Lensbaby, Gels and Photo Illustrations...Oh My?

Gone are the days of...well, gone are the days of a lot of things when it comes to newspapers. And photo illustrations happens to be one of them. Whether it's lack of space, time or motivation, we just don't produce that many photo illustrations anymore. So I was really happy to have the opportunity to produce one recently.

Reporter Josh Dulaney was more than kind enough to pose for the photo to help illustrate a story about how a group of computer scientists recently discovered dozens of websites secretly harvesting lists of places their users previously visited online and how that information is being exploited by con artists to target users.

I used a Lensbaby for the photo of Josh with ambient studio light from a softbox and a blue gelled light on the back of his head. For the computer screen, I used a 17-35mm, fired the softbox and lite the background with a red gel. The two images were brought together in Photoshop.

Scrabble, coffee and the iPhone

Continuing with the prowess of the mighty two megapixel cell phone camera, it's amazing what a little time, gumption, some minor Photoshop applications, and of course the iPhone camera itself can produce.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the word in the photo on the left; according to the Urban Dictionary, fingle is the space or void between two fingers.

"The average human being has five fingers and four fingles on each hand." 

"I can see two fingles when you flash me the Vulcan hand sign."

Alas, the Scrabble dictionary did not agree.