Photography

Coolest Coastal Halloween Costume: Jellyfish

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The reviews have been completed.

The results are in.

And we have a (slam-dunk) winner.

After scouring every obscure website and hipster blog in the webishphere, I only had to look down the street to find the coolest Halloween costume– not just this year– but possibly, ever:

Jellyfish.

Straight from the creative imagination of LeAna Kimball, wife of my good friend Jake, LeAna is this year’s Grand Prize Winner and will recieve the balance of my kids’ Halloween candy that I still haven’t been able to polish off. I think there’s even a few Snickers left!

LeAna is the author of A Small Snippet, a rockin’ Mommy blog. In the course of doing marketing research for past clients, I’ve actually visited quite a few mommy blogs and LeAna’s is one of the best I’ve seen. Whatever you’re looking for- from parenting advice, to photography tips, creative crafting, cooking and costuming– you’ll find it there. 

The last time I visited LeAna and Jake’s home, I think she was using one hand to tend to a sick child and another restoring a piece of antique furniture. I believe that if she wasn’t a full-time mom, she’d probably be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company like IDEO. I know she’d give Martha Stewart a good run for her money. And she’s a lot nicer.

Awesome job, LeAna– Congratulations!

P.S. Lest we forget, here is a beautiful video (Jellies – RED EPIC Style) by stillmotion on Vimeo shot at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago showing you the real things! So beautiful. Thank you to Tory Strange and the gang at the Surf Station in St. Augustine for the find. Their blog is always a go-to resource for interesting surf-related content of all kinds.

 

Hurricane Irene’s Beautiful Storm Clouds

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I walked over to the beach on Thursday evening, August 25th, 2011, as Hurricane Irene was edging nearer to the Florida Coast. The clouds and light were going off, so I snapped a few shots with my iPhone (check out the first perfectly curved outer bands that started to show in shot #3!) I spent the greater part of the next two days surfing my brains out, a rare 8-10 ft. Friday, 3-5 ft. Saturday. It’s Sunday now and I’m hurtin’. Supposedly, there’s another pulse coming later this week (Jose?). I appreciate Florida’s great sunsets and the tropical waves we wait for in Summer, but the searing heat of July-September here, I could do without! Overall, I wouldn’t trade living in Florida for anywhere else!

Snowmageddon

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Snowmageddon

A mesmerizing shot of the beautiful, virgin white snow that arrived in Hartsville, South Carolina on Monday, January 10th. The fresh and somewhat rare 6″ of powdery goodness was part of large storm system blanketing parts of the northeast and south.

My mother-in-law, Tracy Chapman sent this while visiting Nana up on the farm.

Good work, Tracy!

Note: Florida was the only state in the nation that did not receive snow from this storm. All 49 other states got in on the action, including Hawaii that had snow fall on Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

 

Selective Focus: Pure Joy

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Selective Focus: Pure Joy

There’s probably over 3,000 or so photography apps in the iPhone store, not all of them created equal. Focal Lab is a nice one created by Nexvio, a company that specializes in innovative photo and video applications for mobile platforms. Think of Focal Lab as a kind of a Photoshop Lite. It allows you to utilize selective focus in your shots. Unlike other soft focus / blur apps, Focal Lab allows you to create graduated blurs surrounding an in-focus area. You can select (and move) the area you want to keep in focus, while blurring everything around it. Here’s an image of my daughter Kaelyn that I created in about 15 seconds (originally shot on my iPhone). For only .99 in the iPhone Apps store, you can go from a hack to a pro with just a few slides of your thumb. Nexvio also has some pretty cool looking video apps, including 8mm effects and a time lapse video creator that works by stringing together stills on an iPhone 3G and 3GS!