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It’s Not The Gear
July 21st, 2010Lately, I’ve been hit with the photography bug. It usually happens to me once a year. It goes something like this: I get the bug, I research cameras for a week, I buy an expensive camera, I use it non-stop for a few months, the bug goes away, I sell the camera.
I’m a gear head, so when I become obsessed with something I immediately try to find all the best gear that I can get my hands on. It’s good because I get to learn and experience new things, but it’s also bad on my wallet. And when it comes to photo gear, there’s no stopping me.
Until recently.
After countless cameras, and years of searching for the perfect camera that would push my photos to the next level, I’m now a firm believer that the best camera is the camera that you have with you. Yes, a Hasselblad H4D-60 will blow any other camera away, but you don’t see many people in street with a $42,000 camera hanging from their necks.
I hated lugging around a big ass body, with a big ass lens and a hood attached to it. That was the primary reason why I would stop shooting: I didn’t want to carry around all that stuff. I used to carry around a Hasselblad 503, with a prism and metal hood. The damn thing weighted a ton — and it sure captured some amazing photos — but after a few hours of carrying it, I wanted to throw it in the garbage. I hated that feeling because it ruined the moment and eventually led me to feel unmotivated. The tool was getting in the way of my creativity.
Now I just shoot with my iPhone 4. I already carry it around, and the built-in camera is pretty damn good. When I see an interesting shot, I just pull it out and snap a photo. The joy and spontaneity of shooting is instantly back. I would love it if Apple added some advanced features to the camera app — like shutter and aperture control — and I do miss me some depth of field, but overall the phone produces some fine images.
I think I’ve achieved some good results with this little camera. I took the photo to the left with my iPhone. This guy did a fashion shoot with an iPhone 3GS. Granted, he used a great lighting system, but the images are still impressive. Check out these folks who took a great looking shot with a Canon Powershot SD630 and some basic lighting. Professional fashion photographer Terry Richardson does entire shoots with a Yashica T4 point and shoot and the photos look great.
Don’t get me wrong, it is much easier to produce a great photo with high-end camera. That’s why it’s even more impressive when a great photo is taken with a lower-end one. The talent truly shines in that case.
My point is, in any creative field, the tool isn’t important. It’s what’s behind the tool that counts. So, don’t stress about getting a Canon 1Ds Mark III or the latest version of Photoshop. Just create.
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Nooka Mercury
June 11th, 2010It’s good to be back. Hope everyone had a great week.
While I was away, lifestyle brand Nooka released this super minimal, ridiculously stylish sunglasses. The shades feature a polymer injected frame, blue lenses with silver mirror finish and are available in 6 fancy colors.
I’m a huge fan of Nooka, and with the Mercury they continue their simple approach in both aesthetic and construction. It’s a great addition to their already excellent lineup. Matt and crew are drinking the good stuff over there.
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Vacation
June 6th, 2010I’m taking a short, but much needed vacation over the next few days, so I won’t be posting anything new until the end of the week. It will be over before you know it. Ciao.
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New Site Design Coming in 2010
December 31st, 2009Howdy folks. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted much in the last week and won’t resume until next week. Just enjoying this time off with the family.
Anyway, I just briefly want to mention that I’ll be launching a revamped site in about a week or so. I’m pretty happy with it and I think you’ll like it a lot. Emil Olsson of TypeNeu is doing all the coding and he’s implemented some awesome functionality. I’ll let you all know right before I switch over to the new design because the site will have to be done for a little while.
Also, if you look in the header, on the right, you’ll notice a small ad. AisleOne is now part of the Fusion Ad Network. It’s a great network that caters to designers, developers, publishers and creative professionals. The ads are small and for the most part well-designed and unobtrusive. I’ve always struggled with displaying ads on the site, I’ve been approached by many companies in the past, but this is the first time that I feel comfortable doing it. The network is great and this is an easy way to pay for the site hosting and other site related costs. I’d love to know what you think about the new ads since your opinions matter most to me.
