On June 6th, 2020. In response to the murder of George Floyd, and to the countless racist acts committed to African Americans, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained steam. In the small city of Chateauguay, Quebec, 4 young students organized a peaceful protest to stand together for the fight of equality of all.

I captured this footage and put something together to remember this by. Only thru understanding and acceptance will things change. Prejudice exist everywhere still, in Canada, and globally. It is taught by parents, or influenced by certain friends and environments.

We are not born racist - we are made racist.

Link to the film here

A short sci-fi styled film I did between driving from home to an out-of-province client... I stopped along the road when I see these awesome silos.

Just filmed away for 2 hours or so... unfortunately, I didn't record their location. I wanted to go back and add-in human elements - couldn't find them again... as though they vanished... I therefore added (thanks Talhi for the suggestion) of adding a narration voiceover to give it a little more “oomph”.

Shot on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k (BMPCC 4k) using 2 lenses: Voigtlander Nokton 17.5 f0.95 and a Rokinon 100mm Cine Macro DS. Wish I had a wide angle, but haven't gotten it yet.

Another fun test to seeing what can be done with this awesome camera. Recorded in BRAW 5:1, it's amazing the grading it can take in post. I used Davinci Resolve 16 and as a starting point, used the @butteryluts

View the film here

Test shoot during a brief 1.5 hour walk in the forest on the BMPCC 4k using the Voigtlander 17.5mm F/0.95 and Rokinon 100mm T3.1 Macro Cine DS lenses. Shot in BRAW 5:1 & graded in Davinci Resolve 16.

View the film here

A short movie I created reflecting on what took up lots of my son's time while at the beach in Menton, France. His eternal curiosity with the water and pebbles.

I wrote and narrated a poem over the video. A few years down... I'm likely going to shed a few tears looking back at this.

Shot on the Sony A7rIII with the SLR Magic: 15mm, 35mm and 50mm lenses. Edited/graded in Davinci Resolve 15.

A first study in creating macro shots of a diamond/CZ round brilliant cut in CG. Rendered thru Cinema 4D and RedShift3D render engine on 2x RTX 2080ti cards. Approx render time of 3-5 mins for 1920x1080 to 3000x3000 px sizes.

Worked real hard on creating a good looking diamond material. Some post work done in PS for toning and colouring.

In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partitioning of a plane into regions based on distance to points in a specific subset of the plane. That set of points is specified beforehand, and for each seed there is a corresponding region consisting of all points closer to that seed than to any other.

Mathematics aside, they are just beautiful. Here are various compositions combining side projects and my love for the voronoi pattern.

Simpli-CITY

Sometimes I shoot simple things... like... staples... a lot of staples.. and see BIG things in those little things... making something out of nuthin'... that's what the arts are about sometimes for me.

Study in composition with basic building blocks: paper & light. Playing position & paper heights with a single light.

Wrappers in stark contrast - Derived from a shoot with AD Guillaume Brière.

PR shots done for Dust of Gods brand. Art direction: Guillaume Brière for Chimera Collective, a Toronto/New York-based agency.

Contrast study with fresnel bulb

I decided to shoot something simple with simple lighting, and just play with shapes, shadows and contrasts. Out came some utensils from our kitchen drawer. Because the utensils weren't in pristine condition, and not wanting to burden my retouchers with pointless scratch removal, I decided to shoot in a very high contrast, playing more on the silhouette of the object, making a very black and white image. Most of the images on white were shot with a very shallow depth of field of around f4 on the Phase One camera's Macro lens.

Here's a story I created from the shoot: The text is perhaps a touch graphical in nature so be warned :) Images are mostly out of camera with minimal retouching. You can see the lighting diagram for the first image at the end of this post if interested.

Not much represents humanity more than the car. A status symbol for some, a method of going from point A to point B for others - and for a rare few, a machine that slowly destroys our planet. 

Here's my playground with my virtual cars.... 

The quintessential "Burger". Symbol of modern day America, obesity, and what's wrong with the modern world. Made into a cubic representation as we all live in a society with rules, and conformities we need to follow, I found this did a good job of showcasing the modern day human living in North America. 

The future these days appears to be somewhat bleak - less certainties in the political world; the environment is being put into the backseat. Makes me wonder what's going to be left for our children - perhaps the eternal question raised by every generation of parent.

The following series is one that represent a fiction that is rather dark, ominous and gloomy. Featuring strong shadows, geometry and colors that represent this exact forecast. Yours to interpret really...  

