Jason Raish Illustration Blog

End of Summer Illos
Wednesday, September 21, 2011

My buddy Illustrator Marco Pardo in Barcelona asked me to take part in a project put together by Spanish illustrator Elenio Pico (who is a professor at Escola Massana in Barcelona). He got a group of artists together and printed their art on sails for small boats that float in fountains around Barcelona.

this one is my boat.

cover of the travel section for the washington post about time shares and all the crap that rains down on you when you take part in them. Such as dealing with points, paperwork, incentives, and pitches

why oh why did i pitch an idea with so many intricate objects?

spot for Times Higher education in the UK about some education organization and how secretive they are about their testing methods. They are like ninjas. The deadline was super tight so i only had one shot at the ninja and had to leave everything the way it fell. or else i would have done it until i got it the way i wanted. Maybe i will revisit ninjas later on but for now they go back onto the pile of personal projects i have going on.

spot illustration for Emmy Magazine, which is the magazine that gets mailed to all the members of the Academy of Television Arts and Science (aka TV's Emmy Awards). Its about some guy who was on a game show and lost but came away with a borrowed shirt from the guy who played Carlton on the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.

spot for Jazz Times magazine about Jazz musicians and the ear damage they receive.

Posted byJason Raish at 4:11 PM 0 comments

A spot of spots - Jason Raish
Monday, August 15, 2011

I thought i would use some British speak for the title since I moved to London. Here are a gang of spots for various publications.

spot for Emory alumni magazine where an alum talks about her experience restoring ancient art in cambodia and how there is no clear linguistic distinction between buddah as a religious spirit or as a mere statue. She says it's one in the same for them.

A spot for the university of new hampshire about water fleas and new findings. I can't remember but it looks like maybe they can grow or evolve whatever they need?

A spot for Asian Lawyer magazine about how students of Korea's Judicial Research and Training Insititute (JRTI) are angry because the ministry of justice plans to hire from other law schools instead of solely from their school as has been the tradition in the past.

spot for THE (times higher education) in the UK about a red, greed, and amber university ranking system and its negative points. I can't remember fully but it was probably something where being ranked green had a huge advantage over other rankings.

spot for RIDES magazine for their "talkin' crash" column about celeb hiphop car crashes. this one is about Kendrick Lamar when he was a wee lad

spot for golf magazine's "rules guy" column about removing rock from the field of play. doing rocks is really hard and not too enjoyable for me.

another spot for RIDES magazine for their "talkin' crash" column about celeb hiphop car crashes. this one is about Big Sean crashing his grandmothers car and coming away with only a swollen pinky.

A few shots of London, my new city. English breakfast. bacon "rashers" here are pretty salty though.

the millennium bridge that goes from the tate modern over the river thames. this is the bridge that the baddies destroy in Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part 1

insane harry potter fans at "Camp Potter". aka trafalger square, waiting 48 hrs for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. They were either waiting for the movie to be shown on a giant screen in the square, or for the actors to walk the red carpet or a combo of both. we talked to them and they were totally serious and had the conviction of wizards who would defend Hogwarts to the death if they had to. Wait, what am i saying? Why is there so much HP in this post? I wouldn't even say i'm a harry potter enthusiast, i just took on the challenge of watching all 8 Harry potter movies in 2 weeks so i could watch final HP movie here in Harry's hometown (I know HP dorks, i was informed that his hometown is Surey or something) and have to say it was very decent and one of the better HP movies. Now it's over and we are all wondering what to do with our lives. but don't even get me started on how HP is the weakest, most charmless, most weiner like main character that never matured or grew as a character....

Posted byJason Raish at 10:03 AM 0 comments

Japanese New Years Card - 8 months late
Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Did I really forget to post the final finished Year of the Rabbit card? It was done back in December. Well here it is 8 months late.

this year's holiday/new year's card. It's my take on a Japanese new year's card. Here is the process. first i made a color comp on the computer.

a couple of layers of gesso on coldpress watercolor paper.

had to paint the back with some color i have a lot of so it doesn't curl and evens out the paper.

printing out and transferring the sketch to the painting

stars made by flicking a toothbrush

sponges and brushes were used to paint this. everything except for the rabbit is done at this stage. I'll show you the final product when i do my happy holidays post.

The Final Product. I sent this to my friends in Japan on a postcard and my parents printed them as cards for family back in the States. Here is my take on a Japanese new year's card (nengajo, 年賀状). Traditionally they feature the Asian zodiac animal of that year, 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Throughout Asia, because of an old story, it is believed that there is a rabbit on the moon (instead of a man on the moon). Basically the bottom says Happy New Year and the top says 2011 and the final box below that is the character for rabbit.

excited about next year's card? So am I, 2012 is the year of the dragon. My goal is to do all 12. You can see the year of the tiger in 2009 I did here

Posted byJason Raish at 10:51 AM 1 comments

Scholasstic Read 180
Monday, August 08, 2011

my first book ever. I did this over a year ago and it just got published. thus is the publishing world. This was for Scholastic and it's for a Read 180 series book called "False". It's a reading intervention book that debunks urban myths. I did 8 illustrations inside

This myth is that Walt Disney is frozen in ice somewhere. not true.

