Sean Hobson » photography

Home for the Summer

seanhobs — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:05:10 +0000

In the past 30 years, I’ve lived in Memphis, Holland, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh, Clarion and Phoenix. The one constant for me, and where I think of when I think of home is Red Rock Lake, located an hour and a half outside of Winnipeg, MB, Canada. I’ve been going to Red Rock nearly every summer of my life and it’s been difficult for me to explain just how beautiful a place it is. The following video was put together using photos taken during our family August long weekend. I hope you enjoy (best viewed in full screen).

music credit | Ray LaMontagne – For the Summer

30 Days of Creativity

seanhobs — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 17:00:25 +0000

I first heard of the 30 Days of Creativity project via @dotguy on Twitter. The premise is to create something, anything, for 30 days in a row. The project began June 1, 2010 the same day I read @dotguy’s tweet. With little time to prepare I decided to focus the project around photography and work. Photography because I’m already working on a 365 day photo project and work because that’s where I spend most of my time. Fortunately, I work at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ which is ripe with atmosphere and creativity in it’s own right. ASU is one of the largest metropolitan universities in the country with over 100 buildings on the main Tempe campus. Like most university campuses, the architecture and landscaping is spectacular and ended up as the focal point for my project. I decided to take a photo a day for 30 days and include the following 3 things.

A building on the ASU Tempe Campus.
A plant that can be identified with the building.
Text headings using ASU’s branding guidelines.

Click play below to see the final result. Click here to go to the Flickr set for details on each photo.

I also plotted each photo on a Flickr map so anyone who is interested can locate the exact spot on campus. Click the image below for a closer look.

This was a very fun project, and the community support on the 30 Days of Creativity Blog, Flickr and Twitter were great and helped keep me motivated. Here are a few things I learned.

The ASU Tempe campus is bigger than many small towns. The architecture, people, plants, and general atmosphere are beautiful. I’ve worked on this campus for nearly 4 years, and this project forced me to explore all the cool little spots that I may have otherwise never found. My favorite plant discoveries were the Banana Tree in the secret garden, and the Pumpkin Patch near Hayden Hall. My favorite buildings were Danforth Chapel and the hidden area of the Bateman Science Center. My top 3 favorite photos in order are Biodesign, ISTB and Health Services.
I now know the names of 30 new arizona plants. Finding and matching these plants was one of the toughest parts of the project. Google only got me so far, I’m still trying to find the names of a few (Thanks Sandy).
I was able to practice using ASU’s branding guidelines. Part of my job is applying design principles to online course projects and associated visuals. This project forced me to better learn these guidelines and put them into practice.

To create these photos I used the following tools.

Canon EOS 40D digital SLR camera with either the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 wide angle lens, or the Canon f1.4 50mm lens.
Adobe Lightroom 2 for organizing and editing photos.
Adobe CS5 to add text and make additional edits.
Flickr to host, organize and map the photos.

Finally, I really enjoyed the project and recommend it to anyone who is looking for an excuse to be creative, learn a new tool or subject matter. Please leave any questions in the comments area, and have fun creating!

DIY Photo Booth

seanhobs — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:54:08 +0000

For our reception we decided it would would be fun to setup a photo booth. We priced out a few vendors all of which wanted upwards of $1,000 for setup and rental. After some back and forth we decided to give it a shot ourselves. Google provided lots of tutorials and setup required the following equipment, most of which we already owned:

Camera with Tripod
Softbox for lighting and a reflector
Backdrop (optional)
Wireless remote
Laptop with Camera to USB
Canon EOS utility CD (comes with your DSLR)
Props from the dollar store

In the end we are really happy with the results. We ended up with about 250 pictures of our family and friends we wouldn’t otherwise have. Furthermore, everyone really had fun with it (especially after the booze started flowing). I was surprised at some of the creativity. Here is the final result to a bit of music.

Photo Booth from sean hobson

Ikea Dresser Time Lapse

seanhobs — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:50:04 +0000

Ikea Dresser Time Lapse from sean hobson on Vimeo.

South Mountain Time-Lapse

seanhobs — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:26:36 +0000

This time-lapse was shot using an hours worth (nearly 800) of still images from the peak of South Mountain. South Mountain is a city park located a few miles south of Phoenix. The clouds were fantastic this day.

South Mountain from sean hobson on Vimeo.

Backyard Saturday

seanhobs — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:48:21 +0000

I’m trying to learn how to use Final Cut Studi o, a video editing suite by Apple. This movie was filmed and edited on a November Saturday in my backyard in Phoenix, AZ.

Backyard Saturday from sean hobson on Vimeo.

Looking for projects to help me learn Final Cut Pro this video was filmed, edited and uploaded in one Saturday in November.

Light Painting

seanhobs — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:51:35 +0000

Light painting is a type of photography where you leave the shutter open and use a flash light to draw in the dark. Here is my first attempt. I left the shutter open for 20 seconds in manual mode at f5.3.

ASU Time Lapse

seanhobs — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:12:47 +0000

Inspired by some fantastic time lapse photography work by Dan Chung and Peter Berlanger I decided to read up and give it a shot. I stumbled upon two great tutorials by Zach Wise and Timothy Allen which provided me with enough of a base to produce the following short clip. Photos were shot from a bridge over University Avenue on the ASU Tempe campus.

New Photos page on seanhobson.com

seanhobs — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:38:22 +0000

Check out the new photos page at seanhobson.com!

For the past year or so I have adopted photography as a hobby. I have always been interested in capturing moments but until recently haven’t had the motivation or proper equipment to produce quality work. My most recent shots can always be found on Flickr, but for my favorites check out my new photos page.

San Francisco 2009

seanhobs — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:35:43 +0000

I returned last week from a six day trip to San Francisco. The primary goal was to attend a conference on Emerging Technology Application hosted by Sloan-C. This was an absolutely fabulous symposium packed full of great sessions and well attended by my peers across the county and world. A secondary goal and of more relevance to this forum was the opportunity to visit a new city which I’ve wanted to see since moving to to Phoenix several years ago. In between sessions and after the conference I was able to explore the city and surrounding areas. I teamed up with a good friend and colleague Wayne to share the adventure. Wayne was a perfect traveling partner as we share a similar interest in photography and media in general. We often joked that our significant others would have been bored out of their minds at the 3 hours spent hunting for optimal photography spots around the Golden Gate Bridge. A few of the highlights included China Town, Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz Night Tour, Golden Gate Bridge and Park, Sausalito, Height and Ashbury, Coit Tower, Financial District, Point Reyes, Inverness, Pacific Coast Highway, Redwood Forest, the BART and Trolley Cars.

All in all it was a fabulous trip! I look forward to returning. Here are a few of my favorite photos and a short video I created using animoto.