Get Better

I created this image below just over a year ago at the very beginning of the pandemic. I was feeling hopeful at the prospect of sending positive vibes out into the atmosphere. I posted the image on Instagram and at the time I wrote: “These are obviously tough, scary times around the world, but I’m hoping something good will come out of it. The hope is that people will realize we’re on this journey through life together and there’s no room for hate or judgment. No one person is safer than the next in this crisis. No one is better than the next. Although physically we’re all practicing social distancing right now, there’s no reason the world can’t come together. We are one.”

For a moment, it felt like the world was coming together and as things went on, the division reared its ugly head again. I just happened to be thinking about this today with all of the senseless violence that has returned with reckless abandon. We must stay optimistic, but, admittedly, it can be hard to maintain that level of hope. Look out for each other, everyone and stay safe. Enjoy the day! - Josh

We are one.jpg

song of the moment: “Royal Empress” by Greg Laswell

Head In The Clouds

This photo and story are from a few years back … I enjoy spending some of my free time riding trails on my mountain bike and occasionally I stumble across some very interesting things along my way. I discovered this building on an adventure riding through Wompatuck State Park in Massachusetts. This building is considerably massive to find in the middle of the woods and really intrigued me. I recall riding around it for a while trying to figure out what it is and the best I could determine is that it was an old military building from long ago. Whatever it was, I knew I had to come back at night and try to create something with it. I found this location coming from the woods, but soon found that this building was very close to a road that runs through the state park. Unfortunately, this road is blocked off to cars after dusk. That meant I had to ride my bike to this location at night surrounded by nothing but trees and darkness. A headlight on my bike would’ve been welcome. After riding a mile or two through the pitch black of the park, I made it to my location safe and sound—for a moment. With my tripod on my handlebars, my camera bag on my back, and apparently my head in the clouds, my front tire went directly into a pothole and I flipped over the handlebars and landed on the ground feeling as though I broke my thumb. The pain was strong, but the humor of my stupidity was stronger and all I could do was laugh. While I was waiting for the pain to subside and setting up my shot, I called my brother Nick on my cell phone so he could share the joy of my pain and laugh a little bit more. Eventually I got the shot you see here and did a little light painting in a different location to add to this photo. So, you’re actually looking at two exposures. Lucky you! Enjoy the day! - Josh

Rubino_blog-2020.jpg

song of the moment: “Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies

Together

Towards the beginning of the pandemic, I was asked by a fellow designer, Sudarsana Mohanty, to contribute a design to a zine she was putting together to raise money for PPE for frontline responders. It was an honor to be a part of it. The idea of this particular design is no matter how torn apart and different the world or an individual has become, it can still return to full form and perhaps be even better than before. Let’s hope there’s some truth in that. Enjoy the day! - Josh

Rubino_Together_6x6_RGB.jpg

song of the moment: “Get It Together” by The Go! Team

Time Flies

I can’t believe it’s been almost 9 years since I made this time lapse video. Sometimes photographs ruin my actual memory of events, but I have a crystal clear memory of the events of that long, successful day of going around Boston making the images that ended up in the final piece. It has over 9,000 views on Vimeo (which is pretty good considering it’s not a video of a cat doing karate) and was part of some travel festival in Italy (details are murky). I might need to make a sequel. Now taking location requests! Enjoy the day! - Josh

A time lapse of one day in Boston from various areas of the city. The total is just over 4,200 photographs in this time lapse. Photography, Film Edit, and Music by Josh Rubino. joshrubino.com

song of the moment: “A Hard Day’s Night” by The Beatles

Weekend Inspiration

I love the outdoors and I’m constantly inspired by nature and the weather. One recent Saturday started with a rainy, foggy morning and ended with some beautiful, warm sun. I kept the feeling I had of each moment and started creating from there. I like to make patterns in Illustrator and I was able to incorporate one into of the images below. I made multiple versions of these designs, but these ones resonate the most to me at the moment. Enjoy the day! - Josh

bubbles-01.jpg
ocean sun-02.jpg

song of the moment: “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits

Found Favorite

I just happened to be going through some photo catalogs of images I’ve made throughout the years and stumbled across this black and white photo I created of the Grand Tetons on an overcast day a while back. This peak is a truly beautiful piece of nature. I couldn’t run out of angles and distances from which to photograph the Tetons. I have a couple of other photos from that trip out west of the Tetons with which I’m really happy, but somehow I forgot about this one along the way. This particular image conveys the power of nature. I might need to print this at some point. Big! Enjoy the day! - Josh

