A portrait? Sure, no problem

I was recently asked if I "do photography" while talking over a freelance job of redesigning a factsheet of young-adult author Ofer Aronskind. I immediately said yes, but then thought to myself, "does he mean professionally?" I'm always taking photos of my family, vacation scenes and of my garden, but I really haven't thought about taking it to a professional level. I have a nice camera and understand the basics of photography so, really, what was stopping me from tackling this? I had to at least give it a try. Ofer seemed like a nice guy and would work with me on this one.

The factsheet, which included cover images of the four books he has written since 2006, needed a fresh photo of him and the plan was to also use the photo for his upcoming book's back cover.

The above photos were the top selection out of a few dozen that I took at a local park on a beautiful day. Ofer ended up selecting the middle photo for the factsheet.

Click images for a larger view.

Old coal plants

Team Bell assembled this interactive which involved an animator, Flash AS3 coder and an environmental reporter in Montana. We basically had all the elements and skills for a really slick package, showing the rise in the production of old style coal plants without the needed pollution controls. As the need for electricity in the U.S. grows, more of these type plants are being built while the nation waits for the technologies to curb greenhouse gas pollution in clean-coal plants become available.

My role in this assignment was being the researcher, designer and anchor.

See it here: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/coal_plants/

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing" ... so says that tried and trusted quick online reference that I would only use for this blog and not as a professional source (of course) – Wikipedia. It pretty much says it all. The visual explainer to icons has to be immediate.

For the love of type

Kerning, leading, bold, italic, stacked ... there are so many ways to manipulate type. Knowing just how far to push the visual of it depends on context of its use. This Christmas "page topper" was designed to be used over the mast of a newspaper, appearing nicely in the old metal racks and on newsstands.

This "art head" was used on a features weekend page, showcasing acts that were in town playing at local bars and concert venues.

This type and illustration vector image was a "promo" used on the front page in the mast area to promote the Talladega special section. There is a huge audience for this reporting down South and it is spreading in its popularity nationwide.

The gambler

Here's a blast from the past ... When I was an artist at the Birmingham Post-Herald I had to come with an illustration of Tommy Tubberville who was Auburn's football coach between 1999-2008. During his first year there he was portrayed as a risk taker during clutch plays. So the guys in the Sports department did a piece on him being a "gambler" and this is the illustration I came up with.

Grading the Gulf of Mexico after the spill

After the BP oil spill, oceanographers familiar with the Gulf of Mexico were asked to give their assessment of the water quality and grade various categories. Surprisingly, the overall view for the viability of the Gulf was good.

See the interactive here:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/gulf_grades/

Toxic water in schools

I worked on this investigative piece with an environmental reporter who was able to get 10 years of water surveys from the Environmental Protection Agency. In her series of reports, she verified that toxins were being leaked into schools' water supply - mostly in rural areas and off city water systems and relied on wells.

A majority of the pollutants came from chemicals found in agricultural fertilizers. Check out the link to see the interactive. This was a collaberative effort with me working with a Flash programmer:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33018955/ns/health-kids_and_parenting#.TknIxM1p2kI