Music

Went down to the Meadowlark a few nights ago to see some old friends play music..
Grant Olsen of Arthur & Yu, and Sam McNitt of Rowboat / Blue Million Miles.



oh, and Happy New Year!

Fun

New ringflash, new ink. ABR800 (ringflash) at 1/2 power. 285HV in frame at 1/16. 285HV full power a camera left (to create shadow). iso100, 1/160 @ f/22.

Something else worth mentioning - the Lightsource podcast has an interesting interview with Phil Bradon, from Sekonic & PocketWizard. Definitely worth checking out if you'd like to know more about light meters and remote flash/camera triggering.

Agent Orange

Last month, I went down to Denver's Larimer Lounge to check out an old favorite, Agent Orange. Here's a quick video with all my shots from the show. Enjoy!

Window Light

One thing that makes me quite happy about the new place, is a row of south facing windows, providing some beautiful, natural light. It's gotten me shooting, well, breakfast, among other things..

Mac|Life

2 stock finds in a week..

Phil Harnsberger bodyboarding in Mexico, on the cover of Maclife! It's the shot in the middle, next to the lolcat.

The Onion

Always fun to see my stock images in print, but this one from the Onion was especially entertaining, as I'd used a friend as the model. No, his real name's not Frank, and yes, he's still alive.

New Place

After a great Thanksgiving, I moved across town to a new place. Loft-style, with plenty of room to shoot and one amazing view..

Mock Stars

Last weekend was the release party for John Wenzel's Mock Stars, a book about indie rock and comedy. You can check out an interview with John at Donnybrook. The party, held at Denver's Larimer Lounge, was a lot of fun, with comedians Jim Hickox, Ben Kronberg, Adam Cayton-Holland, Greg Baumhauer and Ben Roy, as well as indie rock bands We Are! We Are!, Rabbit is a Sphere, and Everything Absent or Distorted. For some stange reason, I decide to shoot photos of the event..

50D

Recently picked up a Canon 50D, and have run a few test shoots.. a party and two portrait sessions. So far I'm happy with the new camera, despite running into an initial issue with chromatic aberration (purple fringing). Some of the shots are in the flickr feed, and I've already managed to get most of Andria's session up on iStock.

On another fun note - one of the reasons I picked up this camera was the high fps, great for sports. Today was the first snowfall in Denver, and I'm excited to get up to the slopes, both to ride and shoot!

Go Vote!

It's important.

Obama Rally

Went down to check out Obama's speech at a rally in Denver's Civic Center Park on sunday. The city was expecting maybe 30 thousand, but roughly 100 thousand showed up. 

It was a pretty amazing sight; here's a view from Broadway back toward the capital.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

So International Talk Like a Pirate Day was this past friday, Sept 19th. The Donnybrook Writing Academy hosted a little TLAP party, running along with a local CD release show.

Laurie Scavo and Nina Barry were on hand taking photos. Check it out..

Oil on the Beach

The Surfrider Foundation's started a new blog about the renewed effort to allow offshore drilling in the US. As an avid surfer and ocean lover, I'd like to share it with you:

Oil on the Beach

DPUMS

Spent a few days at the Denver Post Underground Music Showcase, listening to tons of bands at a bunch of venues along Denver's lower Broadway. Even shot a few photos.. check out the flickr stream. Of course, there were a ton of other photographers there, all being far more prolific than I ever am at these events.

Donnybrook

So I've started this temporary gig - moonlighting as a photo editor for The Donnybrook Writing Academy. It's a fun, sophisticated, tongue-in-cheek blog covering music and society here in the Denver area. Personally I think they're ready to go national.

Inspecting, processing, shooting (occasionally), and now editing - let's see how long I can keep up this pace.

Denver Post

It's always nice to see your images in print, especially as a stock photographer. This morning I opened the paper to check out a friend's shots - she'd had quite a few images featured with a story. Funny that I should run across one of my own; comedian Ben Kronberg is in town and the Denver Post ran a story on him.

Life as an Image Inspector

Fellow iStock Inspector Rasmus Rasmussen has written up a nice little piece on what we do, touching on things like compression, chromatic aberration, fishheads and the need for a properly calibrated monitor. Check it out here.

Update

Some of the Utah RR2 images are in my flickr feed.. a few of the istock inspectors got together for an evening shoot. Good times indeed.

I've also added a few images to the published work section of this site.

Strobist

Alright David Hobby, I'm impressed:

Summertime

Yes, indeed, summer's here. This past weekend, the Donnybrook Writing Academy hosted their Benefit for Rich People Soiree/BBQ. It was a fun, music filled, all day affair, and while I didn't shoot, plenty of other photographers did. Have a look, if you're into that sort of thing.

New Place

Just getting settled into a new apartment here in Denver. Updated info on the contact page.

Chicago Shoot

Just got back from a quick trip to Chicago, where I did a small shoot for Moniker Creative and Corporate Graphics of America.

The Plan

Well, it's been a crazy couple of months..
Recently I've been on an extended vacation in San Diego, visiting friends and family, working, surfing, and thinking about my next move. I've decided though, that staying in Denver is the right choice - it makes sense for so many reasons, part of that being my work.

For the last year, I've been concentrating on stock photography, which is great, but it's time to start searching out more commercial work. While not the center of the advertising world, Colorado's full of beautiful places, and Denver itself is such a central location - easy to hop on over to the midwest or either coast at a moment's notice.

Good friends, beautiful weather, and a great art & music community make it all that more appealing.

In the upcoming months, I plan to continue this blog, posting on various photo shoots and travel plans, as well as any fun or interesting items I come across.. the archived items you'll find below are from my iStockphoto blog. I'll also be revamping my website a bit, adding full shoot series and some direct links for purchasing imagery. I'll continue to shoot stock, while researching the best way to market myself to advertising and commercial buyers across the country.

In the meantime I'm off to Chicago for a week. A bit of last minute work and fun before settling into a new mile high home.

Archived : Bloody Good Fun

March 17, 2008 : Vixen Shoot. Makeup by Diana Lareé

Archived : Business Shots

March 8, 2008 : More business shots for the portfolio.

Archived : Costa Rica

Feb 16, 2008 : Just got back from a short trip to Costa Rica.
Definitely surfed a lot more than I shot.

Coming Soon

New blog coming soon.

While you're here, check out my portfolio at ianmcdonnell.com.