Here is that the 5 second rule makes it ok to eat things you drop on the floor.

Carrots don't give you perfect vision, it was a rumor started by the British during world war two to cover up their new radar technology's success from the Germans. So they said it was because of carrots. The vitamin A keeps your eyes healthy though.

Elvis is not alive, sorry.

The myth is a dog's mouth is cleaner than a humans. I guess this is believed because they have natural cavity fighting chemicals and other stuff. This is the color scheme they went with.

This is the color scheme i liked.

Dropping a penny from the empire state building won't kill someone because the wind will blow it away and other scientific stuff will make it so it never reaches a dangerous velocity.

Elephants are not afraid of mice, they have bad eyesight and are startled by any small thing that moves. This is the color scheme i liked.

this is the color scheme they went with.

The color red doesn't make bulls mad, the motion of the cape gets 'em going.

Posted byJason Raish at 6:37 PM 0 comments

Hello Canon 5D Mark II
Saturday, June 18, 2011

I finally made the leap and bought a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera. The body alone costs $2,500 and the price isn't going to budge for a long time. The thought of buying this camera haunted me nightly for months and months. I resolved to by the camera when I was in Japan but the earthquake sent me packing and I didn't have time to buy it. It was cheaper there too. I finally decided to order it while I was staying at Yoon's house at the US embassy housing compound in Seoul because lots of merchants ship to APO/military addresses. after 3 weeks I still didn't have the camera and something was wrong. The camera was lost somewhere in the mail and still is. To make a long story short, I didn't take their "we don't even have tracking information for shipments to APO addresses" policy for an answer and battled with them for weeks until i finally got the camera shipped to me in Barcelona for $2,000. Saving $500 is cool but I still lost out on photographing my first month in Barcelona with it. This is way too much camera for me but hopefully I'll grow into it. My reasons for getting this camera are:

1. If there ever was a time to have the best camera in my life it would be now while i'm living in different countries doing awesome stuff all the time
2. I need video capability
3. I need awesome low light capability
4. I need full frame to capture all the amazing interiors amongst many things

Caveats: You probably won't be able to tell that I have a new camera by looking at the pictures on this blog because you won't be able to see the full resolution. But I will be able to capture more nightshots and wider shots so there will be more of those on the blog so you will indirectly see the benefits of this new camera.

they sent it to me 2 day global priority or something. I missed receiving this before i made a trip to Madrid by 1 hour. but wait, no i didn't, because there was crap with UPS i had to deal with i found out later. Like sending a passport copy and other info because i'm technically importing this American product and I'm the importer. They paid the duties and everything though, which is probably a lot.

this post is probably just for photo dorks. but if you read this blog a lot this might interest you because from here on out hopefully at least 75% of the photos on this blog will come from this camera.

Pros:
21.1 megapixels
photos are 5616 x 3744 pixels
ISO 100-6400 (expandable super high but useless)
High Def 3 inch monitor with Approx. 920,000 pixels (VGA)
1920 x 1080 Full HD video
Weather resistant body
superior in low light settings
crystal clear view finder
3 user customizable shooting modes
the cons are negligible

Cons:
has no built in flash (rarely need it though)
autofocus points are so close to the center point they are kind of useless
video mode doesn't continuously autofocus and audio is unacceptable
they still haven't designed the canon bodies so you can playback the shot you just took while shooting one handed
eats up tons of space on your computer due to the larger photo/video sizes
can't shoot 60 fps like the 7D, only up to 30 fps making slow motion harder
It's safety is more on your mind when you're out and about because its a bigger liability.
You will naturally spend many more hours editing photos.
memory card door feels weak especially when shooting one handed and all the pressure is on it.

outfitted with my 20-35mm f/2.8 L lens. it looks the same as my old camera. If you own this camera or are interested in this camera you will find yourself looking for a flash of the "Mark II' symbol on the lower part of the camera when someone walks by with a canon camera. maybe its a superiority complex, or a tip of the hat when you see they do have it, or interest in a person that has the need for a $2500 camera. I probably have all of these but hope that its mainly because I just wanted a tool that could take better photos. And as they always say on the intertubes, a better camera doesn't make a better photographer, which is true. Hopefully I will grow into this one.

40D always on the left, 5D mark II always on the right. the 5D mark II is slightly bigger and weight slightly more. Not enough to matter or notice.

important thing here is the viewfinder in the 40D is not so clear. looking through the 5D's is like night and day. the monitor on the 5D is like HD vs. standard television, it can't compare. Now I can actually evaluate my photos in full resolution on the monitor.

here the 40D juts out at the top because has a flash but the 5D doesn't. on the interwebs people always say you never need a flash with the 5D so stop complaining. well sometimes you do because its not a vision camera. and sometimes you need to get pics of your friends doing stupid things in the night and not pefectly lit photos so it would be nice to have a flash.