Teton fog.jpg

song of the moment: “Blame It On The Tetons” by Modest Mouse

Hearthside

Below you’ll find a recent flier I created for the Hearthside House in Lincoln, RI. This historic house/museum throws many events throughout the year. This was an enjoyable challenge as I was out of my comfort zone because I’m really not into spooky things too much, but I would certainly describe this event remembering Victorian era funeral customs as spooky. Enjoy the day! - Josh

hearthside3-3-01.jpg

song of the moment: “Halloween” by Misfits

Something From Nothing

This image started out as just messing around in Photoshop and quickly became a fun experiment in create a pattern into a somewhat three-dimensional sphere. It ended up looking like some sort of “yarn planet,” but fun nevertheless. Enjoy the day! -Josh

sphere.jpg

song of the moment: “Catform” by Rogue Wave

Fun With Gifs!

Hey there. Been a while. Let me reel you back in with some fun animated gifs I created from album covers from some great musicians. Enjoy the day! - Josh

"Midnight Flowers" - The Dig

"Midnight Flowers" - The Dig

"Good News For People Who Love Bad News" - Modest Mouse

"Good News For People Who Love Bad News" - Modest Mouse

The White Stripes (self-titled)

The White Stripes (self-titled)

"Help" - The Beatles

"Help" - The Beatles

"Jailhouse Rock" - Elvis Presley ... sorry Elvis

"Jailhouse Rock" - Elvis Presley ... sorry Elvis

song of the moment: "I Already Forgot Everything You Said" by The Dig

Jamaica!!!!!!!!!!

I recently traveled to Jamaica with my beautiful wife. It was an amazing and relaxing week with amazing weather and amazing people.  Here are a couple of those people that we met along the way. Enjoy the day! - Josh

song of the moment: "Positive Vibration" by Bob Marley

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year from my wife and I. This past year has been incredible. Let's all hope for an amazing 2016 ahead! Enjoy the day!

song of the moment: "The Ice of Boston" by The Dismemberment Plan

TBT Reebok Style

A little Throw Back Thursday action for the blog. A couple years back, I had the privilege of working with some members of the Marketing and Development teams at Reebok headquarters in Canton, MA for a photo shoot. NBA All-Star John Wall had a new shoe coming out in different color options. One for his high school colors, one for college and one for the Washington Wizards. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to meet the man, but I had fun photographing all the different shoes with some different concepts. Here's one of the photos from that day that they chose to use featuring John Wall's high school colors. Enjoy the day! - Josh

song of the moment: "Paper Thin Walls" by Modest Mouse

Swampin' Louisiana

Hello again. As mentioned in the last post, there would be a SWAMP entry coming to the blog soon. Well, soon is now, my friends. And now is here ... huh? While in New Orleans with my brothers, we took an afternoon to leave the city and drive out to some swamp area and high five an alligator or two. We saw some cool creatures out there besides my brothers' beards. We caught a glimpse of some tiny lizards, frogs, and turtles, as well as some beautiful birds (a Great Egret I believe) and of course, alligators! The alligators were really exciting to see. They've been around forever and it feels like you're seeing a dinosaur. Luckily, they stayed away and didn't eat my face.  Here's a little sample of these animals, with a pretty spectacular spider web as well. Enjoy the day! - Josh

song of the moment: "Born On The Bayou" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Black & White New Orleans

As some of you may know, I'm getting married soon (sorry ladies ... ha!). In honor of this occasion, my two brothers threw me a brothers-only bachelor party. They told me to pick a U.S. city and they'd fly me there. I chose New Orleans. (If you happened to not have read the title of this blog entry, you just got pretty excited. If you did read the title, you were like, "Yea dude, we know, keep telling the story or show some photos or somethin'.") I'd never been to NOLA and this seemed like a great chance to check it out. So, we all flew down from our different cities a few weeks back and had a really fun few days.

I didn't know too much about the city before traveling down, but we explored a lot of it and I really took a liking to it. It's a great walking city with music all over the place and tons of character. There are a lot of great cities in this country, but New Orleans is pretty high up on my list now. I brought a camera along for the trip and found N.O. to also be a great city to photograph, particularly for black and white images due to the historical feel you get from much of the city. Thanks to Nick and Chris for showing me a good time. It meant a lot to me. Here's just a few photos.

We went to a swamp too, so there may be a gator post coming to the blog soon. Keep an eye out. Enjoy the day! - Josh

song of the moment: "Your Mama Don't Dance" by Rebirth Brass Band

Pizza Dance

It's okay to play with your food, right? I think so, as long you don't waste any. Well, that's exactly what I did to create this stop motion animation of four slices of pizza. I photographed the subject. I ate the subject. Simple! To help the pizza move along, I played some echo-y acoustic guitar as a soundtrack. Have a view and enjoy the day!

