Cross section of my daily printing responsibilities

I've seen a lot of photos since working here at Paragon. Some are good, some are funny, some are embarrassing, some are try really hard to be creative... they all seem to fit into some type of category. Below are examples from the big three: Good, Bad, Weird as hell.

Coconut curry with chicken, vegetables, almonds and brown rice. Serve with potato somosas and chutney.

My first Adobe tutorials at TCC

Hahaha!! Tonight I found a handful of my first lessons in Photoshop from when I was taking graphic design classes at Terra Community College. I remember opening Photoshop and Pagemaker for the first time on TCC's Mac (I can't remember what type of Mac, but I definitely remember when we upgraded to the G3 iMac). I saved all of my files on 3.5" floppy discs at the time, and when we got the G3's I had absolutely no idea what to do with the brand new zip drives that came installed on them. I remember think to myself, that fat slot is the future! I remember being required to buy a zip disc for class. I marched over to the book store and was stunned to find they cost $25 to $30. But I remember the trade-off was that they could hold a shit-ton of information. I still have my old zip discs in my drawer beside me, as I type this. I'd love to go back through the rest of my old files... some of which were last modified in 2002. Eventually I'd like to archive all of the images I've ever created... I have nearly everything. It will take days and days of scanning, but the payoff would be having a good home for all the hard work and passion I put into my early design work.

Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

Kate and I will be attending the lecture this Thursday.

What I designed:

What they want instead:

That's a good looking histogram.

Meijer Sculpture Gardens

Kate and I visited the Meijer Sculpture Gardens yesterday afternoon in Grand Rapids. She checked out some letterpress equipment for her new studio as well. Awesome clone stamping job by yours truly.

Kate's new printmaking studio

Today Kate and I started to paint her new studio. We did a lot of cleaning and met some of the artists working next door. We left covered in paint splatters.

A screen capture, enlarged, printed, scanned, enlarged and printed again. People do weird things with type.

Several more exposed pieces of light sensitive photo paper from work. When cropped like polaroids, they begin to look like landscapes.

I'm in front of a large box full of objects labeled Vogel gift! Funny, i can picture the apt these came from!

Kate

Robert came to visit

Two paintings that Robert gave me in exchange for photographing his new body of work this past weekend. I'll be posting the whole collection soon.

Trouble at work...

This photopaper after it's come out of the processor. It's supposed to be completely white. Somehow, I let a little light hit it.

From Kate

My birthday gift from Kate. It came from a potter at the Ann Arbor Arts Festival this past week.

Today has been a great day, even though I've been working. The fact that I'm pushing thirty hasn't sunk in yet. I went back to look at a comment I left on Antonio Curosone's post about his birthday. It's funny to think how light hearted I was. I wrote:

Getting old is double sided blade. On one hand you gain experience and get better every day you’re alive. On the other hand, you increasingly loose touch with the youth culture you were a part of. I’m roughly the same age as you (26) and am still an undergrad! (Design major — I took a non-conventional educational path) So breathe easy my friend. Have a great day!

—
Nice words from my friends:

Happy Birthday, Kevin. I wish you many more successful and enjoyable yrs.
Johnnie Lewis

Happy birthday you grizzley shit kicker.
Robert

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
ppy birthday.
hope all is well,
Brian

hbd. dw.
John

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABYCAKES!! I hope u r having a good day at work n that u enjoy ur lunch outside! 7 hours until u get a birthday kiss from me!
Kate

I LUV YOU TOO MY BIRTHDAY BOY! HAPPY 28TH! DAD SAYS LUV AND MISS & HAPPY B DAY. XXXOOO THE FOLKS @ 2 CONCETE POST
Mom

Happy happy birthday big buddy. Love you too my son. Have a great day.
Pappy

Old photo of young baby

Today I've been scanning and retouching old photos. This baby is by far, one of the most peculiar I've seen. Judging from the age, I'd say the photographer probably put the baby to sleep with the extremely long exposure time.

A spread from the book. Each page needed scanned separately (because the scanner bed can only accomdate 11" x 17"), and then stitched together in Photoshop.

umma-f-607_1858

I was asked to scan a book a very old book. The paper was so dry and brittle, that a little bit of flaking was unavoidable. I hate being put in that kind of position. It's ironic that some of the material was lost through the archiving process.

umdental_293_1961

Three students from the UofM School of Dentistry. The photo was from 1961. I've been scanning and color correcting mountains of photos like these for the last two days.