Jean-Sébastien Monzani - simplemoment.com - jsmonzani.com

Some more short movies

2010-01-06T14:44:00.002Z

Hello,

I've kept on creating new short movies and developing my skills. Better scenarios and more complex effects are possible now that I've bought new software and computer :)

unspoken from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

escape from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

urban friends from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Dreamfields from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Short Movies

2009-09-29T14:22:00.003+01:00

Hello,

Over the five past months, my photo-stories work has evolved into a new approach: short movies. The production of such films would usually require much more resources than for photography. I've tried to turn my limitations into something positive and I'm having great fun experimenting. You'll find below a selection of these recent movies. I hope that you will enjoy them.

The most prominent change is that some stories were created with movies as a first target, sometimes expanding into photos as well but not necessarily.

Unspoken words from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Seatopia from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Another Life, Another Day from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

I remember when I was a teenager from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

entretemps from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

afterlife from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Vernalis

2009-08-19T13:26:00.001+01:00

Vernalis, a website for a client

"Market research has been mediocre at best to predict the success of new products or services. Example of false positives and false negatives abound.

Today you can launch new ideas often for less than the cost of market research. Just launch it and learn. The only thing you risk is success or precious learning that will be the springboard for your future projects."

Entretemps is featured on Channel Souvenir from Earth

2009-07-11T10:34:00.000+01:00

Souvenirs from earth is a TV station broadcasting a 24/7 program of Film and Video art. Cable TV Station broadcasting in France (freebox 129) and Germany (Unitymedia/Kabel BW).

"Entretemps" is now part of their "Strawberry field" program

For more information on Souvenirs from earth as well as sample clips, have a look at: www.souvenirsfromearth.tv ... it is a great source of inspiration and quality video-art, I am sure that you will like it.

Cheers

JS

New office and new works on the way

2009-06-20T14:52:00.000+01:00

Hello!

I'll move to a new office on July :) And new works are on the way as well.
Cheers

www.webexpertsonline.net is stealing others' works

2009-05-25T12:38:00.002+01:00

I'm reporting another fake company which is stealing my work: it's called

1096 Sector 42/B

Chandigarh - INDIA

Phone: +91-172-308-6236

Mobile: +91-998-840-5441

Email: info@webexpertsonline.net

Email: sales@webexpertsonline.net

http://www.webexpertsonline.net/

My ecarus logo has been ripped, watermarked removed and presented as if it was their work:
http://www.webexpertsonline.net/l_protfolio_1.html

My book is available: Suspended Time

2009-05-02T10:35:00.004+01:00

Dear friends,

Since Blurb has improved the print quality on their photo-premium paper, I've decided to make a public book with some of my best portraits and photos.

In a nutshell:

80 pages
25x20 cm / 18x10 inches
Printed on premium paper
Soft-cover version retails for $35
Hard-cover version retails for $49

Both versions share the same printing process, only the binding is different.

For shipping, check on blurb.com if they can send it to your country.

Blurb.com book review: updated (May 2009)

2009-05-02T10:11:00.005+01:00

Following up my previous review of blurb.com book, I would like to share with you some of the new features available.

You can now order books with Premium photo paper

This makes a whole difference in print quality. I've ordered a book in November 2008, here are some sample images:

Binding
The new binding is now better, more flat and rigid. However, it "eats" more of the images in the spine, so, be careful when putting elements towards the inner edge of the page.

Print quality has been much improved with Premium paper: lighter tones are less grainy, and the paper (150g / m2) is very pleasant.

Colors fidelity: 5/5 Colors are very good. Not too dark, no wrong colorcast, this is a VERY pleasant. Really, kudos to Blurb - labs who know me can tell you how much I care about it :) Perfect colors and luminosity all the way.

Grainless photo printing: 4/5 Grain is noticable at close inspection but it isn't much of a problem

Compression and artefacts: 4/5 Images are a little soft but it matches the printing quality.

Light tones rendering: 4/5 Light tones are less grainy on premium paper.

Finishing: 5/5 The book looks solid and nice.

Soft-cover version I've tried the soft-cover binding and it is surprisingly solid and cheaper too.

