The album artwork is a spartan and solid display that allows the title to speak loudly. No magic, no pixel dust, no fairy tales, just plain good design.

While Cool Nutz will be marching across the nation like a rapping Napolean, his fans will be able to track his progress and follow the NW monster into every saloon, theater, and stage that will bear his tour. Monster is no understatement, Cool Nutz will be touring for 46 days straight. A new city each night will hear his roar.

We wanted to address the Jus Family Records website by updating the entire design.
The site needed to be fully functional for both the visitors and us. Starting by creating an easy-to-update News & Events system, the home page will always be fresh and accurate. Next was a refresh in the retail, Jus Family Records has a large catalog of classic and new releases. They each need to feel the shine of the spotlight, and need to be easy to review and purchase quickly. Our new approach to the album retail accomplishes both.

Check out the website, listen to the music, let us know what you think.

www.JusFamilyRecords.com

Next on the list was the album artwork for IAME’s newest release “I Am My Enemy”. Encouraging us to push the design, IAME suggested a DIGI-PACK package, which would allow us more creativity in the layout. The package was simple and sweet, no hard jewel case to fight open, no booklet to be lost under the seat, a spartan approach to music packaging.

A wandering exploration barely describes the afternoon that IAME and I spent composing photographs within Portland’s industrial city limits. Discovering locations I had never before seen,  we captured some truly candid and terrific images in between our rambling conversations.

So far, IAME had allowed us an open range of creativity, and I took it even further with the website design and function. My goal was to push a media heavy online experience, including full screen images, a substantial playlist, and large scale music videos.
HeavenNoise.com features a bulwark of media content, a sophisticated ecommerce functionality, and rugged visuals ! This website pushes through a crowd of indie artists, with elbows swinging hard.

www.HeavenNoise.com

Our first day of adventure starts early, while the sky is still black we race across the desert, fast and slow, navigating crude stones embedded in the dirt road. Frantically scouring the landscape, my eyes measure up every peak, every hillside, anticipating the light as it arrives. Quickly jumping from the car, I retrieve my lens and extend my tripod, anxious to find a prime perspective of the rising red sun. I capture a momentary glimpse of the early morning luminance as it lightly dusts the landscape.

Bishop is a classic Pioneer town, nestled in between the Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains. Nearby are thousands of boulders, big and small, fully featured and glamorous.
A rock climber’s mecca, with an Old West nostalgia.

My brother and I were able to visit the area on two excursions this year. Our time was was mostly dedicated to climbing, although discovery was just as exciting. Each and every direction we look, behold, another impressive formation of quartz monzonite.  Some of the small ones prove a joyful scramble to the top, while others can be a life threatening gamble to reach the summit at over 45 feet above the sandy desert gravel.

Humbling. We came away with more than bloody fingers and sun burned shoulders,  each of us privately recounting the pleasures of such an experience.

She said, “YES!”.

Watch the video below.

“I wonder what makes us build inefficiently-shaped human robots
instead of nice streamlined machines?”
“Pride, sir,” said the robot.
Terry Pratchett (The Dark Side of the Sun)

Agreed. While most humans quite often display a faulty and un-shapely figure, these girls are a sexy bunch. Just the opportunity to shoot two girls normally seduces a photographer, and will typically end up in the cliche girl on girl slightly porn, mostly bad photos scenario. This is the very kind of photography I loathe, the sexual nature becomes a crutch, and the quality fizzles out before our eyes.

My entire portfolio has been rendered under a classic standard of ethics, a hardline rule and constant desire to create amazing images without nudity. Sexuality without exposure can be extremely captivating. After years of sticking to the rules, I felt that I needed to break them in the best of ways, shooting nudity for the principal and not for the purpose. My objective was to present a series that could grab the viewer, and then quietly surprise them.

