Photo: free throw
January 17, 2011
Filed under:
Photo of the Moment, Photography
Photo of the Moment, Photography
no comments
Photo: Women’s Basketball
January 17, 2011
Filed under:
Photo of the Moment, Photography
Photo of the Moment, Photography
2010 – Year in Review
January 17, 2011
Filed under:
Clients, Creative Improv, Inspiration, My Life
Clients, Creative Improv, Inspiration, My Life
- Created and launched 18 websites
- Created 3 logos
- Created and coded 4 HTML emails
- Created 5 motion graphic pieces (animated banners and otherwise)
- Connected with 10 Creative Improv clients to complete design projects of all sorts
- Grew Creative Improv by over 30%
- Learned guitar well enough to play with a singer – see YouTube.com/rebakville
- Learned a lot about photography and became a contributor to iStock, Shutterstock, and many other stock websites.
- Most importantly, I met the woman I will spend the rest of my life with, and proposed to her – see StephenLovesRebecca.com
Photo: Colorful Smoke
January 8, 2011
Filed under:
iStockPhoto, Photo of the Moment, Photography
iStockPhoto, Photo of the Moment, Photography
An experimentation with smoke photography. Colors added in post production. To see more of my smoke photos and license them for your own use check more of them out at iStock.
Photo: ‘Your true self overshadows’
January 8, 2011
Filed under:
Photo of the Moment, Photography
Photo of the Moment, Photography
Something struck me about this photo – mainly because of the ominous shadow cast on the wall. Take whatever meaning you would like from the ominous shadow.
What story does this photo tell you? One that comes to mind could be that this photo saying “you can’t cover up your true self – it’s always there, even if it’s in the shadows” (of course this meaning is not specific to the people in the photo, but of the photo as art). Does anyone see something different in the shadow than what is happening in real life? thoughts?
Your turn – as an art critic – what, if any, meaning does this photo have to you?
Photos: Governor Jay Nixon
January 5, 2011
Filed under:
Photo of the Moment, Photography, Politics
Photo of the Moment, Photography, Politics
Chatting with outgoing Representative, Rebecca McClanahan
Mid-wink – “good job, boss”
“On the one hand, we have…”
Say ‘ahhh’
Chatting with incoming Representative, Zachary Wyatt
An expression of love and creativity
January 5, 2011
Filed under:
Design Concept/Ideas, Drawing, Illustration, My Life
Design Concept/Ideas, Drawing, Illustration, My Life
For a while now, I’ve wanted to experiment with watercolor and Photoshop work combined into one. So, I broke out the watercolors from my college illustration course and went crazy. This is a gift I gave to my fiancée, Rebecca for Christmas.
The process was to paint a nice background on 9×12 paper with watercolor, scan that into Photoshop. Then I went to work on cutting us out of an engagment photo and placing it over the watercolor – adding various overlay effects to it. The text was added last and is made of the date we met and lyrics to a song we both love and will probably dance to at our wedding.
A few zoomed in sections are below:
overlay effect added to our photo after I utilized the pen tool to cut us out of the original photograph
David Carson style type design
November 7, 2010
Filed under:
Bad design by design, Design Concept/Ideas, Graphic Design, Print Design, Typography
Bad design by design, Design Concept/Ideas, Graphic Design, Print Design, Typography
A few years ago I had a course where we were encouraged to push the limit of what graphic design is and break the rules of design and typography to create something fresh… as fresh as sweet, sweet mountain dew. Here are a few pieces from that time period (which also draw much inspiration from designer, David Carson). I call this my ‘make the professor happy’ era of my design work. 
StephenEmlund.com through the years
November 7, 2010
Filed under:
Branding, Design Concept/Ideas, My Life, Redesign, The Design Process, Website Design
Branding, Design Concept/Ideas, My Life, Redesign, The Design Process, Website Design
It’s been almost 6 years since I originally launched StephenEmlund.com. This October, I redesigned my website for the first time ever. I have been surprised how well my website has held up to all the design trends in the last 6 years. Of course, it’s because I made the website very minimalistic. Although orange was so 2005.
In 2005, orange was sooo in! I featured printmaking on my site back in the day. Just for fun, I've uploaded the whole website as it was in 2005. Click the screenshot above to view it live!
This was 2008 ↓
in 2008, I tweaked the color from orange to teal and added a sweet autograph! I also implemented the new 'border-radius' that only worked in certain browsers. This website was used for my senior portfolio in Visual Communication.
This is today ↓
Launched October 2010. Kept the same teal, but added live feed from blog and a sweet jQuery slider.
Dynamic portfolio page - the left navigation dynamically loads all the projects that relate. Click the screenshot above to see the portfolio page.
Still life photo – before and after
October 31, 2010
Filed under:
Photo of the Moment, Photography, The Design Process
Photo of the Moment, Photography, The Design Process
So, I’m pretty new to still life photography and photography in general – but I’ve found some techniques/processes that seem to work for me – allowing me to create a technically sound image that is sharp and in focus at 100%
I was especially excited with the recent photos of these fake grapes. I basically hung them from a wire in my white/lightbox. I have 4 shop lights at 200 watts each shining on the grapes – as seen in the reflections on each grape in my before image.
Once I got the image on the computer, I added a bit of vignette and then dropped it into Photoshop from some levels work. I raised the levels a bit on a few different layers and touched them up to reduce the harsh reflections.
The image is available at Shutterstock!
