Photographs by the Artist Formerly Known as Mike D

You're a joke if you never thought about or wished for superpowers; these pics illustrate those dreams

We start with a phu man portraying the green lantern. Compared to other super heroes the green lantern is a lot more "sci-fi" and is frequently in outser space. To try and show this i took the pictures at night time then turned my flash on so i could actually capture something. In lightroom i used split toning to make the brightness of the flash green to make it seem as if he's giving off a green aura. Idealy there would have been stars in the sky when i took the original picture but it was a cloudy night so i super imposed my own on which i think looks probably better than if they were real. The first pic was taken off a balcony looking over the beach but it was too dark to catch anything but the railing which i think looks very interesting as it just fades in and out of the blackness. In the second one i took another picture that i wasnt going to use but had a clearer image of his fist. I made the fist extremely green, magnetic tooled it onto the present image, and made it opaqe. The green lantern commonly uses big fists that eminate from his ring to fight. To make it look like the fist was coming out of the ring i dragged another copy of the fist over, made it every more opaque than the main fist, stretched it between phu's real fist and the fake one, then erased any parts of it that overlapped.

In this pic we have brandon posing has Nick Fury who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. which is the organization in the marvel comics universe that serves as an intermediary between the government and superheroes. Nick Fury has no super powers other than being a badass so it wouldnt make sense for the picture to be all bright and colorful like the others; instead i took a darker tone with it by taking it inside with him apparently interogatting (sp?) some chump (myself). Instead of using the effect direct positive in light room like i did the others i went into photoshop and used the filter setttings to embose the entire photo. I think it really creates a feeling of violence and confusion plus the white highlight of Fury to the right of this figure looks really sweet. If you look closely you can see the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on the laptop which i tried to put in there as a subtle guide to show who this is since Nick Fury doest have too many unique identifiable features aside from his eye-patch.

Here we have Spider-Man portrayed by some clown. I really wanted to get an action shot that kind of displayed the acrobatics and agility of the character; even though i'm not terribly talented in either of those traits i tried to make it look like i was by jumping off a loading dock then setting the camera on a tripod with burst settings so it would capture images of me jumping off just a second apart from another. Since i was in motion i unfortunatly couldnt get a clear shot of myself or get a shot where i was still posing in the arc of the jump. Since Spider-Man is so quick i thought it was justifiable to make it look like you could see a trail of myself as i was attacking. The original picture is the me on the far left. I took the one on the far right from a different pic and put it farther ahead since it looked like i was in a pose i would naturally go to after the original. I used the second pose and make it opaque, then warped it to create a motion-blur looking effect. Oh i guess i should say i used direct positive on this too, but i did that for all of them in case i didnt mention that on the others.

Just sat on the top of our building (which our land-lord doesnt want us to go on which in that case he should lock the opening) and tried to put myself in a posture that looked a little insect like as i looked over the city looking for dastardly criminals. I used direct positive (duh) and the cloning stamp to fix the rips that were in the costume from my halloween shenanigans

After Matt's original epic portrayl of the man of steel earlier this year i went back to my superhero picture taking roots for this pic. After applying direct positive i went into photoshop and clone stamped the "S" so it was completely red and crack free. Then i applied a "wind" effect in the filter settings to set it apart and make it feel original. After i did this his face was too distorted so i opeaned the original pic back up and magnetic tooled his unaffected face/neck to the editted picture. Holy crap is my spelling bad in these.

Our last super hero is Keith Nick portraying Wolverine. It was obviously much easier to go with the modern and edgy look of wolverine rather than his cartoony blue/yellow tights costume. Despite taking these the day after his hair was done i think it still looks spot on. The side burns had to be eddited a bit so there was no duc-tape showing and since i only had one claw in my possession i needed something for him to be doing in his other hand. Wolverine loves his cigars so we plopped one in keith's mouth and i think it looks sweet. I finished this photo ages ago and i honestly forget what modifications i did to it but i'm really pleased with the lighting and how the colors flesh out.

Same as the top but with more attitude

In this landscape I tried to make it look as if it was taken in the 70s by using split toning to change the hue of the shadows purple and the bright spots yellow. I think this change also provides a sharp visual contrast to other pictures of the same river as you'll see in the next picture. In this picture you can also see what has become a subconscious theme of mine where the main point of view is off-center; in this case being the coal boat which i took many pictures of until i felt it was in the best spot.

This is another landscape that i shot panorama style; i think this setting helped me capture a large amount of objects that really gives the viewer a lot to observe. In the far left you can see downtown which is a great backdrop compared to the tree-filled hills that cover the rest of the photo. In the center of the photo are the variety of scientific business places that i find to be very architecturally creative. The Hot-Metal bridge on the right once again provides the off-center structure that i feel helps the photo by giving the viewer a sense of depth as well as the relation i had in respect to the landscape i shot. I used my favorite light room effect "direct positive" to turn Pittsburgh's otherwise gray sunlight into a variety of bright colors which i think especially enhanced the river.

What i like about this picture of Duquesne is the large amount of trees that i feel are otherwise unnoticed as students walk through them from class to class. At my high vantage point i was able to capture this image of campus that almost looks more like a park than a university. I think college hall provides an appropriate main visual point hidden behind a row of trees and almost looking out of place in the otherwise structure-free photo. This is another example of how i unknowingly place the object that captures the most attention off to the side, i dont even realize this until after i look at the pictures but it is visually appealing to me. Not sayin, just sayin