Selfless Portraits

Julia-Herkenhoff-Portrait-v2.7

A couple of my friends did Selfless Portraits recently, and it inspired me to do the same. Very relaxing, really.

My subject’s name was Julia, and she comes from Rio. She was wearing polka dots and glasses, while looking at her mobile phone. Don’t ask me how, but her index finger can really do that position.

She looks as though she was reading a text message. Who could it be from? She certainly looks a bit serious. I translated her thoughts to Portuguese, “Oh, não. Não ele, de novo!”

Click on the image above for a series of images, including the original photo.

If you do or receive a Selfless Portrait, please send me a link!

UPDATE: I had to stalk Julia via Facebook to inform her about the artwork. Apparently Selfless Portraits didn’t notify her at all?!? Crazy, I know. Turns out she loves it. Fun.

UPDATE: Cool. After 36 hours my Selfless Portrait moved into the number one “most popular” slot. Thanks, no doubt, to all of my FB friends for liking.

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Urban Family Dog – All Pink

I was playing around with the iPhoto export feature late last night. An unbelievable simple way to make some music videos using live performance photography. Just need to figure out how to get the right imagery at the right place in the song.

I’ve uploaded to Facebook, and the image quality is quite nice. Facebook’s transcoder is amazing.

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Urban Family Dog “3-Finger Charlie” on Soundcloud

I was just playing around with the embed feature from Soundcloud. “3-Finger Charlie” is a funky CD I produced, engineered, co-wrote, designed and performed on in 2001.

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Spring Fling 2011

Last weekend I completed “Spring Fling 2011″, a photo collage art project featuring all 27 of my son’s first grade classmates. Just before Thanksgiving my brother-in-law and I photographed the children in the classroom. I explained my job as an art director for advertising, and told them that they were all “Talent” or “Models” for my project.

This morning I went back to unveil the final product via a Big Screen Presentation complete with music. I described the “client presentation” process, and told them they were the clients. They were very good clients, since they liked everything. I gave them each “leave behinds” of an 13 x 19 archival giclee (archival poster print suitable for framing) and a personalized 5×7 image with a link to this post. It is really fun how excited the kids are when they see themselves on the screen for the first time. They were very well behaved, though, as Mr. Grass, the principal, sat in on the presentation.

This is the final installment of a 4-part series. Last year I created a fall scene named “Fall Fun 2010″. Two years ago I did a summer scene called “Summer Break 2009″ and three years ago a winter scene titled “Snow Day 2007″. Each artwork featured a castle to represent the school name, Castle Heights.

Files for download –

Right click link FULL RESOLUTION PHOTO and choose “Save link as…” or “Open link in new window” to download a copy of the full resolution version.

Right click link EMAIL FRIENDLY SIZE PHOTO and choose “Save link as…” or “Open link in new window” to download a copy of the email friendly version to send to grandma.

If you are having problems getting the video to play, DOWNLOAD A 110 MB ZIP OF THE VIDEO.

What do you think? (make a comment below)

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Fall Fun 2010

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Monday night I completed “Fall Fun 2010″, a Gap-like art project featuring all 23 of my son’s kindergarden classmates. Just before Thanksgiving I photographed the children in the schoolyard. I explained my job as an art director for advertising, and told them that they were all “Talent” or “Models” for my project.

It was challenging to fit so many people into such a small space. Blame that on the state budget. Number two son, Miles, is featured jumping into a pile of leaves.

Today I went back to unveil the final product via a big screen presentation complete with music. I described the “client presentation” process, and told them they were the clients. They were very good clients, since they liked everything. I gave them each “leave behinds” of an 13 x 19 archival giclee (poster print suitable for framing) and a personalized 5×7 image with a link to this post. It is really fun how excited the kids are when they see themselves on the screen for the first time. They literally vibrate with energy!

This is part III of a 4-part series. Last year I did a summer scene called “Summer Break 2009″ and two years ago a winter scene titled “Snow Day 2007″. Only one season left!

Right click the image above and choose “Save link as…” or “Open link in new window” to download a copy of the large version.

What do you think? (make a comment below)

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Summer Break 2009

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Sunday afternoon I completed one of the most rewarding projects this year. A Gap Ad-like art project featuring all of my son’s second grade classmates. A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law and I photographed the children in the classroom. I explained my job as an art director for advertising, and told them that they were all “Talent” or “Models” for my project.

Today I went back to unveil the final product via a big screen presentation complete with music. I described the “client presentation” process, and told them they were the clients. They were very good clients, since they liked everything. I gave them each “leave behinds” of an 13 x 19 archival giclee (poster print suitable for framing) and a DVD rom with images and the presentation movie. They were soooo happy, it left me with a stupid grin on my face all day.

This is part II of a 4-part series. Last school year I did a winter scene titled “Snow Day 2007″. Only two seasons left!

Right click the image above and choose “Save link as…” or “Open link in new window” to download a copy of the large version.

What do you think? (make a comment below)

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Melissa Etheridge Holiday CD Design

I was pretty excited for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer. I had an opportunity to do some comps for Melissa Etheridge’s upcoming holiday release, A New Thought For Christmas (released 9/30/08). The theme was global peace and tolerance. I came up with an iconic solution, which I can’t say I’ve seen before. A simple, graphic Christmas tree made out of peace signs. Melissa saw my comps and was thrilled to choose this one for the cover. I was psyched to think that I could add this to my collection of rocking holiday CDs!

About six weeks later, I got the unfortunate news from the Island Records representative that they decided to go with something else. C’est la vie.

While I admit their design is quite nice, I think my design would have looked way cooler featured in the iTunes music store. What do you think?

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L Studio Beta

L Studio, the broadband entertainment community that I designed for Lexus, launched its beta last week. What is L Studio? Here’s what Reuters news agency had to say…

“The carmaker is launching an Internet-only branded channel Tuesday (September 23) stocked with a full slate of original programing headlined by [Lisa] Kudrow [from Friends] in a shortform comedy series in which she plays a nutty shrink.

In an effort to keep the buzz going for the project, Lexus plans to recruit more celebrity contributors in the coming months. For now, the rest of L Studio is an eclectic mix of high-toned nonfiction programing that concerns everything from art to architecture to science. Some notable figures who are profiled on the site include the Doors’ Ray Manzarek and designer Patricia Field.

Taken together, the connective thread between the programing mix and the Lexus brand, Blanchard said, is the theme of innovation. “We kind of look at ourselves as a broadband HBO,” she said. “Being on broadband in and of itself is innovative for a lot of these artists.”

I can’t wait until it’s finished, and everything is running smoothly. Lisa Kudrow’s “Web Therapy” series is pretty damn funny! And so is Starlee and Arthur Review. Go check it out.

—– here’s a positive review of the content.

—– here’s an article from the Hollywood Reporter.

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Creative Director, Speedshape

From the press release…

“Speedshape, Inc, with offices in Birmingham, MI and Venice, CA and providing services including CGI 3D/2d modeling, animation, virtual environments, VFX, motion, film, multimedia design, pre/post production, retouching, web design, digital asset management, distribution, closed captioning, and tagging has hired Nels Dielman as Sr. Creative Director.”

Wow. That is a mouthful. Stay tuned for updates.

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