Portfolios Published with Blurb

I just finished publishing volume 1 of my advertising and portrait photography work using Blurb.  Ever since my son accidentally broke my main external hard drive (containing my original RAWs), I have been trying to puzzle back together a record of my older work.

After coming back to Manila, I was able to find some old CD ROMs, prints and miscellaneous copies of my old photographs, which I have somehow assembled to create these two portfolio books.  I am still working on my Editorial Portfolio (Volume 1), since I still need to gather actual copies of the Magazines and Newspapers I worked on.

Advertising Photography Portfolio Vol. 1 by atom magadia

Portrait Photography Portfolio Volume 1 by Atom Magadia

When I started shooting professionally, I did not pay too much attention to achiving -- relying on one harddrive and CDs to record my RAW.  I lost my harddrive and I could not find my original CDs... I learned my lesson the hard way, I now use three harddrives and DVDs to file my originals.

*These books are meant for private use and should not be purchased without the consent of the author.

--Widget courtesy of Blurb.com

Happy Blog Anniversary

HAPPY BLOG ANNIVERSARY TO ALL!

It has been exactly one year since I started this blog.  After 90 entries (not all of them interesting to many), I am still having a lot of fun blogging about my life-long passions of Photography, Cinema and the Visual Arts.  I am quite certain, because I am now blogging just after suffering through 15 hours of  heat in a citywide blackout (the whole of Metro-Manila was out of electricity for 15 hours after last night's typhoon onslaught).

I have found blogging essential to my art, not only because it brings wider attention to my work, but it also keeps me abreast with the latest developments in the fields of photography and cinema as well as in contact with like minded individuals and fellow practitioners.

Although I love cameras (gadgets) and I do collect them, I have always underscored the primary importance of creativity and technique above technology.  I am as techie as they come, but I try my best to impart some "poetry" to my work.  I want to share a video I saw yesterday that emphasizes this point:



If you look throughout this blog, you will discover that I use both film and digital equipment, as well as the IPhone for my work.  Each camera offers me a different palette to work on.  In photography, lighting is number one -- as this video has demonstrated.  But Halogen worklights, a flashlight or even a candle can suffice, if you just take the time to master technique.

--Video from YouTube.com by FStoppers.  Visit http://www.fstoppers.com/ .

Harvey Pikar Dead at 70

Comicbook author Harvey Pekar, died yesterday morning in his Cleveland home.  The actual cause of death is still currently unclear, but it was known that Harvey suffered from high blood pressure, asthma, depression and prostate cancer.

According to his third wife, writer Joyce Brabner,  he went to bed around 4:30 pm Sunday in high spirits.  She found him dead, sprawled between the bed and the dresser just past midnight.

Harvey is famous for his American Splendor series of autobiographical comic books chronicling his life as a file clerk in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cleveland.  In 1994, he wrote a graphic novel called "Our Cancer Year," with his wife Joyce focusing on his battle with lymphoma.

He will be remembered as a comic book innovator, who chose to write about the lives of ordinary people. 

Pekar's work has been illustrated by some of the most notable comic book artists of our time which includes Robert Crumb, Dean Haspiel, Jim Woodring, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman and Alan Moore among others.  Aside from writing comic books, Harvey was a prolific Jazz and book critic.

I became a fan of Harvey after seeing the film adaptation of American Splendor by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (which I highly recommend).  We will all miss you Harvey.

Here is a clip from one of Harvey's guest appearances on the Letterman Show (1987):


--Video clip from YouTube.com by jerkylfish.