like I was learning a TON about the application. I would even open the program and play around to try out what I learned. It wasn’t until I tried to use Cinema 4D in a REAL project at work before I realized that I was practically clueless on how to actually use the software. It wasn’t that the project was difficult… it wasn’t. The problem was this:
Watching or reading about someone doing something is not a replacement for doing it yourself. Working from scratch gives you real problems to solve and real things to learn. Sure it’s fun to just read about techniques, or just play around, but why run into problems or try to solve a difficult technical issue when you’re “just having fun?”
There are never problems to solve with tutorials. Usually the “instructor” runs though the tutorial step by step with no missteps or blunders. The proverbial cooking show cake is already cooked. He is just running through the recipe. Yea, you can replicate his exact tutorial but what if you want to make it slightly different? Usually you’re stuck.
Try this instead. Make your own small project from start to finish. Try to replicate something that inspires you. Now there are real problems to solve. How do I render for widescreen? I need to make that spin around. I want to make the material reflective. How do I do that? I need the timeline twice as long. How do I cut this out of the background? How do I make this go backwards? Go look for the answer. Now we’re actually cooking instead of just sitting on the couch watching a show about it.
What day corresponds with what beer? The placement of the lines make it confusing. Every detail matters people!
This new lensbaby lens looks like it finally bridges the gap between expensive Tilt-Shift lenses and their old line of plastic. The older versions of the Lensbaby had always been a gimmick to me. It was a nice way to get some selective focus, but the optics weren’t good enough to give you the clean bokeh of a True Tilt-Shift lens and they really didn’t offer any advantage to the DIY Plunger Cam.
Lensbaby looks like it is growing up thanks to the new Lensbaby Composer. From the look of some of the Gallery Photos, the Composer and the double optic lens accessory takes some nice shots.
I still prefer the look of a “real” tilt-shift lens, but I may have to try one of these.
Do you use a lens baby? If so, link up some shots in the comments.
Lively discussion in the comments about the thought of removing the titles from my Daily Photos
Trevor’s solution and response to Tuesday’s Is RSS Dead? by Jason Fried and the subsequent commenter fallout in favor of RSS.
Feedburner tells me I have quite a few RSS readers, but I’m never sure of the accuracy. How many of you are subscribing to the RSS feed? Drop me a comment and let me know if you are an RSS subscriber and your thoughts on how RSS is useful to you. Oh yea, and if you’re not a subscriber, now is the time:)
Images from the Letters & Ligatures Opening from House Industries. I love all the Orange and Ampersands.
I’m printing the Pen Tool cheat sheet out for my desk.
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