I have been on a pretty lucky streak when it comes to going to sporting events this last month. I have especially been lucky to sit right in the front.

The last two Pistons games I attended have been court side seats, allowing me to get some really great shots of the game. For the historic Red Wings game last night, I managed to spend a good chunk of the game right at the glass, allowing for some close up shots.

This was the Red Wings twenty-first consecutive home win, breaking the NHL record.

No lenses over 80mm were allowed, so I made due with the 50mm and wide. Will edit them today.

The boyfriend and I got to attend a Pistons game a couple nights ago and it was pretty damn amazing… probably because we had floor seats. We sat right under one of the baskets. Was pretty exciting being that close to the players and action. We also had the perk of getting free noms inside the nifty little ‘courtside club’. Now if only I can sit that close when the Lakers are playing…

I of course brought my camera with me. This picture is my favorite from the evening.
 

I love Nero and I love this music video. Fantastic.

Another fun iPhone time lapse. I used a 30 second youtube music clip that you can add to your videos. Pretty nifty. Love this stupid app – iTimelapse

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

If I were to enter the world created in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, I could only wish to capture the amazing images Duncan Harris manages to create through beautifully constructed screen shots.

Dead End Thrills is a gallery full of amazingly crafted screen captures from video games. Harris manages to turn the world within the game into beautiful photography-like images that capture the games world through an artistic eye. On Harris’ website, he explains further how he does it:

Applying the principles of real world photography to the virtual worlds of games is just part of the solution. Hacking and tweaking games to remove player model, HUD and restrictions on the camera are others. The toughest, though, is rendering games from throughout the 3D era, from Deus Ex to Crysis 2, at truly uncompromising quality. There is a massive difference between running a game with top-of-the-line antialiasing and quality settings, and running it with those same settings at resolutions far in excess today’s norms, using offline resampling to achieve perfect results. Only recently, and after extensive research, have such methods become possible.

The results are enticing and give a better sense to the scale and effort put into the worlds created in each of the games he “photographs”.  To see his work, go to Dead End Thrills. You can also follow Ellis on twitter.

Really need to start adding musics to these… 

School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.

This hilarious video reminds me of the days working as a Pre-School teacher and the dreadful portrait day where sitting on a chair for two seconds to get a stupid photo taken seemed like the most arduous task for a three year old child. Ugh. I often daydreamed of saying such things like that in the video to those little brats :P

Just wanted to “officially” say that I will no longer be working as a photographer for MLG. I have been photographing events since Anaheim ’09 and it has been such an amazing ride. I have met so many awesome individuals that have become good friends, and have even met my current boyfriend through MLG, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have those people in my life. It has been a long journey. I have had many highs and many lows at MLG, but overall it has been the ultimate learning experience. Trying really hard to not make this all sound cheesy…

All in all it is time to move on. I need to start focusing on schooling and branching out in photography. I want to thank all the Pro-Players I have photographed… thanks for letting me shove my camera in your face over and over again :P I will miss you all. I have really appreciated my time with MLG and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I hope to see everyone again somehow, perhaps as a spectator :)

<3

Maksimov Dmitry is a photographer and illustrator, both taking amazing photographs and creating beautiful and haunting illustrations within them. I have seen his work around Reddit every once and a while, but this particular piece just made me smile for some reason.

You can see more of his work here. He’s like the Banksy of photography.