The 5D Mark II is a "Full Frame" camera. see how much bigger the mirror and sensor is on the 5D mark II vs. the 40D? that translates into a lot more photo being captured in the frame. most DSLR cameras that people own have "APS" sensors unless you spend $2500 and get a camera with a "Full Frame" sensor like the 5D mark II. In short, most less expensive DSLR cameras crop the image at a rate of 1.6 so that means if your shooting at 50mm x 1.6 = 80mm. that means you're actually shooting at 80mm, which is why if I wanted to take your portrait I would have to get on the bus, go to another town, and turn around and take the photo to get all of you in the shot my old camera. Now with the 5D mark II's full frame capabilities I can capture interior rooms and other stuff in close quarters!

this example grabbed from kenrockwell.com shows how much more you get with full frame cameras. P.S. full frame is the same size as traditional 35 mm film.

2 examples with my widest lens at the widest setting. the 5D captures waaaay more.

same with widest lens but at narrowest setting. even the narrowest setting with the 5D still captures a little more than the widest setting on my old camera.

now with my fixed 35 mm lens i can capture almost the same as my old camera with my widest lens. this is great news because the wide angle lens weighs a lot and this lens weighs nothing.

sharpness example with the 5D mark II using a 35mm f/2.0 prime lens at f/8, 400 iso, 1/800 second. i'm not even showing 40D examples because that camera has a sharpness problem. All of these test photos are from the raw files, no editing, straight out of the camera. All are 100% crops.

sharpness example using 20-35mm f/2.8L shot at a 28mm focal length, iso 400, f/8, 1/640 second.

next are high ISO examples. all of these test between my 2 cameras are like comparing apples to oranges though because the resolution is so much higher on the new camera and its full frame vs. APS crop frame. 40D at 3200 ISO

5D Mark II at 3200 ISO

40D at 1600 ISO

5D mark II at 1600 ISO

I also got a new strap "system". It's a closed loop system so that means you can reach down and instantly pull the camera up to take a photo. No more fumbling around with taking the camera off from around your neck every single time to take a photo. Seriously I don't know how you can live without one. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this kind of strap system. You can leave it around your neck and shoulder, bayonet style which is the most secure way to prevent theft and camera damage, and never have to take it off to shoot. The Black Rapid R-strap is what i went with, but i don't like how all their straps look super serious and make you look like a photographer out on assignment so I bought a narrow leather belt from the men's section of H&M in Barcelona (summer 2011). Someday i want to find a belt/strap or have something custom made to match the quality and color of the awesome leather strap that Norman and Naoki bought me for my birthday. I also looked at the luma loop but didn't like the quick release function that would make it easy for thieves. Also looked at the sun sniper strap too. The cons about this strap system is that the camera can't sit exactly behind your back but sits behind your hip. sometimes this makes your "footprint" wider. As with a normal strap, if you bend over the camera will swing forward and smash into something if you're not careful but all straps have the problem. Overall these seem like problems that you have with normal straps and the benefits of being able to grab and shoot instantly while wearing the camera in the most secure way means that you'll be taking more photos and being less lazy because you have to take your camera off every time.

this german video shows a woman's version of the strap in action but you should get the idea.

FastenR-3 screws into the tripod mount on the bottom of the camera then hooks to ConnectR-2 which you loop the strap through. I think they were both like $13 each.

it all slides alone the closed loop strap. so your camera hangs upside down, but that's no problem. On the interwebs people have concerns about the safety of using the tripod mount. I feel there is no way this will come unscrewed or rip out, if feels very secure. the textured rubber washer makes the seal tight.

leather belt from the men's section of H&M in Barcelona (summer 2011). Was like 10 euros or something. crappy quality, but i still like it way better than a serious neoprene black strap.

This strap from Leather Factory Roberu in Japan is of the highest quality and looks awesome. I wish there was a way i could use it with the R-strap stuff. I guess I will use it when i have to go to super formal function. Its expensive and super nice so it's sad :(
and finally here is an HD video sample. You can see it in high quality if you click through to the Vimeo website, they show a crappy version when you view it from another website. The problem with this camera is that its high quality pro equipment now and doesn't look awesome unless you are using a steady cam attachment or tripod or other pro video equipment because of camera shake. Also the audio is not really acceptable so you need an external mic. You can hear every button you press and even hear the focus ring turning. that said they shoot movies, tv shows and other award winning stuff with the award winning video capabilities of this camera, so it is sought after by videographers as well. I'm putting my videos on Vimeo now because they have the best compression quality so you can see higher quality vids.

Spain's youth have taken to the plazas in protest over government corruption, the unemployment rate, the financial crisis and almost everything else it seems. I don't have a full understanding of the situation but to me, an American who doesn't understand what most people are saying in Spanish, it seems as if the whole thing has turned into a hippie parade and hangout party. Is seems as if the legitimacy/effectiveness of the protest is long gone. Shot in Plaza Cataluya in Barcelona, the Bob Dylan song was actually playing at the time furthering the hippie comparison.

In conclusion this camera is awesome and everyone on the intertubes agrees. I've been shooting with it for about a month now and love it and don't regret it. I've gotta get it insured for theft ASAP. Salih's got stolen and i'm sure its like losing a child.

Next I need to buy an Intervalometer (for timelapse videos), a flash, a tripod head and tripod legs, and i'm thinking about the 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens someday.......