CreativeJUUS

Creative Mondays 9 – Content Aware

// January 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Creative Mondays, Graphic Design, Photo Manipulation, Photoshop

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week’s creation ties in with another project I used for #7 of this series. This is officially my second entry into the Photoshop contest that’s currently running on PhotoshopCafe. This time the fake film is all about a robot designed to help and protect humanity. Something (as per usual) goes wrong and the robot turns on the people and begins a destructive rampage wreaking havoc on anything in his path.

Initially the idea was to create a film based on a robot that becomes the first to be accepted alongside humans. I had created the entire robot but purely by accident added the head onto this image and it struck me with more impact. I may decide to go back and attempt the original concept.

So here’s hoping this entry does well. I had a lot of fun experimenting with various textures and images. To pull it all together into one design was great!

Creative Mondays 6 – Let Your Creativity…

// January 2nd, 2012 // No Comments » // Creative Mondays, Inspiration, Photography, Photoshop

Photo by: Toomas Järvet http://www.stuudio.net/toomas

Photo by: Gary Cowles http://www.garycowles.com

Photo by: screwcity http://www.sxc.hu/profile/screwcity

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week was all about down-time. I have had about ten days off and as much as I tried I wanted to stay away from to many hours in front of the computer. That didn’t work, so I created something that I’d like to use to inspire others (and myself) to be more creative this year! I used the stock photo site http://www.sxc.hu/to gather some images and a pretty sweet ‘swirls’ brush that was designed by Mel Rodicq.

Happy first Monday in 2012!

Macro photography with a reversing ring.

// May 19th, 2011 // No Comments » // Inspiration, Photography

Although designing is my passion, I like to try my hand at a few other creative hobbies. Photography has always been an interest of mine and over the past few years I’ve started to become more and more interested in capturing ideas or what I see through a lens. I’d say that my photography tends to capture my ‘graphic design’ eye in terms of composition and what subjects I usually choose to shoot but recently I’ve been getting into macro photography and a whole new world just opens right up!

Currently I’m using a Canon 400D with a standard 18-55m lens. With the standard macro setting you can get fairly close but not on a 1:1 ratio and unfortunately at this time I can’t afford a decent macro lens but with the use of a reversing ring I can get incredibly close for just a small price!

What is a reversing ring you might ask? Well I found this little piece of info on Wikipedia:

Reversing the lens using a “reversing ring”. This special adapter attaches to the filter thread on the front of a lens and makes it possible to attach the lens in reverse. Excellent quality results up to 4x lifesize magnification using fairly cheap, “standard” (not specially designed for macro) lenses can be produced. For cameras with all-electronic communications between the lens and the camera body, such as Canon EOS, reversing rings are available which allow all camera functions, including open aperture metering, to be used.

There’s also plenty of resources online about taking macro photography and for me the best way to discuss my photography is on Flickr. There are hundreds of macro photo groups where anyone can post their photos, discuss and even enter monthly competitions. The key is to keep taking photos, you’ll soon find what works and what doesn’t.

So it’s as easy as that! For anyone like myself who is just starting out with photography and wants to practice macro shots but cannot afford it, it’s such a simple solution. You can easily buy one online at Amazon. Just make sure that the reversing ring matches the size of your lens!

To see more of my macro work check me out on Flickr

Flickr Groups: Thing A Week

// February 8th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Inspiration, Photography

When I first started this site almost a year ago the platform I’d use primarily to show off my work (and others) was DeviantArt. There’s a huge community and a fantastically diverse gallery displaying thousands of works of art from users around the world. Unfortunately I’ve never really felt apart of that collective group of artists and I suppose you could say that for me, DeviantArt felt ‘too big’.

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