This is a quick stop motion animation I made of four pizza slices dancing around a plate. Photography, edit and music by Josh Rubino www.joshrubino.com

song of the moment: Exactly what you just heard in the video. Ha!

Arctic Blast!

The last month or so has been pretty interesting with all of the snow in New England. A lot of people seem frustrated with the weather, but these winters are what we've come to expect in this part of the country. It can be a little discouraging knowing these mounds of snow are going to be here for what seems like an eternity, but it's also pretty exciting to see the consistency of this whole thing. It seems that just about every Monday we're hit with some new pile of fluff from above.

I guess what has made this winter a little more enjoyable than some of the long, cold winters of the past is the adventure that has been given to me. I moved to Providence from Boston a little ways back, so this is my first winter in this city. I really love Boston, as I enjoy meandering through the streets and find it to be a tremendous walking city. I'm still trying to get a feel for Providence, however. I like it here, but I haven't yet developed a deep connection with this place. The storms are beginning to change my feelings. I've seen what normally appears to be a quiet city, finally come to life. It's been so great to see people snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing (see below), and out walking on the streets during and after the storms. I've also seen people opening up more by smiling and saying hello, something we should all do anyway, but doesn't seem to happen in this part of the country too often. This place is starting to grow on me!

Each of these arctic blasts has provided anyone who is interested with the aforementioned adventure. My muse (Angie) and I have gone on countless, mostly nighttime walks through the untouched snowy streets of the city, just sliding along and playing. No cars on the roads, walking in the streets and abandoning sidewalks is a really fun way to continue to discover a new city. I'll be happy when the warm weather arrives and we can get back to hiking and enjoying the rest of the outdoors, but for now, I'm going to make the most of these snowy adventures.

Sometimes I bring a camera along for these journeys. Here are a few photos. Enjoy the day! -Josh

song of the moment: "Happy Idiot" by TV On The Radio

Hola Luna!

Sometimes we get lucky and get a second chance at something. Sometimes we get even luckier and are given inspiration. Today was one of those days for me. As many of you know last night was a lunar eclipse and the best time to see the action on the east coast was between 4:30AM and a little after 7AM with the latter being even better, but unfortunately the weather had different plans. I set my alarm to wake up around 6AM. Seeing something interesting in the sky other than a caked wall of clouds was not going to be possible. There will be another lunar eclipse next April, but the rain clouds shut this party down.

Tonight, however, we still had the privilege of clear skies and a (99%) full autumn moon and this is where both my second chance and my inspiration enter. My fiancée, Angie, was going out with a friend tonight and she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was planning on going for a run (the full moon had slipped my mind at this point). She was driving to her friend's place about an hour later and gave me a call and told me how huge and low the moon was tonight and that I should go out with my camera. I still had not run at this point as I had fallen into one of those YouTube rabbit holes where I was watching stupid comedy videos while wearing my running clothes and delaying leaving the apartment. I was happy to get her call, both for the normal reasons of talking to her and for getting a kick in the pants to do what I had set out to do.

I began my run and started to doubt my knowledge of anything. I was running in the dark and looking all around like an idiot, as if being chased by somebody. In reality, I was trying to find the moon. I knew where the moon should be, but it was hiding, and I really thought I didn't understand anything anymore. Angie was right though! It was low and it was HUGE! Finally, as I looked off to my right, I saw the moon almost resting on the roof of a house I was running past and it was enormous. Well, really it's always the same size, it's all perspective, but you get the point. I knew I had to get a shot of it before it rose too high in the sky and got back to a normal looking size. It was then that my running pace tripled and I cut up a few side streets, looped around, and ran a four minute mile to get back to get my gear and go off shooting. Most of that is true. I'll let you believe what you want.

I sprinted up to my apartment, grabbed my camera bag and tripod, and ran down to the car to get to a location. I knew generally where I wanted to create the photo, but not specifically.  Fortunately, I was able to find my spot very quickly while the moon had not risen all too high yet. I set up next to a boat house on the Seekonk River on the east side of Providence and made the shot below. It was a fun photo to create and I'm thankful for Angie's inspiration and having a second chance to photograph such a beautiful moon after the clouds ripped the opportunity away just half a day before. I hope you enjoy the image! -Josh

moon seekonk river

song of the moment: "Luna Sea" by Vetiver

Terrifyingly Cute

I recently had the pleasure of going to the other side of the country to visit my brother and his family and celebrate one of my niece's fourth birthday.  It was a great visit.  I spent time with my family, played with my two little nieces and took a bunch of photographs.  I've only included the birthday girl in the photos below because watching her celebrate reminded me of how fun life can be.  She has such a great imagination and general enthusiasm that it doesn't matter if she's by herself or the leader of the pack with her friends and her little sister, she's going to enjoy life.  It's easy to get caught up in life and think that innocent bliss is just for little kids like my niece, but we can all let ourselves go every now and then and feel free doing different things we love, spending time away from social media and television, laughing with our friends, and actually experiencing life.

