Explorations

Picasso realized that the world becomes less wondrous and our passion for exploration fades over time. What he left unsaid was his solution to this problem: to remain an artist, one must find new artistic realms to explore. I've followed his example and ventured out to a few of those realms, and returned here to tell the tale.

Music composition

Thomas Edison would agree that songwriting is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. In my case, the latter is amortized over numerous short sessions, which is why compositions are typically months in the making.

All of my songs were composed using LMMS and the two instruments I play: mouse and qwerty keyboard. This in no way limits the number of musical instruments in my compositions, which in some cases rivals that of a small orchestra. Some instrument sounds are derived from patches, which are short recordings of individual notes played on real instruments; others are synthesized from scratch. When a music score is finished and ready for production, the instruments are “played” by a multi-track software sequencer and directly recorded as digital audio.

Most of my compositions fall into the progressive electronic music genre. They are built on foundational melodic themes — a popular compositional strategy — but not the sort of clichéd, highly repetitive themes found in genres such as dance and bubblegum pop. Instead, I strive to produce interesting music, by which I mean intricately layered, metamorphosing sound devoid of robotic loops. This greatly increases the craftsmanship and labor that must be invested in each piece, but IMO the product proves the effort worthwhile.

Discerning listeners will notice that I like to use staccato-ish melody as a surrogate for traditional percussion, a technique that offers an additional dimension of expression at the expense of everything held dear by EDM devotees. If asked to rationalize this choice, I would simply say that the usual rule applies: beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

Photography

Gallery photos were captured with a Canon EOS XTi body and EF 70-200mm f2.8 lens, a lens which is both cumbersome (three pounds, nine inches long) and indispensable. It allows me to get closeups without invading a subject's personal space, while at the same time isolating the subject with marvelous bokeh. The wide aperture makes it possible to shoot in low-light situations (an essential capability in theater work) and, when there's sufficient light, to freeze fast-moving subjects with excellent clarity.

Dance photographs were shot from the back of the house in various theaters. Without a doubt, the most exciting photo ops are those exceptional, fleeting moments in which a dancer's athleticism and mastery of technique are simultaneously revealed. Every noteworthy image is made possible by a trifecta of impactful lighting, great dance technique and precise shutter timing. Only the latter is under my control, and only because numerous hours of dance observation has given me the ability to anticipate key moments.

I've included a few photographs just because of their sentimental value. The USNA rifle drill team reminds me of my own ROTC drill team experience: the comaraderie; the thrill of spinning rifles in the air; and the colorful bruises. Also, I selected one photo each of my son and daughter which expose essential aspects of their personas.

The final gallery section features the Harmonics, an a cappella group at Stanford University. These images were captured at concert venues that often imposed extremely challenging lighting conditions. Fortunately, that challenge was offset by the amazing stage presence of the performers.

Poster design

The Posters page is a survey of composite photograph projects. Most of these were composed using GIMP, an open source image editor that offers a complete, powerful set of image manipulation tools through a painfully disorganized GUI. With the exception of a few NASA photos, everything appearing in these works is either drawn by me or derived from my photographs.

Many of the posters were commissioned works that allowed me to explore photographic compositing and publish the results (a “twofer”). Some projects required considerable groundwork before editing could begin. The 2011 Holiday Showcase poster is a case in point: I worked up quite the appetite building and photographing the gingerbread house and marshmallow mountains, which was sated by eating the props.

The page closes with a non-commissioned work, Matryoshka Dancer. This piece is the result of an experiment I conducted while tinkering with open source photomosaic generators. As the title suggests, the topic here is dancers: the primary image is a dancer's headshot and the mosaic tiles are photographs of performing dancers. Each tile was automatically selected from a database of approximately 2,000 photos according to the average color and brightness of the “pixel” it represents in the primary image. In case it's not obvious, the title is based on the idea that little dancers are “nested” within a larger dancer, a characteristic reminiscent of Russian matryoshka dolls.

Artifacts

The Artifacts page features a few of my more tangible creations which, in a sense, are art objects in their own right.