Whales, United Kingdom

Black Mountains, Whales, U.K.

Hiking up to the top of Black Mountains

View from the top of Black Mountains

Para Gliders off the top of Black Mountains 

On his way down

Baa.

A London Tour - Short Film

Just recently I have been in London, England on vacation with my family and my girlfriend Kaitie. During the trip I captured video for a film I was planning to create while I was in the city. A few weeks before the trip I bought one of Canon's new Rebel T3i DSLR. This is Canon's new and improved version of their recent Rebel T2i. The camera, as you'll see in the video, captures amazing 1080p high definition video in 30 fps and 60 fps. The camera is also amazing for still shot photography which I took a lot of while I was on the trip. While in London I wanted to capture the business of the city in the most artistic way possible. Editing was done in Adobe Premiere CS5, and I sped almost every scene up (up to 1200x regular speed), with the exception of a few clip that I filmed in 60 fps and I actually slowed them down (down to 30%-50% regular speed). I just posted this video on vimeo yesterday, enjoy! More video's to come this summer!

Link to "A London Tour" film

Scene from my "A London Tour" short film

Venice, Italy Mask

close-up of the mask

My family and I travel a lot. We always have, and we probably always will. Although traveling to the U.K. every year is fun, sometimes it can get a little boring, if its the same things you see every year. Especially if you've been there 20 times. One thing my parents like to do, is go to different places and explore different cultures, which is nice. In 2008, my dad had to go to Italy to meet with a company his business was going to do business with. So he brought us along. Venice was only about an hour away from where the company he was meeting with was so we took a short vacation in Venice. While in Venice, we went into the city to look at the different souvenirs we could take home. We found this little shack/store with tons of glue, material and masks in it. It was a place where this little Italian guy, not speaking hardly any english made traditional Venice masks from scratch. The name of the store we got it from was called Laboratorio Artigiano Maschere. The masks are normally just made as a form of self expression or pieces of art now, however they were famous for dances and balls in the olden days. To my knowledge they still do them every once in awhile but only on special occasions. Most masks in Venice are now pre-made, and sold as just souvenirs, which is a shame because you don't get the classic feel of it. The price difference is quite a lot though. A traditional pre-made Venice mask will cost around $60-$100, the Venice mask my parents got that was made from scratch was closer to $850. It's an incredible piece of art, and thinking that a little italian guy in a shack made this is mind blowing. 

straps to put it on

the whole mask

the designer of the mask, and where it was bought

another view of the mask

London Underground Poster

close-up of the underground map

Originally I was going to do show and tell on a pair of my dad's old Vans slip on shoes. However, i think they were thrown away in the process of moving to the house I am living in now. Although the shoes were thrown away, I think I came up with a show and tell piece that might be better yet. In our class we recently discussed The London Underground system, and how it changed design in the world. Well I saw it appropriate to ask my parents, seeing how they are british, if they had anything to do with The London Underground. Sure enough my parents had something perfect for my blog post, a London Underground Poster straight from London, England. Although the posters have changed dramatically since Harry Beck designed the original in 1931, this is actually a design very close to the vintage underground map from the 30's. This poster is a reproduction of a vintage poster, made to look old, but my parents bought it brand new while we were in England. Finding a poster like this in London isn't very hard to do, so I don't think it has, if any, value at all. While on the London Underground when I was in England last summer, I did notice that traveling on the london underground was extremely simple, much to do with how this poster is designed. I don't think you could make it any more simple. The subway systems around the world, for example in NYC have copied the design of the underground map, however I think the subway system in NYC is still not as simple as London. While doing this poster I did remember some things that I learned while riding the underground, in London they call The London Underground, "The Tube", and if you live in London and ride the tube everyday, the saying "Mind the Gap" would get extremely annoying. But that's just me.

The London Underground Map aka "The Tube"

close-up of the logo

1960's Matchbox and Hot Wheels

"1968 Smith's Karrier Van"

Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys have always been a huge influence in my childhood. My dad and I have the same interests in toys as children apparently. These are my dad's Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars from the 60's. Most of them are in pretty bad condition, so I picked the ones in the best condition to photograph for the project. They are all made in England. For those of you who don't know, my mom and dad are both british, they moved over to the U.S. 2 years before I was born. My dad had to move for business and they just never ended up moving back. So most of the things I have that are old, are things of british traditions, or things made in the U.K. The best Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars are 3 named "Smith's Karrier Van","68 VW 1500 Saloon" and the Hot Wheels "Splittin Image". Both the Splittin Image and the VW are from 1968 and the Karrier Van did not have a date on it, however I think it is from late 60's. I looked up infomation on Splittin Image and this is what I found, "Splittin Image" 1968 was one of the first 16 cars Hot Wheels released. 1968 was the first year they brought out there own cars as "Hot Wheels". So this is one of probably 100,000's of "Splittin Image" that were made in the U.K. however, this is definitely a primary part of Hot Wheels History. The other two I found on E-Bay or Amazon a couple of times and I listed the lowest to highest prices for the toys.

Smith's Karrier Van 

Ebay Pricing ($30.00 to $615.50)

$30 for a beaten up one, and $615.50 for basicly brand new

"1968 Smith's Karrier Van

1968 VW 1500 Saloon

Ebay Pricing ($8.50 to $156.00)

$8.50 for a beaten up one, and $156.00 for basicly brand new

"1968 Volkswagen 1500 Saloon Side View"

"1968 Matchbox Volkswagen 1500 Saloon"

"Underneath the VW"

Hot Wheels Splittin' Image 1968

Ebay Pricing ($5.00 to $69.00)

"One of the first out of sixteen Hot Wheels Cars Ever Produced

"Hot Wheels Splittin' Image 1968 - VW in Background"

"Underneath Splittin' Image"

Life Magazine - June 10th 1966

-April 12th, 2011

Life magazine cost $0.35 in 1966

This is a Life Magazine from Friday, June 10th, 1966. It's my parents magazine that they bought on E-Bay a couple years ago. They have it on display downstairs in our "T.V Room". The front cover of the magazine displays Elizabeth Taylor acting in the film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" When I did some research, I found out that the design of the Life Magazine's has not changed that much since the 60's. The logo is identical, and the setup of the magazine is similar. The only major difference in the design of the magazine's I could find was that obviously the photographs from the 1960's are not as crisp and clean as the photographs you would get on a 2011 issue of Life, and the type in the magazine has changed a little bit considering different marketing strategies within the last 45 years. Ad's in the magazine's have also changed drastically in the last 45 years. I enjoyed looking through the old ad's from the 1966 and comparing them to the ad's of today. For example, the Oreo Ad below has a completely different logo to the one from today. The 1966 logo is complex and hard to remember but relates to many ad's in the 1960's. Today's Oreo logo is extremely simple and is cartoony. Oreo obviously is targeting kids much more than they were in the 60's. Although the ad's and logos have changed in the last 45 years the cookie remains exactly the same. The "Plot to get Whitey" in the top right corner of the cover is a very racist article talking about the Civil Right Movement. In 1966 the civil rights movement was still going on so racist terms were still coming up in newspapers, magazine and in ad's. It was just a different time... 

Oreo AD from '66

Front Cover

Old School Fridge

Electric Shaver Ad

Luxury Car Ad from 1966

Coke Ad from 1966