As I sit here in gate F68, preparing to board flight AC *i don’t remember* to Philadelphia for the weekend, I thought i would take the time, being I have a minute or two, to tease ya’ll with a jamaica shot, and rant a bit about what’s up!

Just got back from a huge company jam in san francisco. Great time. Got lots of ideas on the table for a great year. Hit up Alcatraz, which was indeed one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. Such a historic place where so many crazy things happened. Erie, sad & badass all at the same time. Win.

Immediately following SFO, we took off to Montego Bay, Jamaica to shoot Carmine & jeanine’s wedding. What a fun one! Got some great shots, some swim time & the worst mixed drinks I have ever experienced. I would LOVE to send the hotel a copy of THIS. <– click that.

Let’s check out the first tease from the wedding. Heck, It may be the only one you guys end up seeing! I was told I update my blog just the right amount. Enough to keep it not dead, but not to much to over-saturate and bore. Sounds good to me..

Not bad eh? It rained a lot of the day but the sun came out LAST SECOND as the ceremony started. Good and bad as I kinda liked the overcast skies.

So now Im home, and back at the airport to fly to Philly for the weekend to shoot a few quick things and back home! I got some super exciting news I’m just dying to spill, have been for a little bit but I cannot as of yet. The second I can, Im going to plaster the sh*t out of this blog with it and you won’t be able to look left or right without it being in your face :)

After Philly, we are off to Montreal to shoot a wedding, then headed to Las Vegas for some tattoos! :)

Anyhow, I digress. Talk soon,

p:m

Man was this a cold day! Wind + Rain + Snow  = Not the best conditions. However, they were complete troopers, and we blasted through it like nothing. Definitely a very fun couple to shoot! Easy!

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Ok, so a little random post today. I recently upgraded to an iPhone 4S. The camera, is absolutely insane. I believe it is only 8MP, but the optics are razor sharp. For a cell phone camera – absolutely unreal.

So, the reason for my post. Today’s photo of the day (I will post it below) is a macro compilation of one of my Nixon watches. All shot & edited on the iPhone. There are a few reasons this blows me away. Let’s check out the photo, then i’ll continue.

Right? iPhone. That is just about equally as sharp, using a Canon 100MM 2.8 Macro (V1 anyway). Look at the detail. I used a little macro third party attachment lens, utilizing available daylight, and nothing else. Edited it with the PicFrame app to allow the separate window edits, and posted via instagram. Doing this without the iPhone, would have easily taken me 25 minutes +

Set up camera, put on lens, shoot macro’s, remove card, transfer from card reader, import raws, export raws, edit jpegs, construct frame in photoshop, export jpeg, upload to blog post. Not to mention needing a RAW editor, Photoshop, Knowledge in both + the equipment to shoot it.

VS

Clip on lens, shoot, open picframe, export, open instagram, post.

After seeing the detail, and doing more research on all the separate lens attachments out there (even some for full mountable EF/EFS lenses) – I foresee point and shoot sales becoming less and less. For people in the know anyway.

I know it’s a long shot, but I really want, and hope to shoot either a wedding, or the next cinematic trailer with the iPhone. Sounds crazy right? But, I’m going to do it!

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Hanging out in the Charlotte airport at the moment. Thought Id chime in and say hello :) Call it part of my ‘ try and post more ‘ goal.

Went through customs this morning in Toronto. Customs officer asked me to do some magic for him. I contemplated stealing his watch for 8 seconds.. Alas, Couldn’t do it. Didn’t have the balls lol – Resorted to the classic finger ring magic bla bla bla let me through loser. Anyhow, on to security. Made it through security, no bag checks in roughly 3 minutes. I beat out 5 pilots who had 3 times less the amount of stuff I did. Again, Winning.

I hate flying US Airways, Continental, & United. Lucky me, I got US Air. I typically like to Fly with Air Canada, WestJet, American Airlines and or JetBlue. Either way, being the connection, Got the cheap little small planes that just barely fit your overhead luggage. Fail.

I now sit with a screaming baby behind me at the gate. I swear, everywhere I go, screaming babies. Obnoxious. If you have children, and are reading this thinking “it’s not their fault etc etc etc” – it is.

If you haven’t been checking out my ‘ photo a day ‘ – go check it out! Follow me on instagram ‘petermckinnon’. Hoping to get some cool behind the scenes footage while I’m away for the next week +. Get some good footage for the blog with greg wilson and friends.

I shall finish my Fiji water and be on my way.

p:m

Welcome to the year the world ends. “Rolls eyes” Okkkkkaaaayyyyy Mayans.

