Rise of the Designer

I had the pleasure of working with my friends over at Startup Weekend earlier this year on a new version of Startup Weekend titled “Rise of the Designer“. Read More →

I Gotta New Look!

As many of you have already noticed, my site received a little makeover recently. I was hesitant to draw much attention to it as I was having some issues but it seems like we’re all good to go! Read More →

Startup Weekend: Redmond

First off, you’re probably asking “what is Startup Weekend?” “Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects. It is an amazing opportunity to connect with other passionate and skilled individuals, and perhaps even find a co-founder or two to transform your idea into reality.”

Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll tell you a bit about my experience. Early last week, my buddy Donald DeSantis invited me to come out to Startup Weekend Redmond. The last time I was invited as a photographer with the responsibility of capturing the event on camera. This time I was invited to take part in the creation of something new and never done before. I ended up getting recruited by Adam Philipp, a Seattle based Lawyer with the idea of CAMBadge. “CAMBadge is a digital name tag app that runs on your phone and utilizes the front facing camera to help put names with faces.” Adam was the brains behind this idea and I helped with the design of the app/website. Lisa Song helped us out with getting the website up and running and lastly, Red Foundry we’re our heroes for the weekend because they got this thing up and running on our phones in two days! Here are a couple of screen shots of our app.

I had a great time, learned a lot and met some awesome/incredibly smart humans. I decided to bring along my D200 for the event even though it’s low light capabilities aren’t really suitable for this type of setting. Shooting at 1000 ISO created a great vintage/film look which I really ended up linking! Below are some shots of life in a Startup Weekend box.

Three Months

As many of you know, I have been making music for going on 10 years now. I don’t have too much to show for that but I’ve realized over the last few years I truly love to make music. It can be a pain in the ass sometimes but in the end I have fun making it. I’ve lost the ambition to try and “make it” simply because I know I don’t have a chance and because I think it would take all the fun out of it. I just like making music. It’s fun. It’s refreshing. I can be me and I can be someone totally different.

I think this is like the third post now regarding this “coming soon” project titled “Positive Vibrations”. The project was started almost three years ago during the making of my first album “Walk With Me” (which is available for free download). My good friend David aka Positive ID is the man behind the mixer making all the beats for the project while I’m the one writing the rhymes on my electronic notepad. Through out the last few years life has just not allowed us to connect and get this thing recorded. Well, things changed this last Spring and we’ve been at it for our third attempt and making some serious progress.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present “Three Months”.  I know I probably missed my mark with the weather but what the hell. If you love it and want to put it on your ipod then go here, and download it for free! Spread the word!

[audio:http://mikefolden.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Three-Months.mp3|titles=Three Months]

Don’t Look Back

Several months ago I worked with local musician Jack The Ripper on his debut album “Don’t Look Back”. Jack is a producer first but ended up singing on a few of the tracks as well.  Seattle locals like Geologic from Blue Scholars, Spaceman, Dyme Def and Grynch are only a few of the dope emcees who are featured on this album. The album is solid from start to finish and touches on several different styles. Don’t Look Back is available on iTunes and you can download it here.

I was stoked to be able to do the photography and design for this project. Below are some of the photos we took for the album and then the album design itself. I definitely recommend you pick this up and support the Seattle local.

Behind the Scenes with Dice

So I’m sure all of you have seen the photos I took of Seattle’s own Lauren Hill, Dice. If not, you can check em’ out here. It was a huge shoot for me for several reasons. One, it was the first woman I professionally shot and two, she was the first client of mine who had a bunch of ideas and put in a ton of effort to really create something great.

Here is the video that I had her friends Brandon and Blaine shoot while I was shooting. Edited by the great Chris Wojcik who is also the newest (and only) member of team Mike Folden Photography. He is one of the videographers for REI, so Chris has a lot of knowledge to drop on me. We have some really cool ideas so you will be seeing some really sweet videos in the coming months. Here is an awesome video Chris made entirely on his iPhone, including the song he wrote and recorded into his phone (unfortunately you have to log into Facebook to check out the video). Chris is the dude.

Anyways, check out the behind the scenes video we put together and let me know what you think. Is it too long? Is it too much of me talking? What do you guys want to see? Let me know. I depend on the feedback so please don’t hold back!

I really learned a lot at this shoot. I feel like my whole game got upgraded and I approach each shoot with a whole new mind state. Thank you Dice for being such a sport and opening my eyes up to a whole new approach.

In addition to the photos, I was honored to do the design work for Dice’s debut album “The Foundation”. Here are a couple of shots of the what the album looks like.

In case you missed the link at the top, click here to check out Dice’s music. If you’re a tweeter, you can follow her every move at www.twitter.com/ONLYoneDICE

Next stop, Chelan to shoot my first wedding!