When I hear so Mike, are you ever going to blog again, in my buddy Bill’s upper Michigan accent, then I know I’ve been neglecting my duties at the International Outpost for Consistent and Sustainable Blog Entry. Or there could have been the subtle cue, when on my Facebook page, I recently got this message from a ‘friend’* regarding my lack of posts. It went something like this:
‘Hey Man, what with not posting to your blog in over a month and a half. . . I beseech you. . . Kindly, ‘Friend.”
On the serious tip, I’ve been quite busy, and that’s a very good thing. But it sure doesn’t mean that the Office of Michael Clinard, General Photography Train hasn’t left the station. In fact, it’s well on it’s way to making it’s final stop. If it were a ship: coming to port. A loaf of bread: baked. Humans: evolved. . .
So what’s new: I’ve been flexing the creative membrane. In fact just this week, I jumped into the studio with Amanda Johnson to hammer out some ideas: One concept is still being finessed, but I finally did get around to shooting that glass of water that’s been sitting around for a couple of months.
Outside of this, there’s the website which is ever-so close to completion that I can hardly wait. Of course, I still need to get a host of images sized/res’ed to spec and up on the servers. In fact, was up until 5am pulling images in anticipation, but I thought I’d give you a taste of the home page, oh loyal readership.
Here’s a look at an individual image as seen through one of the galleries, in this case: Portraiture.
There are other exciting features that will soon be live. When the site launches, I’ll be sure to make a note of it here on ye olde blog. Then, when you catch a moment, you’ll have to visit, give it a looksy and tell me what you think.
In other news, I’ve created my first new video piece in over four years. What with all the updates today–and as a thank you to my readership–I cut this together in celebration of the Brand Identity and to mark what feels like coming out of a near four year hibernation.
It’s being reported that some of my images are featured on the Behance Network!
I got an email a couple hours back saying that the editorial team selected my project from the several hundred that folks post everyday. Pretty neat being that a couple days ago I decided to pull some images together that I’ve shot over the last year or so in anticipation for the new site that’s being developed. Figured I’d give folks a preview of some of the visuals to expect, and here it goes getting some neat attention!
I suspect that project will drop from the front pages after a week or so, but in the meantime, feel free to visit the gallery and let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy looking at them as I had a great time creating them. Big shout of thanks to all the nice folks that sat for me!
It’s been a busy month for me: the website look is finally being hashed out and collateral material printing for the Office of Michael Clinard, General Photography is gearing up.
Outside of the recent happenings, I found some time to steal away and edit through the 1600 or so photos from the recent trip to Ecuador. I’ve gone ahead and put them up on Picasa here.
When you arrive, I encourage you to click the slideshow option to see them larger; from there, you can pause it to click through at your own pace or turn off the captions if you’d prefer.
Above is an image shot inside the monument La Virgin del Panecillo which overlooks Quito–Ecuador’s capital. It’s a large monument of the Virgin Mary constructed of large steel plates, each one welded and screwed together as seen above.
When I finally stopped to appreciate it’s inner construction, I found myself standing in front of plate 79. Specifically important to me given that it was the year of my birth: 1979.
For the next few weeks, the website will be offline. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to update the blog with images from the Ecuador sojourn along with a host of exciting new projects I’ve been undertaking.
If you need to get ahold of me, don’t hesitate to do so.
Had a little screen printing party at the studio over the weekend.
Jenna, aka ‘The Boss’ (pictured above), made it happen. She engineered a low-cost, very effective way of making prints from a short list of supplies found at any Value Village, Goodwill or retail store. The list goes a little something like this:
1) Obtain a few frames from said store. These can be picture frames or those wooden frames that pre-stretched canvas comes on. You know, the canvases that you used to paint your high school masterpieces on. . . exactly, the ones that now reside at above-noted Goodwill store.
2) Find some very sheer curtain tulle that someone has discarded. Probably on the back wall, wedged between the quilts with the stains on them and the Saved by the Bell sweatshirts.
3) Rolls of Contact Paper. It’s probably the case the ones you find at Value Village are still tacky enough to affix to your tulle, but if concerned, feel free to go out and pick up a new roll.
Basically, you staple your tulle very taut to your frame as if making a drum. Affix your contact paper with design cut out and you’re good to go. I found a couple nice tutorials on the process here and here that pretty much break things down.
Above is my contribution. It’s the new brand identity I’ve been bringing into existence with the aid of a fantastic designer in NYC named Tim Lahan. I’m super excited to start the process of spreading the word and getting it out on market.
That said, keep your eyes peeled for exciting new updates from the Office of Michael Clinard: General Photography.
At least, that’s what I hear when I walk into Steve’s home (besides the talking parrots that greet you upon entry).
It really is alive in a sense as Steve continues to amass an evermore increasingly interesting collection of oddities, rarities, preserved wildlife, dead/stuffed things, etc.
We’ve been talking for some time now about doing a portrait. Knowing Steve could appreciate my level of humor, I think we managed to pull something off that honors both the caretaker and his creation.
I can’t say enough about how good it is to be back in studio. I’ve greatly missed the art of studio practice, having been on about a five year hiatus since my post-bacc days at the University of Iowa. I affectionately refer to this time away as Hibernation.
It’s about to get more interesting’er up in here
When I hear so Mike, are you ever going to blog again, in my buddy Bill’s upper Michigan accent, then I know I’ve been neglecting my duties at the International Outpost for Consistent and Sustainable Blog Entry. Or there could have been the subtle cue, when on my Facebook page, I recently got this message from a ‘friend’* regarding my lack of posts. It went something like this:
‘Hey Man, what with not posting to your blog in over a month and a half. . . I beseech you. . . Kindly, ‘Friend.”
On the serious tip, I’ve been quite busy, and that’s a very good thing. But it sure doesn’t mean that the Office of Michael Clinard, General Photography Train hasn’t left the station. In fact, it’s well on it’s way to making it’s final stop. If it were a ship: coming to port. A loaf of bread: baked. Humans: evolved. . .
So what’s new: I’ve been flexing the creative membrane. In fact just this week, I jumped into the studio with Amanda Johnson to hammer out some ideas: One concept is still being finessed, but I finally did get around to shooting that glass of water that’s been sitting around for a couple of months.
Outside of this, there’s the website which is ever-so close to completion that I can hardly wait. Of course, I still need to get a host of images sized/res’ed to spec and up on the servers. In fact, was up until 5am pulling images in anticipation, but I thought I’d give you a taste of the home page, oh loyal readership.
Here’s a look at an individual image as seen through one of the galleries, in this case: Portraiture.
There are other exciting features that will soon be live. When the site launches, I’ll be sure to make a note of it here on ye olde blog. Then, when you catch a moment, you’ll have to visit, give it a looksy and tell me what you think.
In other news, I’ve created my first new video piece in over four years. What with all the updates today–and as a thank you to my readership–I cut this together in celebration of the Brand Identity and to mark what feels like coming out of a near four year hibernation.
Interesting’er from Michael Clinard on Vimeo.
I could tell you what’s going on here, but it’d ruin the ambiguity.
Feeling very cicada-like,
Mike
*that ‘friend,’ I’m speaking of is one, Lucien Knuteson. You’ll have to go and check out his new blog when you’ve had all you can handle here.