Neatoramanaut Joseph Francis is a professional photographer and visual effects artist. He was kind enough to share with us some of his eye-catching work and approach to the craft:
I work in visual effects where a lot of the work is overt and obvious. Nobody doubts the digital nature of a giant robot, no matter how well it's done, because we all know giant robots don't exist. But a lot of what the VFX artist does is invisible and subtle and in the service of storytelling. Nobody talks about the model miniature work in Driving Miss Daisy, but it's there. (work cited to illustrate a point - that movie is unrelated to me, btw). One might think that invisible VFX work such as adding the perfect clouds to a scene to assist the storyteller is not exciting, but in the case of my own work I'm the storyteller, as well as the VFX artist, so if I feel that adding some dishes on a shelf in a dark corner adds to the piece, I'll do it.
Artist's Website (warning: some artistic nudity)