My new Ford Edge

With winter around the corner I wanted a more reliable vehicle in the snow. After looking at the Jeep Liberty, Dodge Nitro and Ford Edge I decided to go with the Edge. My Mustang (which I still have) has been a great car with not a single problem so I was already leaning towards a Ford anyway. The Edge has 18" rims, Vista roof, leather, killer sound system and the interior is a lot nicer then the competitors. I went with the charcoal metallic color which really sets off the rims.






I drove around all day and ended up in Athens Ohio at the old Asylum, part of the Ridges.

Honda photoshoot & The Mudflats

Today was a busy day. I finally got to do the photo shoot for Honda. I got to shoot the new '08 Accord which will be used in some promotional publications for the car. I'm not sure if I'm aloud to post pics of the cars so I'll have to keep ya in suspense.


After the car shoot I decided to drive around and do some photography. I found a bunch of cool places to photograph including the Mudflats boardwalk. The Mudflats are part of the Hoover reservoir nature preserve which takes you out to some amazing views. It was so quiet and relaxing and I was the only one out there (probably because not too many people know about it). I did another tiny planet while I was out there. I have some touching up on it to do then I'll post, so far it's my fav.

More Planets

Sorry for neglecting the blog for the past week. I've been working on creating more of the tiny planets and it's taking me forever to do all the corrections. I'm going to do a series of 6 planets and try to get a gallery showing. I spend way too much time playing around with my images not to be making a profit. Please let me know what you think so far.



[ new way ]

[ old way ]

New coffee table

Things have been super crazy around here lately. I went home to see the parents this weekend and I'm trying to play catch up with all the stuff that needed to be done around here.While I was home, my mother and I went to IKEA where I bought a very cool little coffee table that I was in desperate need of. I'm not that much of an IKEA fan as most of their stuff looks good far away but up close you see why the price was too good to be true, however the table is decent. I'm in designer mode and I'm flipping through catalogs seeing how I can redo my kitchen. I think I might paint some walls this weekend after I do a photo shoot for Honda.

Correct tiny planets (updated)

Here are my first two attempts at a "correct" tiny planet so please don't judge too hard. I'm still trying to figure out the program so that's why everything doesn't line up. Notice how these ones actually give you the feeling that your suspended looking down over the planet verses my previous ones where there was a vanishing point in the center giving the viewer a feeling of being sucked into the middle. Which to you prefer, I would love to here your thoughts.

[ merged of 151 images ]


[ merged of 91 images ]


[ The new Jeep ad featuring a tiny planet ]

I'm loving this type of photography so I'm sure you're going to see lots more of these from me.

UPDATE:
Check out my computer room I just finished...[view full screen]

busy boy

I've been spending all of my free time getting images ready to print. I have so much photography it's time I try to get my work in a gallery and get my name out there. I'm focusing on doing a series of the "tiny planets." After doing some research, I found out that the ones I created were done incorrectly. There's another method to creating them that makes them look way better then what I've been doing, the only problem is photoshop wont do it, so I have to learn a few other programs that will do the correct merges.
Take a look at Gadl's flicker images. Notice how it looks like you're actually looking down on the planet and there is no vanishing point in the center like the ones I've been creating.

This is a equirectangular panorama that I'm trying to figure out how to create, photoshop won't do it.


The final image is called a stereographic projection converted from an equirectangular one. This process is a LOT more involved then the way I was doing it.

My past tiny planets were compiled of around 25 images, the correct way is to merge around 70-80 so I have some work to do.