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These Irish guys can still rock the house...

Attended my fourth U2 concert in Toronto last week and I must say it was a mighty fine show.  It combined al the best aspects from the Elevation and Vertigo show, evolved them and added that large scale spectacle from the Pop-Mart tour to give fans a really great experience, as U2 show always does.

I brought my trusty Sony Alpha a100 DSLR with me and made do with a Minolta 28mm f/2.8, the results of which you can see below.  You can see more on my Flickr page here.

U2 360 Toronto 1

U2 360 Toronto 4

U2 360 Toronto 3

 I also recorded a few video clips but for now I'll share a sample of Bono and The Edge doing an acoustic version of Stuck in a Moment.

 

The AGO Study

I finally got a chance to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario, which completed a redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in late 2008.  I didn't have my DSLR with me when I went but managed to get a couple of interesting photos with my small Canon point and shoot. So have a look, and feel free to visit my Flickr page and leave a comment or better yet make me a contact.

MTV's New Look

With the help of UK studio Universal Everything MTV is launching a new look across it's 64 international channels...

MTV International / Sweetheart from Universal Everything.

 

MTV International / Chocolate Gold Sunset from Universal Everything.

 

MTV International / Mad Drummer from Universal Everything.

For more info and a few more clips check out the posting on the Creative Review blog.

Fun with time...

So I recently came across two very interesting pieces of video, both essentially created to advertise new products but both interesting to watch.

First up is a demo reel from I-Movix to showcase their SprintCam V3HD that was recently announced at NAB. This broadcast native HD camera can capture ultra-slow-motion solution offering frame rates of 500 to 1,000 fps with instant replay.

Next up is a really well executed piece for Philips to show case their new lince of ultra wide screen tvs. Check out the official site for the full experience but you can get a preview from the YouTube clip below.

More signs that we are living in the future...

So can your old baseball cards do this...

From Engadget...

Topps is back with a vengeance in an attempt to woo Internet bred sophisti-tots back into collecting baseball cards. Right, Topps, the company that pre-dates Human Growth Hormone abuse and packs a nostalgic smack of dusty pink sticks of chewing gum is back in the game, this time with some help from former Disney exec Michael Eisner. Just hold the special 3D Live card in front of a webcam and watch a three-dimensional avatar spring to life -- rotate the card and the figure rotates in full perspective. The technology provided by Total Immersion also allows collectors to drop the player into simple pitching, batting and catching games using the computer keyboard. Series 1 cards will cost $2 for a 12-pack while a buck snags a fistful of five. The 3D Live series will eventually feature video.

New photos w/ a little Fallon on the side

So trying to update this site as often as I'd like is a bit more difficult with a full time job... in case my employers read this I'm not complaining about having a full time job. 

I did manage to upload a few more photos to the Urban Life gallery.  A small sample of my last photos taken before leaving Melbourne.  I've been back in Toronto for almost 3 months and still have 1000 or so photos to still go through from my time in Australia - hopefully those photos will be up sometime before summer!

I also want to point out that Engadget Editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky will be on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Monday March 9th.  Geeky tech journalist + ackward talk show host must make for good tv.  Any way, here's a clip of Joshua and Jimmy having a little talk from the floor of CES back in January.

So its been a while...

Not sure if anyone actually fallows this blog, but if you do then I apologize for not posting for a while.  My wife and I moved back to Toronto from Melbourne at the end of December and I've been a bit busy adjusting to life here and getting back to work.  I hope to make an effort to post at least once a week, even it is jus some photos or some interesting news.

For now, I'll post the newly released trailer for the upcoming G.I. Joe movie - I'm not expecting this to be any good, but I will admit that the trailer got the kid in me a bit excited.

So what will ILM do after everyone becomes VFX artisit?

I stumbled upon this video of Adobe's Dan Goldman showing off some R&D work.  As someone who took an intense VFX program learning how to do motion tracking, this makes me smile and feel a bit bad all at the same time.  So I'm not sure who gets more respect now, the compisitor using an Inferno machine or some one who can do the same task in a couple of minutes with a few clicks?

 

Any ways, watch and enjoy.


Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

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Timesculpture & Cats

Here are two ads that caught my eye. 

First up is a Toshiba's "bullet time" style ad made using 200 Toshiba Gigashot HD camcorders resulting in 20gb of footage.  Not my favorite ad to be honest but worth taking a look.

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I Met The Walrus, well not me personally....

Here is a short animated film of a 1969 interview of John Lennon by 14-year-old Jerry Levitan who apparently snuck into Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. Go figure that I, someone from Toronto would come across this while in Melbourne, Australia. The world really is a small place. Any way, I think it's pretty good but if that isn't enough of an endorsement it also won an Oscar.

 

Help me Obi-Wan Blitzer...

As if the 2008 US Presidential election wasn't exciting enough to watch, CNN went above and beyond charts and graphs in its coverage and brought us the future. I thought that using tech like Microsoft's Surface was cool but I guess that was so 6 months ago.

A lot of focus has been made about the so called holograms used when Wold Blitzer played out his Star Wars fantasy while interviewing a Jessica Yellin in Chicago. Now, this strikes me as equally cool technically as much as it does pointless in its use as it added nothing in regards to delivering news. Making use of 35 HD cameras and 20 computers to pull this off this really was CNN doing a "hey look at what we can do" moment.

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So what to do with this blog...

The purpose behind this site is to showcase my photography and motion graphics work.  So what to do in regards to the blog.  At first I thought that I could use it as an outlet to rant about things I think my wife wants me to save all of that for her. 

So I will try and focus this blog on sharing interesting content in regards to photography and motion graphics.  There may be the odd post here and there but I'll try and keep it focused.

For this post I'll share some three very different but what I consider to be some great examples of creativity in regards to motion graphics.

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Better late then never...

So I finally got around to putting together a website, I guess I just wanted to wait and see if this Internets wasn't just a fad.  As you can see this is still a work in progress so mind the lack of polish.  I'll hopefull have a few photo galleries up as well as a better version of my demo reel up in a few days.