Make your own photo book: a review

2008-05-27T18:58:00.002+01:00

What can you expect?

Certainly not the same quality as photo prints. It’s a different process which will struggle with subtle light tones. On the other end, there was no evidence of dots in dark areas where black IS black.

The printing quality is on par with entry-level 4-ink printers on a good glossy paper. It’s a little grainy.

Let’s have a detailed look (click on the screenshots)

Here is my review of my first photo book ordered at blurb.com

I’ve finally ordered a 160 pages photo book and I’m rather pleased with the result. For less than 50$ (with shipping to US), it’s OK.

1. Binding

It’s rather good. Of course, if you fully-open the book, there is this little “cracking” but it seems resistant. Pages don’t seem to want to fly away.

2, 3 Closeup

With CMYK ink printing like this, a closeup examination will reveal some dots. Don’t worry! You won’t noticed them much when browsing the book.

4. Compression

No matter how good your images are, Blurb’s software recompresses them to JPEG around ~9 (on 12) quality. I was very worried about this because the lossy JPEG compression introduces artefacts, especially on red tones. To my own surprise, since the printing is grainy, there wasn’t much problems with that.

5. Artefacts?

Texts weren’t producing much artefacts either. There *are* some artefacts but that’s really on tight closeup that you can see them. Still, avoid small texts on JPEGs if you can.

Conclusion

Colors fidelity: 5/5. Colors are very good. Not too dark, no wrong colorcast, this is a VERY pleasant surprise. Really, kudos to Blurb - labs who know me can tell you how much I care about it Perfect colors and luminosity all the way.

Grainless photo printing: 3/5 Grain is a little high, but if you don’t bother it should be OK. You know how perfectionist I am: if I say it’s OK, then it’s really OK It should be perfectly good for BW prints for instance.

Compression and artefacts: 4/5 Images are a little soft but I’ve got to admit that the compression matches the printing quality.

Light tones rendering: 3/5 Light skin tones can become unfortunately quite grainy. This should be improved. I could give a lower rate but since it only happens on less than 10 pages over 160, I wouldn’t say it’s too common.

Finishing: 5/5 The book looks solid and nice.

Software: 2/5 The software feel rather amateurish, I would much prefer to upload my own PDF. But at least, it didn’t crashed

Overall impression on clients and friends: 5/5 I’ve tested it and both were quite excited and impressed by the book. To me, it’s not as good as photo prints but it was worth it (for the price).

For the moment, it’s the best book offer I’ve seen for the price.

Bertrand Bitz

2008-03-29T15:43:00.004Z

Sortie du CD de Bertrand Bitz le 8 avril 2008.
J'ai assuré le design du CD, du site, les photos, etc..

And the ripper's site is down

2007-12-07T14:18:00.000Z

Following up my previous post, I've managed to bring down the website of the ripper I was talking about yesterday :)

By the way, since it's December, I've got an ongoing Advent Calendar project, together with 23 artists. You can view it on my DeviantArt account.

This photographer artisticvisionphotography.com is stealing my work

2007-12-06T17:04:00.000Z

Just a quick note Let me introduce you to M.Raul Sebazco / 321 West 24th St / New York / New York 10011 who is bravely stealing and ripping my work on his website called artisticvisionphotography.com
Now you know why I need to watermark my work :(

No photo book on Blurb.com and here is why

2007-11-22T18:57:00.000Z

Hello

Some of you had noticed that I was planning to create a 160 pages photo book at blurb.com. I was quite excited about it.

The first time I made a book with another company resulted in a complete disaster: I had carefully scaled down all of my image to the proper pixel dimensions for the page, saving them with the highest JPEG quality. Guess what? Their software recompressed my images before sending them, with a crappy JPEG quality resulting in ugly JPEG artefacts (see wikipedia if you don't know what it is).

So, of course, I had checked on Blurb website and forums - everything seemed fine, no recompression should be done.

Well, I'm afraid, there IS some recompression even if you create a correct file. Fortunately, I've noticed it while sending 4 times less data that I had expected. Hm. This shouldn't be good.

