Palms from the top!

January 4th, 2011. Shot 4 of Pjj365 project. View of the top of our palm plant.
Iphone 3Gs with Hipstamatic, then converted to black and white.
Light created with LED keychain flashlight.

Lensbabies make household items fun!

January 3rd, 2011. Shot 3 of PJJ365 Project. This hand-made bowl was a gift from a local artisan. Glass bottle is just an ordinary bottle.
Lensbaby 3G Aperture Priority (Unknown aperture) 10s ISO 50. Light came from a single table lamp with shade camera left and minor ambient light.

Marnie (my fiancée) once hosted an artist in her apartment for Open Studio at Hartford Art Space. His name was Frank White, and he made the most amazing pieces out of wood. Each piece, even a simple bowl, was a unique sculpture. He was kind enough to give this piece to us before he left.

Day 2 is a photo of this one-of-a-kind sculpture

January 2nd, 2011. Shot 2 of PJJ365 Project. This hand-made betta piece was crafted for my fiancee and me for Christmas by my (soon-to-be) father-in-law’s karate student. It proved to be a very fun subject to play with.
Sigma 50mm Macro 30s @ f13 ISO 50. Softbox camera left, grid camera right and slightly behind subject. Lit with modeling lamps only.

My fiancée's engagement ring is also the subject to start off my PJJ 365 project!

This is the ring. It is also photo number 1 of 365 for my PJJ 365 project! Only 364 more!

Image Info:

5s @ f16 ISO 50
Sigma 50 mm Macro
Canon 5D

Image shot 1:1 macro then cropped slightly. Lit with softbox from above, parabolic with honeycomb from camera right (directly next to lens), and small white reflector camera left.

Stay Tuned!

If you haven’t visited PhotoJoJo.com before, I’m going to do you a favor. Check out this link: PhotoJoJo Newsletter.

PhotoJoJo is a community of photographers and graphic artists. It is a forum. It is a newsletter. It is a store. It is fun. Just follow the link and find out for yourself!

I’ve only been a member for a couple months now, but I’ve already become an avid forum lurker, newsletter reader, and customer. One of the coolest things I’ve encountered is a gathering of members who belong to the flickr group PJJ 365. Now, there are many of these project 365 groups on flickr, but I decided to stick with the PhotoJoJo folks because they are just so darned cool!

The idea is simple: one photo every day for 365 days. Some people do a theme (i.e. self-portraits, blue things, blurs) and some, like myself, think that just taking a photo of something (ANYTHING!) every day is challenging enough.

So, come check me out on flickr! And, if you end up in the PhotoJoJo forums, look for me! My SN is Mamamiya.

Yes, call that a plug if you’d like, but for Cafémantic it is well-deserved. Owner Andee Gütt has been involved in the Willimantic art and culture scene for quite a while now. He was able to see potential in a town that others (admittedly myself included) could not. The result: a café worth traveling thirty minutes for a coffee, lunch, or live music. Yeah, sure, Starbucks is great and all. But, for a really good cup of joe, give this place a shot. If you are a student at nearby ECSU or UCONN, you’d be  a fool not to check it out.

The topic of discussion, though, is a marketing/art collaboration I participated in for the benefit of Cafémantic. Andee’s plan is to add beauty to his little chunk of Willimantic and hope it spreads through this “underachieving yet full-of-potential” town (that’s my quote, not his). It makes sense, then, that Andee’s current marketing campaign utilizes this mission as a way of communicating his product to potential customers.

As a way of making a huge visual statement, Andee commissioned me to create four large posters to display in the front windows. These posters would put Andee’s baristas center-stage, making them sort-of local celebrities from their larger-than life depictions.

My instructions were to take portraits of these baristas in an “element” theme which would promote various food or beverage items. I went a step further and created a character for each barista to play, further enhancing the element theme.

Vishnu is meant to represent earth in this scenario. A four-armed barista pours a latté in a representation of coffee, the lifeblood of any true café.

A Devil is shown to represent the element of fire. In the image, a gluttonous devil devours a croissant to promote Cafémantic’s delicious pastries.

Frozen drinks and water (in its frozen form, obviously) is anthropomorphic in the depiction of an Ice Goddess adorned with icicle fingers and a frosty complexion.

Finally, we have air. This is a representation of tea which is gracefully blown from the hands of an Angel.

You can check out these 3-foot by 4-foot posters on display now. You can even take them home in the form of  a little promo card that lets you earn free coffee and treats!

I had a LOT of fun with this project, and we already have started planning on our next window display project. I hope anyone nearby will check it out and help support this awesome, local, individually-run café so that Andee can continue to make Willimantic a tolerable place.

For more info on Cafémantic, check out these links:

http://www.cafemantic.com

http://www.facebook.com/Cafemantic