Push forward!

Spotted this scrawled on an old sign next to the Hollywood Reservoir.  The colors are all natural; I just bumped up the contrast a little bit.

Tiny waterfall at La Jolla Shores

This is way down south, past the Marine Room.

Jack jumps again

Jack jumps again, this time on the rocks.

Jack jumps

Jack jumping at the La Jolla Shores on Christmas Day.

Fallen tree

A big branch fell off of a tree across the street from me.  

Sphinx sky replacement

Here's a picture of the Sphinx I found online:

 

For fun, I took out the sky and put in a starry night sky:

Wee!

It's a shame that it's so hard to get actual night shots of the Sphinx since, being a feline, that's when it's most active.

Final project for Photoshop

Alrighty, here it is.  My final project for my Photoshop 101 class.  The assignment was to find a movie poster and recreate it from scratch.  We had to change all of the words and use original pictures, but still make it look as much as possible like the original.

I chose this awesome poster for the movie Futureworld (1976). 

Here's the orginal:

 

And here's my version:

Thomas in Texas 2006

I found some old Hi8 tapes when I was home for Thanksgiving last weekend, dug out my old camcorder, and popped one in.  Here's a still I extracted by taking a macro photo of the camcorder's LCD screen that shows me in Kilgore, Texas on July 3rd, 2006.  Look at that dapper fellow!  

The picture kind of looks more like it was taken 50 years ago. 

Composite shot of Ryan Mountain Area at Joshua Tree

Stitched this together from two photos  of the "Ryan Mountain Area" at Joshua Tree National Monument.  It's a climbing area on the backside of Ryan Mountain.  My brother Patrick and I climbed a long route on the left side of the formation last Friday.  You can see two tiny little climbers on the main formation there to get a sense of scale.

Roses outside my apartment this morning

Lovely droplets on the roses outside my gate this morning.  Calls to mind the William Carlos Williams phrase "glazed with rainwater".

Burner series

My stove.

Sky replacement.  I guess I was going for a look as if someone had found a stove in the middle of a field and taken a picture of it.

Flame on.

Hey! Rainy Day in L.A. :(

Shot these leaves outside my window in the rain.  13 frames total.

Big version

Lollipop

Andre bought us all lollipops the other night.  Took a few snaps of mine with my new lens (the Kiron 80-200mm f4.5) before finishing it.

Picture of light reflected in pool

Shot this looking down into my pool.  The light is on the ceiling over in front of a different apartment. 

Some photo restoration

Found this picture on the internet and did a little restoration on it for my Photoshop class.  Wish I knew who these folks were and what their story was.

The Chesire Patrick

Created this image of my brother Patrick from a behind-the-scenes photo snapped of him at our Doritos shoot last weekend.  I was just sort of messing around and then I decided I actually really liked it.

With Ayla and Yanika at Mel's

3AM at Mel's on Hollywood.  Rocking some animated GIF's like it's 1999.

Ayla and Andre:

Big version

Yanika and Thomas:

Big version

McDonald's Ad

Took this ad:

 

And turned it into this:

PAX AM

This is just up the street from my apartment; great neon sign that I'd never noticed before.  Love the green light against the fence on the left and the yellow porch light, and I also liked how those glossy magnolia leaves in the top right of the frame are reflecting the colored light.  (I guess Pax Am is a record company run by Ryan Adams.)

Picture of Andre at Mel's Diner

Andre and I wound up at Mel's Diner after having a few beers.  Shot this picture of him looking all movie-star-like across the table. 

Painting of street scene

This is the first thing I painted in Photoshop that wasn't an imitation of something else.  I created the brush myself out of a picture of the grain the sidewalk that I took.

Carried away with healing tool

This is me getting carried away with the healing tool in Photoshop.  Heavens; what have I done? 

Granville Redmond painting

This is a painting I made for my color theory class in Photoshop.  We had to paint something in imitation of a painting by a California Impressionist of our choice.  I choose this painting by Granville Redmond:

http://lawrencebeebe.com/images/600_Redmond_New_Photos_7.jpg

And mine looks like this.  It's not perfect, but I'd never really painted anything before, so I was pretty pleased with it.

Retouching project for school

This is a retouching exercise I did for my Photoshop class.  Removed blemishes, smoothed wrinkles, erased stray hairs, fixed an aberration in the background, got rid of rainbow-y aliasing on leather jacket, put necklace under jacket, and got rid of that gold thing at the bottom of the frame.  

It's interesting to note that eliminating the woman's wrinkles certainly makes her look a little younger, but she's lost a certain amount of warmth and friendliness.  The smile is still there, but it seems little more formal.  Interesting.

The Great Space Face Race

A short video I made out of some stills of my face.

Control Freak

I'd been working in Photoshop, and then switched to Pro Tools, and all of a sudden realized I had five different controller attached to the computer: a Wacom tablet, a keyboard, a MIDI controller, and two mice.  Ha!  Now I need some sort of foot pedals...

Kitty

A picture of one of our cats in San Diego, taken a few months ago.  Applied some simple color correction.  Good old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio.  I like all the yellows and greens.

He's so content it makes me happy.  :)

New lens

Just got my awesome new lens in the mail.  It's Kiron 80mm-200mm f/4.5 macro 1:4 with an FD mount.  It's probably a good 20 - 25 years old, but it's in great shape.  Fantastic weight, clean glass, everything slides smoothly.

Here's a picture of my rock climbing shoe zoomed all the way to 200mm and at the minimum focal distance.  Ooohhh:

Iron Mountain Film and Sound Archive on Highland

Here's what it looked like before color grading:

Coloring B&W Photo

Another Lichtenstein style picture

Lichtenstein-style picture for Photoshop class

First post

My name is Thomas, and sometimes I do things.

I draw things.  I write little songs.  I take pictures of things.  I make short films. 

The idea with this blog is to have one place where I can put all those things.  Be forewarned that I'm not  an expert or anything.  Though I make the aforementioned things from time to time I wouldn't really call myself an artist, or a musician, or a photographer, or a film maker. 

I'm just a fellow who likes making things, and if they're the type of things that will fit in digital space, this blog is where they'll go.