I've ran some extra tests and spent some more time on it, and here is the result:

any file beyond 2 Mb will be recompressed by the application
one can assume that JPEG quality 9 – 10 will give a filesize below 2Mb (max quality is JPEG 12)
Artifacts quite show up at JPEG quality 9 – they are less noticeable at 10, but 9 is really the moment when you can see them. Especially on detailed red tones and edges of objects.

While probably a lot of images will print more or less correctly, I know that the most detailed ones won't (think of these pics with red umbrellas, red fishes, etc)

Therefore, I don't want you (and me) to pay $40-50 for a book that won't meet my quality standards.

Sure, it's the price of 10 photos for me and I would had got 160 of them (not on photo paper, though). But simply due to tentatives on limiting bandwidth and disk storage, these companies fail on providing a good service.

That is, to say the least, quite stupid.

Traditional art and trend in graphic design

2007-10-23T17:30:00.000+01:00

Hello my friends,

We have been celebrating yesterday Traditional Art on DeviantArt which was, I think, a good thing as many pieces there are more digital and traditional ones deserve recognition too. Changing our medium offers new ideas, challenges and possibilities - all for good.

I have been noticing for many months how traditional and hand-made/drawn/painted pieces are coming back into graphic design (in a general sense). If we step back, say, 7 years ago in the early 2000, most commercial trendy and cool designs were pure computer-generated stuff. Now, people tend to think that using the computer is too easy and if I consider some of those previously successful designs which were mainly Photoshop filters and various blending modes, I can't say this isn't completely false.

So, where are we now? I think, in the most exciting time: mediums are just mediums: paper, scanner, photoshop, ink... we can print an image and paint on it, scan a drawing and digitally paint on it... that's the time for mix-media. I personally don't care about how many processes are involved, what's important is how the final image will look. I mainly work digitally but this doesn't mean that my images should look digital (think of my paintings for instance).

Now I see on artists blogs, statement such as "[...] when creative design was a more hands-on affair, pens, pencils, [...] allowed designers to express a real individuality in their craft that is not possible with a keyboard and mouse." (this ones come from the cool blog www.cpluv.com ). Well, really, I can't agree. It just seems to me that digital artists are just re-discovering traditional media and feeling excited about it - but this is just a tool!

I've always disagreed with people who think that they know and do "real" art because of the medium they've elected. Like "I shoot film, I'm a real photographer". "I'm using a Leica because all famous photographers had one".

Everything is just a medium. These are just a tools.

It is important to play with them all. Experiment. Gain experience, get ideas, but don't disrespect others' work because they don't use your technique.

You'll get respect by showing some innovative ideas or touching images. But not because you're using a specific medium.

Enjoy and have fun mixing things altogether until you end up with something great and personal.

Pandora

2007-08-20T12:52:00.002+01:00

Pandora is the latest photostory that I've uploaded on my website. I hope that you will enjoy it. Another series will be posted soon.

New Canon cameras

2007-08-20T12:45:00.000+01:00

You know I'm a fan of Canon - well, not to say that other brands aren't good, it's just that I find all I need in Canon's cameras.

Anyway, even if there's no replacement for my great EOS 5D, Canon has now announced, among other things, a Powershot G9 compact camera. It's one of the few ones to have full manual control and RAW image setting. It'll probably be more expensive than the A710 IS (about to be replaced by a similar A720 IS) but both are really the best tool that you can get for the moment IF you need full manual control (which is, to my mind, mandatory).

Furthermore, the middle-range EOS 40D (replacing the 30D) has a lots a small features that are very well thought of: lens-cleaning system, live view, 3" screen and new buttons and settings. It'll be a great tool for the price. The next update within 12 months will probably be to put the same settings on a new 5D model (I'm not sure that I'll upgrade, though)

web look update

2007-08-11T21:33:00.000+01:00

I've updated the look of my jsmonzani.com website

the Shades of Serendipity

2007-08-04T08:11:00.002+01:00

The Shades of Serendipity, my latest photoseries, is now on my website.

Orphea: new photo story

2007-07-21T08:01:00.002+01:00

Hello my friends!

