The Official Site O' Dan Finnen

24 April 2012, Tuesday

The Windy City Show recently went to C2E2 and met with a whole mess of colorful figures and celebrities. Check it out as Drew talks about his prom with Sean Astin, plans for 2012 with John Cusack, and the presidential race with DotCom. For those of you who don't know, the Windy City Show is one of the many webisode series I produce with DistractChicago.com. Enjoy!

4 April 2012, Wednesday

Whew it's been a while, hasn't it? Distract Chicago Productions has been eating all my time, so I haven't been able to get a whole lot of new content up here. I always update my flickr account, so if you want to see the latest and the greatest, be sure to check there!

I have a new photo gallery called Heaven up! It's made up of photos I took this winter on the lake shore. The unexpectedly warm winter gave me ample opportunity to wander around the parks and take everything in pretty much by myself. Spring is here again, which means I have to share the parks once again...

23 February 2012, Thursday

Muckrakers Season 2 has officially begun! I directed and wrote the series, which follows Frank and Paul to Chicago, where they quickly find out that the real world is far more difficult than any J101 class. There will be ten episodes released every Monday on DistractChicago.com for the next few weeks. If you're a fan of Seinfeld or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I definitely recommend checking it out.

14 February 2012, Tuesday

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a new camera review I've cooked up just for the special occasion. It's the Polaroid OneStep Express, a sturdy and very common 600 type camera. Enjoy!

5 February 2012, Sunday

I've finally gotten around to updating my article on Polaroid film cartridge transfers with photo illustrations of the process. It's nothing hard, but doing it in complete darkness can get surprisingly frustrating.

In other news, I've just finished up the first draft version of my company's website. You can check it out over at distractchicagoproductions.com. Let me know if you stumble upon any typos!

3 February 2012, Friday

The Disposables has been one of my longer running and more popular projects, and it's time to finish it up (for the time being) with the new Disposables Part Two gallery. Everything in this gallery was taken with Fuji Quicksnaps and occasionally my F3, all on cheap film.

Speaking of analogue photography, I should have a new article about film to digital workflow up in the next few weeks...

12 January 2012, Thursday

That's right, it's time for another camera review already! As you can tell by the photos, the Polaroid Spectra AF is almost identical to the 1200i with just a few cosmetic changes in color. However, the Spectra AF features the full range of controls as the Spectra System plus it has a viewfinder focus readout, making it far superior to the 1200i. Check out the review for more!

1 January 2012, Sunday

It's a brand new year, which means six months of writing down 2011 by accident. But in more exciting news, I was lucky enough to acquire several new Polaroid cameras recently, which means all sorts of new reviews as I get to use each one over the next few months!

The first up is the Polaroid 1200i, which still had film in it when I got it. I managed to get three exposures out of the ancient cartridge, which you can find over at my flickr page. It performed admirably as I abused it in the rain, but I missed the extended controls of my Polaroid Spectra System.

20 December 2011, Tuesday

Holy crap, it's only five days away from Christmas! This unusually warm Chicago December has me all thrown off. Not complaining though, if we can keep this for another month or so that would be greeeat...

As the year winds down, I just want to say thanks for a fantastic 2011. I graduated from college, started a new business, and got this website cranking away. I couldn't have done it all without the support of my family, my friends, and my dedicated comrades at DistractChicago.com. I also want to thank you for taking the time to visit this site, I hope you found something useful or entertaining!

If I don't get a chance to post before the new year, here's to 2012, my first full year in the real world!

9 December 2011, Friday

I've had a bunch of assorted Polaroids lying around that I love but haven't quite fit into any gallery I've posted yet, so I've done gone and made another gallery. Polaroid Portraits is just what it sounds like; all sorts of instant photos of pretty people. Enjoy!

26 November 2011, Saturday

I've just added a new photo gallery, Atmosphere! I've had quite a few images sitting around that didn't belong anywhere, and after playing with them for a bit I came up with this gallery. Enjoy!

12 November 2011, Saturday

Great news from the Distract Chicago Productions, we've recently won a 5,000 award for the ad we entered in the Zooppa powered Margaritaville Cargo Mixed Drink Maker contest! We've been making a whole rash of spec ads lately, and we have two new ads entered in the Doritos Super Bowl contest and the Zooppa Betfair.com contest as well. I've embedded the Betfair ad below, featuring the best Nigerian prince outfit this side of the internet.

Also, in site news, I've made some much needed changes to my video page in order to bring it up to speed. About page, I'm coming for you next.

27 October 2011, Sunday

Man, this whole DistractChicago.com thing has me all sorts of behind here! Well, that and traveling. I made it back from LA, which was awesome. The next Batman movie was being filmed outside our hotel and I learned all sorts of Adobe goodness at MAX. Last weekend I went to NYC, which means I've traveled farther in this past month than I have my entire life.

Now that everything has (relatively) calmed down, I can get back to work and get settled in for my first Chicago winter. I hear they're as gentle as a lamb... with a chainsaw of coldness.

30 September 2011, Friday

I'm off to the Adobe Max Conference in LA! I'm just as surprised as you, but probably more excited. I'll be posting all about it on my Tumblr blog (tumblog?) just like every other nerd there, so be sure to check back next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for all sorts of Adobe funitivities.

Oh! I forgot to post here that I've added a new little page to my articles section, a Friendly Little Note on Articles and Reviews that explains where I'm coming from when I write reviews and the such.

This news page was looking a little bare, so I'm throwing in the above image to mix it up a little. Click on it to teleport to the newest episode of News in a Minute, featuring yours truly!

24 September 2011, Saturday

If you haven't noticed, I've been doing a little housekeeping on the website over the past week. I've gone through all my reviews and articles and fixed spelling errors, updated facts, and mended general instances of poor verbage. If you ever happen to stumble upon any factual or grammatical errors feel free to send an email my way! You can find my email address at the bottom of the page in the right side of the footer.