Sarah and Corinne were immediately receptive to my ideas, and they arrived perky and smiling. Amber dusted them with our Robot Powder, lending a sleek shimmer to the skin, a sparkling luminescence. She dolled up the girls and finished them off with scooter helmets. Robotic was complete, now time for Erotic.

The new (ep) project, “Long Story, Short…” was decidely ready for release, and Sandpeople wanted to include the verve of their loyal fanbase in the artwork. So we assembled the crowds, packed them into Berbati’s Pan cloaked in white tees and Sandpeople branded hankerchefs. Everyone was cool, and well behaved for such a number of folks. I was able to utilize the height of the stage, and capture the extent of the crowd fading into darkness behind the group.

Hear more about Sandpeople:
http://www.sandpeoplemusic.com

They were intending to bring along some props for the photoshoot, some props that deemed rather taboo. With a quick agreement of how to proceed, the two artists arrived at the studio with a bulky box and a bunch of grins. Out of the box came a fresh packed, real life pig’s head. Full size and enormous. Fleshy, pink, and seriously gross. As we all explored the best way to handle this animal head for the photographs, its flesh was beginning to come undone all over my white studio floor. Illmac & OnlyOne jumped into action and we secured some exciting photos for their artwork.

The album art was brought together by Adam, the graphical wizard for UPHEAVAL. He has a magical way of creating surreal yet believable images, and really takes my photographs to a new height with retouching.

Illmaculate and OnlyOne from UPHEAVAL on Vimeo.

For more information about Illmac & OnlyOne’s new album “Police Brutality”
check out these links:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/illmaculateonlyone
http://www.myspace.com/illmaculate
http://www.myspace.com/onlyonemusic
http://www.sandpeoplemusic.com

N8Beats came to me with a project and idea, then asked me to give it life and reason.
Days of research, trial and error, and international collaboration conceived a solution that would make more than good sense, it could be beautiful, dynamic, and rich with interaction.

The website is MakeYourHit.com, a market place for musicians seeking High Quality music production with a Royalty Free License model. The product focuses on Hip-Hop, and explores a diversity of sub-genres including Radio Ready, West Coast Bangers, Futuristic, Club Anthems, and many more.

One of the primary obstacles was to create a decent retail experience for the customer. We looked at some of the competitor’s checkout systems, completely under-whelmed, convinced that our own Check Out process could easily be the difference to sway a customer’s preferred destination.
Paypal has always won my heart as an ecommerce and payment gateway, and I am now more the loyal. This new project challenged me to dig in and know my shit.
Through the help of a genius flash developer from Ontario, I combined Flash with Paypal, and a third party application called “Digital Delivery” to deliver the function of a superior online retail experience for musicians. Fully automated, easy to use, interactive, and most importantly, totally secure.

The system also needs a dynamic range, easy to update, add new products, edit info, etc. N8Beats can manage his own products, as well as depend on the website to accept payments and deliver the products autonomously.

Screenshot displaying the Products:

Screenshot displaying the Checkout:

Take a look!
http://www.makeyourhit.com

www.Gamestaz.com

Our designated route would take us along the Oregon Coast, through winding roads and depressing communities whose survival depends on tourism and fishing. Pack a lunch. Gasping scenic vistas from the roadside divert the attention of all passersby, even those with a greater destination.

A full day’s drive, fast and slow, stop and go, our lodging leaves us just outside the doorstep to Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Rested night, waking up to an ocean view, we set off to seek council from the trusty Rangers. Joseph Smith guides our adventures from behind his post in Crescent City, highlighting our map with the most interesting and Must See locations in the park. After tall tales of tall trees, and a brief lesson in the species of Redwoods, our party heads out to take on the forest behemoths.

Massive is an understatement. These 2,000 year old forest beasts instil a fear in your heart, a serious concern, a questioning consideration of what might unfold if one of these 379ft towers were to collapse in your presence.

Please enjoy the images, I certainly enjoyed capturing them.

For more information about the Coast Redwoods and America’s Parks,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Redwood
www.nps.gov
http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=413