The photos I've posted below show my niece in her true form, putting everything she has into blowing out the candles on her Minnie Mouse cake.  It's a bit of a family tradition for us to be weirdos, so she's right there with her face painted.  My two brothers were painting the kids' faces a little bit before the cake was around.  My niece wanted to be a bunny.  It came out great and she looked incredibly adorable, but I won't deny that she looked like the tiniest member of the Insane Clown Posse for the afternoon.  My favorite photo of the day was the last photo I've posted, which is of her hands just covered in face paint, markers, crayons, and cake ... all the signs of an honest day of work. Happy Birthday! Enjoy! -Josh

song of the moment: "In My Tree" by Pearl Jam

Corporate Life

A lot of my work comes from people looking for something personal like family photos, weddings, dogs, etc., but I also work with businesses and meet some really nice people.  Oftentimes people get stigmas in their heads about certain types of photography and assume that one type is better than another.  I don't feel that way.  Getting to work with a camera and meet interesting people that I would normally not get to meet is a pretty rewarding experience.  So weddings, or product photography, or fashion/editorial photography are all fun and challenging, but I enjoy meeting the people at the offices I go to as well.  They always seem to educate me on a whole new world that I might not have much knowledge about.  It's also fun photographing people that don't have their picture taken too often.  I enjoy the process of getting to know these people, making them feel comfortable and achieving a nice smile that will hopefully assist them in getting more business.  Recently, this type of work brought me to CTI Towers, a Massachusetts-based company that leases communication towers.  Once again, I was happy to meet some really kind people and learn about their industry, of which I had zero knowledge.  I was hired to get some headshots of their management team and get some candid photos around the office for use on their website, newsletters, etc.  I look forward to the next business I get to work with and learn about another industry.  Please reach out to me if this work is something that can help your business.  Just a few of the photos from the shoot are below. Enjoy the day! -Josh

song of the moment: "Gold On The Ceiling" by The Black Keys

Sun Drop

This winter seems more unbearably cold than I can remember recent winters being, but every now and then you get a glimmer of hope and the temperature doesn't start with a 0, 1, 2, or 3 and it hits the 40s! We had one of those days recently in Boston. It may have even hit 50 at one point in the day. Needless to say, I was excited and got to wander the city with my camera and my incredibly patient girlfriend, Angie.  She knows I like to look around and see how the light is playing off of a building, or through a tree, or (her favorite ... right?) shining on her face. On this particular day we were walking midday through dusk and I was really enjoying how the harsh sun was beaming down on the city.  I've included three photos below; all very different from each other.  Angie proved her high level patience once again while we caused a detour on the sidewalk of Boylston Street.  The sun was shining directly through the street blinding everyone walking westward and creating a silhouette of everything.  Typically, one wouldn't want to be photographing a whole lot in this situation, but with using Angie's pretty head as a light shield, I was able to create a nice, heavenly, warm glow around her with the wind blowing and have a "sun star" emerge from her head.  We had a lot of fun and laughs creating the shot.

The other two shots were all about shutter speed. If anybody has seen much of my work, you know I'm a bit obsessed with trees, particularly those that are dead or have lost their leaves for the winter. The sun was a bit higher (midday sun) for the second photo and shining directly through the branches of this hibernating tree.  On these days, I like to experiment and even though I didn't necessarily have to be at a shallow depth of field for this shot, I wanted to be in order to shoot at very high shutter speed that I wouldn't normally have the option of shooting at. 1/6400 of a second was the resulting number and created a nice little flair from the sun and a natural framing from the branches.  The final shot also came from a very fast shutter speed (1/3200 of a second). This time the shallow depth of field was important for my finished product and I wanted to create a shot to look as close to night as I could even though there was still about an hour and half of daylight remaining.  Hopefully you like the result as much I did creating it. Enjoy the day! - Josh

Rubino_blog_20140304_3.jpg
Rubino_blog_20140304_2.jpg
Rubino_blog_20140304_1.jpg

song of the moment: "Love Like A Sunset" by Phoenix