Taking a Short Break

I will be taking a short break this week so I can prepare for a choreography project. I hope to take some photos of the experience to share here so check back next week for an update. Have a great week! Don't forget to visit www.auntspray.com to view our current specials :).

Portrait Session Give-a-way Winner!

Congrats to Jessica A. of Marion, OH!! Jessica gets a free, 30-minute mini session and one free 8x10 print! Thank you to those who participated. Check back often for more give-a-ways :)

Portrait Session Give-a-way!

From time to time I will be offering portrait session give-a-ways. They will pop up here and there, only on my blog, so be sure to check back frequently! This give-a-way will include a 30 minute mini session with 5-7 images and one free 8x10 print! The session can be at Pearson Park, the Toledo Botanical Gardens or Maumee Bay State Park and has to be used by May 31, 2010.

So....the first person to email me at photography@auntspray.com with the correct answer to the following question will win this free session. I will announce the winner on my blog. Good luck!

Question: What does DSLR stand for?

Multi-Generational Portraits (White Lake, MI Family Photographer)

A couple of weeks ago I had the huge pleasure of working with a family in White Lake, MI. They were looking to get a very special photo of four generations of their family as well as individual family photos. There were ten people in total, including two adorable kids. The weather was perfect! Overcast and nearly 55 degrees. You can't ask for much more than that for outdoor photos in November!

We were able to grab some really great images for the whole family including a very special photo of the kids with Great Grandpa reading "The Night Before Christmas". This photo was shot in a banquet room and was digitally transformed into an elaborate, old fashioned Christmas scene. I have to say it came out quite nice!!

Below are a few shots from our session together:












I hope you enjoy these sample images! Please check out http://www.auntspray.com/ to book your session with me!

Introducing Aunt Spray Photography!

Aunt Spray is excited to announce the addition of its new, on-location, custom photography service! This also makes Aunt Spray an offical "husband and wife" operation. I will be based in Toledo, OH, and will travel all over northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. I am currently booking sessions for the spring so visit www.auntspray.com for more information. I am offering a FREE 8x10 or $20 off the sitting fee for anybody who books their spring session before the end of the year!

Dropping the Banner Ads for Scientific Visuals

Though we will still produce them if commissioned to, we are no longer featuring Web Banner ads as a service. Going back to my roots, I want to focus on scientific graphics as they were a large part of my life as a developing designer over the years. We can produce everything from mundane environmental site plans to colorful 3-D digrams of of just about any scientific discipline. Just send your thoughts our way......

A bringing back Pennyfarthing design.....

This retro bicycle design of mine is one that I cannot let go of. In concept, the frame will be made of aluminum with a 26" Dia. front wheel and a 16" Dia. rear wheel. The seat height would be that of a regular adult sized bike. I have shopped it around and had some interest, but no takers as far as production. I can see children and adults alike zipping through neighborhoods on these. I would like to build a prototype simply because I believe it would be a blast to ride. I have seen some low-production bicycle makers re-create some of the 19th century bike designs that [roughly] inspired this, but my concept is a totally modern machine.

Perhaps once the recession begins to lift, this design may be more viable as people will begin blowing money on "fun" things again......?

The Next Generation of Computers

I have for about 12 years now, been designing conceptual CPUs. I (unsuccessfully) shopped around some "unsolicited" design concepts to companies back in 1998 that looked remarkably like a few PCs that they released years later...coincidence? ...anyway....I was years ahead in thinking and conception and figured that I simply scared them off at the time. Everything computer-related was beige or black dull textured plastic during the mid to late 1990s (and even further back). One of the focuses of my designs [for computers] back then was the sleek, 2001 Space Odyssey-ish, sterile glossy whites and blacks with chrome and clean lines. And that is where we are at the present and will be for some time ahead. I was dead-on with that design in my conceptual predictions.

So I've thinking about just the opposite lately, an organic design based on natural shapes, colors, textures AND functions. Harking in someways back to Art Nouveau with design cues from visionaries such as L.C. Tiffany and Atonin Gaudi. But of course keeping keeping with modern technologies and sensibilities. Anthropometrics absolutely needs to be better addressed with future design trends. Computer usage is wounding our bodies in ways that we are just now beginning to understand and who knows how much more debilitating in the future. Sitting hunched over a keyboard for hours-on-end, seven days a week is going to produce a generation of disabled Gen-Xers. Neck, back, wrist and eye problems will be the norm for physicians treating the "Internet Generation" unless we start seriously addressing these issues in design now. I am trending toward CPUs and peripherals that can be utilized in a seated reclined position where the head is supported and the hands using less finger operations.

An organic design focuses on the natural aesthetics, curves and movements found in the life all around us. Instead we choose to defy this with geometric designs that are simply not compatible with OUR design as biological beings. My conceptual design above does not reinvent anything, but it begins to address a design that looks and flows as an organism. I would like to see recycled plastics (preferably not styrene based) with mimetic qualities that would change colors and patterns based on the stimuli of different touches and thus commands. By simply touching an object differently is how biological organisms react, study and ultimately manipulate things. A computer should be no different. I have yet to conceive of a better input device than a keyboard, but that is where I would like to be with this design eventually.

The design image above is a very preliminary concept in the basic aesthetic concerns which is roughly taken from a Tiffany lamp, insects and reptile skin with a little Flash Gordon modernity. This is my early sketching, but really believe this where I want to continue with this homogeneous approach to computer technology and organic interface. More to come on this in the future...but.....what a way to spend a Saturday night......writing about computer designs; ultimate geekdom....

We're up and running! .....finally

I have been destroying my mind and body trying to get the Aunt Spray website up and running on the [new] asp.net platform for months now. Though it is going to provide a much more advanced Web 2.0 type website, the process would have been much, much simpler with a traditional HTML platform. So now with that geek talk behind me, I can actually get back to doing what it is I do; DESIGNING!

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