Welcome to Ken's Life!

OK, so for those of you whose boredom has reached desperate levels, here's a place where you can keep tabs on what's going on in my whirlwind life. Wondering who I am or why I started this blog? Find out here.

You can browse my most recent posts below, use the calendar on the right to browse by date, or simply search for something using the search box on the top right.

Recent Posts:

iPhone ‘Cinematography’

March 5th, 2011

River Design began offering video services late last year, with significant investments in a professional rig. We’ve seen some early success with several projects already completed (I’ll be posting those soon), but I was most impressed with my recent experience with the iPhone.  While on vacation in France & Switzerland, I decided to whip out my iPhone and film a bit of the beautiful mountains while I was skiing.  I then did a quick edit in about 10 minutes and uploaded the resulting video to youtube.  All of it was done right on my phone.  It’s not a terribly professional result, but considering that the camera, editing and encoding package, and uploader all fit in about 1/5th of my pocket, I was pretty amazed.

Check it out for yourself:

And as a little bonus, here’s one I shot with my iPhone and the GoPro Hero, mounted to a chest strap.  I edited this one using iMovie on my laptop, so the result, while still far from professional, is a step up from what the iPhone can produce by itself:

Socialnomics

February 15th, 2011

Social media has risen rapidly to generate the most traffic on the Internet. The main players, or the ‘Big Three’ as I like to call them, are Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. Many small to mid-sized business, however, have a hard time keeping all these monsters fed, let alone keep their own web sites up to date.

Over the past two years, I’ve been incredibly busy building lots of web sites on a content management platform that integrates with these social media outlets. Nearly every site I build now has a blog roll or news feature that automatically pushes content out to a Facebook page, Linkedin profile, or Twitter feed.  Now my clients can focus on feeding just their web site which in turn feeds their social network presence.  With any web browser they can access all the content on their site, create or edit new pages, and enter new posts for their blog roll or news feed.  Some even use the iPhone or Blackberry apps that allows them to snap a photo with their phone, write a few lines of text, and instantly broadcast it out to their web site and social media.  Never before have small business owners been able to edit their own web site content while one the go.  With the online world now more than ever such a crucial venue for marketing, these sort of web sites are proving to be valuable tools.

For some interesting stats on the zeitgeist of social media, check out this video:

Shooting Models (with no bloodshed)

November 15th, 2010

Hello, neglected Blog! I’ve been rather busy lately, and I fear I’ve dropped the ball a bit on our relationship. But someone has to pay the bills, right?  Well, in a feeble effort to make amends, here’s a quick post on one of the many things that has been keeping me from you.

I spent this past Saturday morning shooting people.  Two to be exact.  What’s more, I first put their arms and legs into casts.  But don’t worry, though about 400 shots were fired, no blood was shed, and the police should leave me well enough alone.

Saturday’s photo shoot was for some product packaging for one of my clients, G4 Medical. The products are cast protectors, used to keep a cast or bandage dry while taking a bath or shower.  We shot at two lovely homes in Greenwich, where I was able to find bathrooms large enough to fit my lighting gear and allow enough room to use my 50mm lens without distortion.  Here are a few shots from the day.

And Blog, please don’t be jealous… I’ll be making a conscious effort to devote a little more time to you in the near future. I promise.

Canon Expo in New York

September 4th, 2010
Entering the Canon Expo

Entering the Canon Expo

I spent today at the once-every-five-years Canon Expo in New York. As expected, the hot topics on the seminar agendas were related to shooting video with DSLRs.  I attended sessions with Steven Poster (president of International Cinematographers Guild and Director of Photography for a slew of feature films from Blade Runner to Cats and Dogs), Shane Hurlbut (Director of Photography for Terminator Salvation and upcoming Acts of Valor), and other HDSLR mainstays such as Vincent Laforet.  I was particularly impressed with the work Shane has done with the upcoming Acts of Valor, an action film about the Navy SEALS. He shot all the main action shots with Canon 5Ds and 7Ds, and the results were stunning. Even more interesting, when the …continue reading »

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July 23rd, 2010

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