Here’s the next profile in our SF Inspired series – and probably one of my favorites – Bhautik Joshi, an engineer at ILM. Anyone familiar with our blog will recognize Bhautik as the guy behind the ‘Plunger Cam’ video of San Francisco. A true mad scientist, Bhautik honors the past and then forwards the whole narrative for all of us to experience in his blog, cow.mooh.org.

Click here to check out our new Orikata case for the iPad 2, shown in the video.

No one knows the streets of San Francisco better than Travis Jensen, a local street photographer and blogger for All City (formerly Caliber SF). Travis is the next creative profile in our SF Inspired series. He has no fear approaching perfect strangers to capture mesmerizing portraits throughout the city.

Check out his work along with other San Francisco street photographers at www.allcitysf.com.

Get more information on the Union Photo Messenger bag in the video here.

Inspiration can be right out your front door. At Acme Made, we were fortunate enough to have that door open to the city of San Francisco, where ideas and energy flow from every street corner.

Here’s another in our series of videos of inspiring SF creatives, this time focusing on Zack Rosen & Matt Cheney of Mission Bicycles.

Find out more about the Union Kit Messenger bag featured in this video here.

Inspiration can be right out your front door. At Acme Made, we were fortunate enough to have that door open to the city of San Francisco, where ideas and energy flow from every street corner.

A city with a history as long as your arm, San Francisco has long been home to cutting-edge creatives, innovators and entrepreneurs – daring, diverse individuals who demand premium products, thoughtfully designed. Seeking to manifest their visions with care, quality + purpose, it was this group of renegades who years ago compelled us to create protective products that lived up to their functional needs, discerning eyes, and occasionally destructive ways.

Fast forward to 2011: we are proud to showcase the folks who continue this legacy of inspiration, innovation and great design and invite you to meet a few of them in compelling video interviews on the AM blog and Acme Made Facebook pages. Come learn about the people and the passions that yank them out of bed every morning … we think they are straight-up inspiration and we’re confident that you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself (and Acme Made) in their stories.

Looking for that perfect new camera to go with one of our fetching Bowler camera bags?? We think these new Lomo’s are the ticket for your valentine.

Special Edition Cameras from Lomography

Old school 35mm Russian film cameras updated with a little love. Buy your film at the Lomography Shop or at B&H Photo.

And when it comes time to process that film, it might be time to get your DIY on. Learn how to process your film here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4411172_opening-35mm-can-developing-film.html

As someone who spent a good chunk of my life in the commercial photography business, the magic sound of pop, snap and then the ppffffttt as the rollers press the chemical goo in a sheet of Polaroid 669 together is something rather special.

The smell, the chemical processes and watching images magically, slowly appear against the white stock was state of the art point and shoot in 1987 (ouch…) That was the process of shooting a Polaroid, the ubiquitous tool for composition and exposure – and for some, just art.

Bracketing and shooting roid was the lifeblood of the professional workflow – it was sorta like the dark secret really, with its bent corners & mysterious glyphs in black sharpie. It was truly an amazing format but was unfortunately & quickly trivialized almost overnight by our modern digital ways along with real typography, Der Kommisar and Culture Club… win some.. lose some…

Polaroid film came in a variety of formats including: 20×24, 8×10, 4×5, medium format and of course sx-70 – the penultimate point and shoot. It just spat the art right out at you….

I loved it and we had polaroids filled with amazing happenstance beauty, blackmail worthy pics of crew and the odd professional mishaps plastered everywhere in the studio. It was the semi-permanent record of what really happened. The film was like the fantasy of how you wanted life to be (or like the client wanted life to be), but the polaroids showed what was real… That workflow and instant Polaroid film in general are all but gone now but the vestiges of yesterday still lurk in studio files everywhere including my garage.

Our favorite shooter – Jamie Kingham (the guy who shot our Addy winning lifestyle campaigns) has just thrown up his semi-permanent record from shooting around the world.

Check out some of his pics below and the link here.

And, get this, there is a new company trying to bring it all back…. The company is called The Impossible project – http://www.the-impossible-project.com/.

Manufacturing instant film in an old Polaroid factory in the Netherlands. Worth checking out – this is the photography equivalent of the slow food movement. Love it.

We had the pleasure of entertaining the Acme Made International product managers and marketing teams last week. Lots of good stuff – yes, Powerpoint (or in our case Keynote) can really keep the team on the edge of their seats… [yawn]

As always the evening presentations were by far the more interesting with lots of laughs, lots of good local beverages and lots of new friends made.

One highlight was one Tim Sadler – self-proclaimed self proclaimer from our UK office. He shared some not-so-cliche images of SF and the surrounding area in his blog.

We are now fans!

San Francisco in the Spring

Some of our faves:

Yep - still break dancing in SF

Halo Effect

Keyes

Check out the full slideshow here.

Our new favorite photo blog is the joint adventure of 3 San Francisco photographers, called simply “Caliber”. Julie Michelle, Stuart Dixon and Troy Holden have created a beautiful record of the Bay Area, both past and present.

Some of our faves:

71 Limited by Troy Holden

Basking by Stuart Dixon

Seems Like Old Times by Julie Michelle

You can see the full blog here: http://calibersf.com/