Lemonade Movie

The byline of this movie is: It's not a pink slip. It's a blank page.

I've been waiting for the full release of this movie for a long time. All the marketing done on it was through social media and the movie is made available free on YouTube and Hulu. Even the resources needed to make the film was all done through donations. As it says on their website, "this is a project by and for those who have been affected by unemployment."

It's a documentary that interviews advertising executives who were laid off from their "secure" jobs, to see what they are doing with their life now. From a moviemaker, to a painter, to a man who changed his gender, it's stories about people being put in a position where they can no longer just get by and have to do what they were meant to do.

Being that I was also laid off from an ad agency, I can confidently say looking back now that it was the best thing that happened to me. The process of being "freed" was painful and life sucking but now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm only grateful that it happened.

Be inspired. Be encouraged. And even if you are happily employed, take a minute to watch this film, because it's fundamentally about overcoming your circumstances whatever they may be.

The Third & Seventh

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Here's another video that blew me away.

In essence, photography is the method of writing (graph) with light (photo). For a photographer, the more he or she understands light and its relationship to a scene and subject, the more compelling their photographs will be. In a studio setting, one can control every aspect of the light with strobes and diffusers before they actually write, as it were. I personally never wanted to control light, instead identify quality available light and position myself to use that light for my photographs. The challenge is apparent but the result is always worth the effort.

This video is a masterpiece made strictly with available light. It's a fully CG (Computer Generated) video. That means everything you see here is not real but was created to mimic reality. And in it's fantasy, Alex Roman creates scenes and settings that have the best quality available light one can every ask for. Within this world he maneuvers a "camera" to show you the details of the structure and how the light brings the structure to life.

His goal through this piece was to illustrate architecture as art, but there's so much I've learned from this video that's directly applicable to my photography.

Insights of Angels

The Insights of Angels from mountainworkshops.org on Vimeo.

MediaStorm recently had a post titled "Things We Love: Projects Worth Watching" and this video was one that stood out to me. The clips, most likely shot with an HDSLR camera, capture this family and their story so well. As the lines between video and photos start to blur, these are the kind of pieces I aspire to make.