Ima try and make more blog posts this year. As well, As take a photo every day and post it on instagram. Im using my iPhone for it cause I’m lazy. Don’t judge. It’s still a mission and a half. Anyway, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great christmas, and is ready to rock 2012 like Nickleback Rocks a live show…

….

If that was true, then I’m with the Mayans.

Random Picture of the week: Pillow War. Not a pillow fight, because that’s lame. This was a pillow war. Classic aerial jump attack. Effective and surprising.

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One of my favourite couples from 2011. These guys had mad style and were such a unique personality. I absolutely loved shooting them and am more than happy to now call them friends!

Paul has since become super involved and interested in the world of Cinematography. He is actually now shooting a lot of his own weddings, which I think is amazing. Who knows, maybe he will be taking my place one day! Anyhow, check out the highlight reel from their special day back in August! August?!?! Yeah, August – Shut it.

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I got incredible feedback from the LTD trailer. Way more than I thought I would get. So much that I decided, by popular demand, to film part 2. Last night, at 4:30AM, we shot the second half. See, the track on the first piece, just fades out with plenty of song left. I picked it up where I left it off and continued deep into it’s dub-steppin’ epicness.

Slightly different in style and feel, but at the same time very much the same. I wanted to keep this one shorter.. I felt that being the debut imagery of the deck has already been released, I didn’t want to drag this out.

Alas, LTD. Part 2 : Enjoy!

Alsdo, feat. on the E Blog, you can check out details on how to win some of these bad ass decks:

http://blog.ellusionist.com/ltd-part-2-kicks-off-days-of-pasteboard-goodness-with-a-competition/

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This, is LTD. In motion :

Shot a mini trailer for the LTD. deck last night real quick. We just wanted to put something up on our social media outlets for people to actually see that yes, the deck is real :) And awesome. Very Awesome.

Changed it up this time. I ended up being the *card guy* in this trailer. Kind of a poetic thing being I designed the brunt of it. Friends and whatnot told me it was only fitting :) I don’t have ninja skills like SHADE, but, throw in a fancy dub step track and some moody lighting (and a badass deck of cards) and I think it turned out pretty good! :) Check it out!

Share, comment, like, tweet, whatever.

p:m

Ok guys, I finished this beast about a week ago. This took everything i had for 4 days. is it impossible to top? Nah. I’ll top it with the next one. However, We all put a lot of work into this beast. I need to make a few shout out’s to those of you who really helped me on this project.

Jason Brumbalow, for giving me the budget I needed to get the gear I needed to make it happen. Shade AKA Allan, for lending his truly remarkable and disgusting card skills to the piece. Couldn’t have done it without him. Not to mention pulling out acting skills out of the blue (Sorry I had to be a Director to get that out of you! lol). Mike Clarke, Assistant DP, helping with a lot of the shots I just couldn’t shoot be it I was in a straight jacket or otherwise occupied with other areas. Also, for the lending if his doorless jeep for epic steadicam footage. A lot of it we didn’t use, but hella fun to shoot.  Lee McKenzie, Staying up all night with me from Austrailia, over Skype, working on these special effects to make it actually look good, not cheesy! You are an animal. Michael, My UK Song-Writer  - Retarded amounts of talent. As he states “I turned your words into notes” – You sure as hell did my friend. Donna Cutting, For helping to inspire the idea of a man gone crazy  - Helped me get over my creative block that night! And my Wife Janice, for putting up with endless pizza boxes, light boxes, tripods, sliders, steadicams, camera lenses and just a whole ton of sh*t and sleepless nights whilst this entire project was underway – You are the best!

You guys all might think, really? All this for a deck of cards? Yeah. Really. And wait till’ you see the next one. If were not pushing ourselves forward, were moving backwards. I strive for the best. And the amount of work that goes into even a 4 minute trailer, as you could somewhat see from the people I just thanked, is massive. So, Check out the trailer, Enjoy it, and share it with your friends. Until the next one comes out……

Check out the podcast here: Outlining everything from The deck, the process, the people involved, to some extra projects in the works.

http://blog.ellusionist.com/gang-talks-infinity/

p:m

Well, there are a few things today I’ve been wanting to share for quite a while now! One of which, is a deck of cards I designed with Ellusionist and Bicycle, AKA the United States Playing card Company. Pretty crazy, essentially starting in magic close to 10 years ago to the point where Ive got my own deck of cards.. never the less, a truly amazing experience. This is the first design I created. We have been working on a new concept since may that is still being changed daily and worked on, but for now, this is the Limited Deck.

The back design was inspired and creatively assisted by Daniel Madison (google him, he’s THE man) The Jokers, Ace, box design were all sketched, and designed by myself. Lee McKenzie, assisted with refinements and overall clean-up, And Jason, saw the whole thing through with USPC. Check out the shots below :)

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