Devolution Peaks
By Amanda Mekhael

There’s nothing left here
the dark has eaten us
piece by
piece
Our bones are in the storm

And yet
the clouds ache to unfurl us
like maps
so that our skin may speak

Do we still have names here
on Devolution Peaks?
Maybe there’s still light here
something that breathes

Rise

slit the shadows
use your teeth

Quick

before the crows come
and
devour our dream

The play of light on objects defines its shape, space, and volume. Simplistic objects when lit in specific ways, or at specific times of day, bring to life, as by some magical property the life found within its design. 

Throughout architectural works in all continents and years, this theme has come back, over and over. Especially in the past century, architects have explored this further, making the impossible, seem possible. 

Here are some of my interpretations of their works... 

Colours in combination with simple geometric shapes can render impressive results when put in harmony. This series of studies is all about pastels and simple shapes.

Many of the renders below are based on real-world architecture to whom I've listed the Architect or designer's name beneath the image. Other images.... not quite real or existent on Earth... but alive in my mind. 
 

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

Ever walk into a forest in the evening? Or when there's a thick fog in the air? That eerie silence that deafens your ears.... That solitary moment you get to explore the outer reaches of your mind.... This is what I'm trying to achieve in the series of images. 

Here is a poem written by my friend Amanda. She was quite inspired by this series of images, especially, 
        "The Lonely Pathway" 
I thank her for this addition to my imagery. As I said to her, my images inspire words in her, while her words inspire images in me. 

      "The Lonely Pathway"
      By Amanda Mekhael

      My breath is a song
      only the trees know
      their limbs are my limbs
      their skin is my skin
      they drink
      my dark
      pieces
      they hold me in-
      tact
      roots and blood
      all my whispers
      and keys
      sharp demons
      sleek dreams
      I go to speak
           and
      out spill
      their leaves

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partitioning of a plane into regions based on distance to points in a specific subset of the plane. That set of points is specified beforehand, and for each seed there is a corresponding region consisting of all points closer to that seed than to any other. These regions are called Voronoi cells. The Voronoi diagram of a set of points is dual to its Delaunay triangulation. 

-- Wikipedia

In non-mathematical terms, voronoi patterns are simply exciting to work and play with. The sky is the limit with what we can do with them. From sculptures, to 2D drawings...  it's endless. Here's my take on this and a few plays on its form. 

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

This series of images deals with my study of the Icosahedron shape. Though the formal mathematical definition has 20 sides, all these images started as a icosahedron-based sphere mesh. From there I created various elements of which the egg became a central theme to this series. 

Perhaps these images are from a future version of Earth, perhaps not... this is a place where life as we know it has unfortunately changed for the worse. The last remaining trees are being incubated, perhaps by a giant chicken? Ha... I don't know...  sometimes you never know where your designs will lead you. 

Some of the environments have been created from scratch, while others are composited templates. 

I wish to give credit to Jonathan Andrew Photography for the image of the snow-covered mountains plate I used in one of the images. 

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

Nothing encompasses modern civilisation more than the skyscraper. It's grandness, defining all modern city skylines with a plethora of shapes, sizes, and architectural designs.

In this study of mine, I stripped the skyscraper to its simplest form - a series of rectangular boxes in repeating patterns. Each of these boxes is a piece of reflective glass on which I reflected various skies and structure. Playing with linear and curved shapes, I played with light to bring out the wonders that can be had in this form of art.

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

Ever see those posts of how infinitesimally large or small things are? Where are we in relation to this chain? From quarks to super giant stars, or a multiverse....  Are we just a piece of this larger puzzle?

This series of artwork depicts my take on us floating in this life-sustaining planet, a little globe of life, water, living amongst other "things", sometimes smaller, and many times larger than our Earth.

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

The oscillating patterns of waves.

The oceans: the source of life on Earth. I can spend hours watching water: from slow moving waters, to eddies or large crashing waves....  my primal brain unknowingly or subconsciously wants to stay close to it. 

n this take of oceans, I created a highly stylized, or pixelated version of the ocean on a evening sky. Reminds me of some animations I liked as I grew up. Very naïve in nature, but one that everybody understands. The true difficulty of representing water in a static form, is the motion, colors, and reflections that happen while in motion. With this style, I feel I've captured its magic somewhat.

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

Glass has been a pillar of architecture throughout the last centuries. With unique properties creating a vast universe of color, reflections and refractions, architects and artists alike have honed into their near magical properties.

ith this image, I enjoyed seeing the properties of absorption you can find in glass, or any translucent material really. As light beams travel through the material, light bends, certain wavelengths of light get "swallowed" and colors and intensities change. A sort of kaleidoscope effect can be achieved.

Created in Cinema 4D with Octane Render & Adobe Photoshop

Here's a brief look at some interior visualizations I've done recently. Everything in here is created with Cinema 4D and rendered with Octane Render.