Orphea, my latest photstory, is now on my website. I hope that you will like it!

retrofiction

2007-06-27T20:37:00.001+01:00

Two new photos on my website. I hope that you will like them... I love the pattern :)

muse

2007-06-21T17:52:00.004+01:00

There's a new photo-series on my website, it's called muse.

Enjoy!

GREAT live help for Illustrator CS3 is already integrated into the application!

2007-06-15T22:12:00.000+01:00

I've just discovered a GREAT feature in Illustrator CS3. It's called Knowhow and can be found in Window->Adobe Labs (together with Kuler, Adobe's great color palettes sharing tool by the way)

Knowhow detects the current tool and shows all available options. It's a GREAT way to learn about shortcuts, since Illustrator has loads of them. Look at the screenshot below to get it.

Furthermore, and thanks to del.icio.us, you can also automatically search the web for tips on the current tool! Head to NDesign's website for more info.

That's a great idea and step forward for a software! I really hope more companies will go into this direction.

James Jean: a great illustrator

2007-06-15T20:13:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to feature the work of James Jean. He is an incredible illustrator! You can find his works on his website, he also has a blog and shares also his image on this website. Enjoy! If you have suggestions of other illustrators, don't hesitate to share them :)

Besides that, I'm going to shoot new photos on Sunday :)

Finally

2007-06-11T08:13:00.000+01:00

So, I've received my new PC today... everything works, I'm quite happy!

Cheers

JS

Quiet

2007-06-06T18:58:00.000+01:00

Hm, I'm still waiting for my new PC :-]
Besides that, I'm quite good. I haven't planned new photo series for the moment, although I'll probably shoot one within the next weeks. Most of my models are busy for the moment - and so am I too.

In the meantime, I like to paint... I need to practice more thought!

Quiet

Darkskies (new photostory)

2007-05-31T09:55:00.001+01:00

Hello my friends !

Here is a new photostory, I hope that you will enjoy it. You can view Darkskies on my website.

I will also receive my new PC soon ;)
Cheers!

JS

2007-05-15T14:29:00.001+01:00

Soooo. I've just ordered my new PC, should get it next week.

I was expecting to pick up something regular, but, realizing my needs, I ended up with something more "special".

Hope it'll work great :)

The new photos are on their way, and I'll maybe do a new series this week-end...

Cheers!

* * *

Just for those interested, it's a E6600 processor, 2Gb of Ram, 2 x 500Gb HD + I'm gonna add my two other 350+500Gb disks. There's room for 6 HD on the motherboard anyway, this should be OK. And took everything to make it as quite as possible. I'm sure I'll enjoy it ;) Enough for tech talk, you know it's not something I much enjoy.

Big crash

2007-05-14T09:44:00.000+01:00

Hi,

Just had a big computer crash yesterday evening while working on my latest photos. While logging today, my profile (on XP) was buggy :-( It took me some time to fix it.

Plus, I had a Trojan alert with Avast but, as far as I can see, this might be just a false positive from the latest database, since it's only on one program (Fast Stone image viewer). I'm going to update it, it should fix it.

*sigh*

I hate when I loose time like that. But I've got to face it too: most of my four hard disks are now almost full, and I really need to buy a new computer with loads of new disks inside :-/

My main concern is: was this crash due to the new Photoshop CS3? ... since I was editing pics and this happened while closing an image. I'll keep you informed.

Cheers

CS 3 + New photos soon

2007-05-12T16:36:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Good news, my friends: I'm gonna make a new photo series tomorrow.
It will be the time to test the latest Photoshop CS 3, as I've just received the suite today. Expensive but cool ;)

Bucharest: 115 exhibition

2007-05-09T18:38:00.000+01:00

Hello!

I just wanted to remind my Romanian visitors that there's currently a large exhibition in Bucharest of digital paintings... Art:PartTwo website. You can also view images of the gallery
And there's a piece of mine (the third ;) !)

2007-05-06T12:51:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my world. I am a Swiss / French graphic designer and photographer. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland. My works are often constructed as photo-series - something between fashion photography and movie storyboards, with a strong eye for color and composition. For more information, visit my websites: jsmonzani.com and simplemoment.com