This version of the site won’t be up for long so I plopped the ads at the top, but in the new site design I’ve placed them in a much better space that isn’t so distracting.
Well, that’s it for now. I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I’ll be back on Monday. Peace.
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System Meltdown
May 5th, 2009Well, that sucked. Media Temple’s servers fell off the grid last night, rendering this site dead. We’re back online now, well sort off. Some pages and images are missing. Apparently the site was on an old server that’s on it’s way out and they’re now migrating the AisleOne to a new, faster and more reliable server. I hope this fixes any future problems. I really apologize for the inconvenience and hopefully the site will be in full swing tomorrow morning. Thank you for your patience.
UPDATE
So, the site is still not 100% restored but it’s very close. I’m hoping it all back up by the morning. Hang in there folks, it’s almost over. Hopefully when it’s all done the site will be faster and more stable. Really sorry for the downtime. We’ll get back to design goodness very soon. Promise!
A
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AisleOne has been Twitterfied
January 28th, 2009So I’ve finally jumped on the bandwagon and created an AisleOne Twitter page. Think of it as an extension of AisleOne. The main focus will still be design but it will extend to other areas, for instance fashion, industrial design, painting, anything that really doesn’t fit what I have going here. The AisleOne Twitter will also include some random posts on life and things of that nature. So far it’s pretty addictive. Check it out and follow me on Twitter!
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Happy Holidays From AisleOne
December 23rd, 2008I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays and I want to thank all of you for your support over the past year. It’s a real honor.
I’m going to take a much needed vacation, so for the next two weeks I won’t be posting much. I’ll probably post something here and there but I won’t be back in full swing until January 5th. I have many goodies planned for the new year. Until then, enjoy yourselves.
Antonio
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Enotmik Holiday Sale
November 26th, 2008Well folks, in terms of holidays, my favorite time of year has arrived and to celebrate I’m offering the Enotmik typeface 50% off until December 31st, 2008. That’s right, only $10 for this sexy face. You can use it to design your fancy holiday cards!
All you have to do is enter in the discount code at checkout and you’ll receive the 50% discount! The code is GRIDS. Good one huh? Enjoy!
I’m going to take a little break this week, but I will be back first thing Monday morning to satisfy your design obsession. I want to wish all the US readers a wonderful Thanksgiving! Have a great week everyone.
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Out of Commission & RSS Feed
November 7th, 2008Sorry about the lack of posts the last two days. Turns out I have a herniated disk in my neck (these computers will kill ya) which is causing severe pain down my left arm. I can’t spend much time at the computer because it just increases the pain so I’m going to stay away for the next few days. Hopefully on Monday I’ll feel much better and get back in the swing of things.
The RSS feed seems to be working again. Please let me know if you’re having any problems with it. Thanks!
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Change has Come to America
November 5th, 2008I always try to keep politics off this site, but this is a very special moment in American history. I’ve never been more proud to be an American.
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9 – 11
September 11th, 2008In remembrance of those we lost 7 years ago. Where were you when it happened?
I was sleeping. The day before I had been laid off from an ad agency I’d been working at for a few years. Big merger, you know the drill. Anyway, that night, for some odd reason I shut off my cell phone and locked the door to my room. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, was trying to call me to tell me that she was ok since she worked in Manhattan. She couldn’t get through to me. I slept while the city was in chaos. I was awoken by the sound of my cousin pounding on my door. When I opened the door she had this look of dread on her face and told me that two planes crashed into the towers and one of the them went down. She said it was an act of terrorism. I imagined the tower falling over like a tree and destroying multiple city blocks. I ran to the TV and saw what had happened. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I never imagined something like this happening in the city I was born and raised.
At that time I lived in a quite area of Queens. I remember going outside to see if there was chaos on the streets. There wasn’t. It was like any other day. It was such an erie feeling to see all that madness happening on TV, only a few miles away, and then looking out my window to see a warm, sunny, quite day.
It’s a day I will never forget for the rest of my life.
