Open Camp and Open Sky!

A while back I was invited by none other than Cali Lewis (GeekBeat.tv) and John P. (OneMansBlog.com) to attend OpenCamp 2010 in Addison Texas (near Dallas). Being the conference organizers, they thought it’d be good if I did a talk on social media. I was very honored that they asked me and of course I accepted.

We kicked off OpenCamp Thursday afternoon with a speaker tandem skydive courtesy the United States Army’s Golden Knights! This was my first time jumping out of a plane… and technically, I didn’t even have a parachute strapped to me, though @GKMikeTT did. Check out more photos of the jump here.

I was invited to do a talk on Social Media and was scheduled to take the stage day 2 of the conference at 9:30 am, so I had plenty of time to spy the other presentations and adjust mine for the audience. And man, were there some good presentations during this event.

My talk was entitled “Avoiding Social Mediocrity” and was centered around how to best use social media, and goal definition to attain your marketing goals. If you’re interested, you can see the slide deck here. Though the This Week in Photo podcast and blog audiences are huge, I always get a little nervous in front of “real” people. But folks seemed to dig the preso as evidenced by the number of requests I received afterwards for copies of the slide deck.

OpenCamp was kind of a perspective changing event for me. And not just the obvious shift of perspective that people say you get after first skydiving. I’m talking about the volumes of information I soaked up, catching up with old friends and making some new ones.

I’m really looking forward to next year’s OpenCamp—and am seriously planning to make a habit of skydiving.

17 Amazing Photographer Interviews from 2009


What an amazing year 2009 was. I had the privilege of interviewing some of the most talented people in the photography industry. In the series of interviews below you’ll hear from; Flickr mavens, stock photography experts, photojournalists, commercial photographers, authors, and more. My thanks to all of the folks who allowed me to interrogate them in 2009… and I’m looking forward to doing many more interviews in 2010!

Happy New Year! Click through to learn from some of the most talented movers-and-shakers of 2009. If you’d like to get these interviews automatically, just subscribe to my Interviews Podcast in iTunes[Read more...]

Your Photo Backup Blueprint – Part 1

Backup Blueprint: Introduction

Have you felt it yet? That sinking feeling that comes when you realize all of your eggs are effectively in one basket? I’m talking about your “digital eggs”. If you’re like most folks, you have all of your precious photos of friends, family, and if you’re a pro even your client work stored one one rickety hard drive. And here’s the scary thing, YOUR-DRIVE-WILL-FAIL. It doesn’t matter which hard drive you buy, how much, or how little data you store on it… or even if you baby it by running drive maintenance software on it regularly. Hard drives are mechancial devices that have moving parts… parts that over time will wear out, and break. And if you  haven’t taken measures to safeguard your data with a multi-faceted backup plan, when your drive dies — it will take your data with it. [Read more...]

WIN a Photography Book — Just Comment on this Post

UPDATE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.  I’ve selected the winners. I’ll post a video announcing the winners names shortly. Thanks to all who commented — this has been amazing.

I have several really good photography books on my desk that I either have multiples of, or have already finished reading. So, in the spirit of holiday giving, I’d like to give four of them away! So how do you get one?

To win one,  just comment on this post!!

You can only pick one book, and make sure you specify in your comment which book you want. And get this — if you win, I’ll even take care of shipping (US only!)

Of course, all of the books are about photography, but from various photographers’ “perspectives”. Here they are listed, with links over to Amazon.com so you can read their full descriptions (in no particular order):   [Read more...]

Liana Lehua – Back in Action

Now she’s back, in full force. And though she’s still recovering and working to get her T-cell count back into a safe range she’s been extremly active, and has even started a new blog for Californians afflicted with HIV/AIDS helping with instruction on how to obtain free and low cost county and medical healthcare services.

For more on Liana, check out this interview I did with her about a year ago, check out her new blog, and of course… follow her on Twitter.

Keep kicking butt Liana!

The above video was shot entirely with an iPhone 3GS

Gravity in Ambient Flight


I recently did some remodeling to my home and wanted some art (other than photography) to put on the walls. I wanted a piece that reflected my personality, you know – kind of whacky, colorful, and oh yea, it had to have an element of photography in it.

A friend of mine recommended an artist with whom he’d become familiar in Arizona. He introduced us over Facebook, and after trading a few messages she began work on my piece. I have never met this woman, and I believe we’ve only spoken on the phone one time.

In her own words, here is her creative process:

I create paintings with a combination of watercolor, India ink and hard pastel. My process has evolved from my earlier love of an illustrative and sketched style. Now, I sometimes sketch several thumbnails in advance of a painting, and other times the paint leads the way without any advance thought.

In the case of “Gravity in Ambient Flight”, I created a series of thumbnail studies, then pieced them together for the final idea. Of course, all along the way, I am totally open to suggestion from the “creative verve”. It has been a wonderful experience creating a painting specifically for you, keeping in mind a theme open to the essence of photography.

One art meeting another. The dichotomy of observation vs. participation. There is a story in this painting, but I think it is now up to you to finish it.

One of the original sketches:

The final painting is currently at a frame shop, I’ll post a photo of it hanging in a week or so.

What story do YOU see in the finished painting? Please comment!!

You can check out more of Charmagne Coe’s work here:

Flickr
Blog
MySpace
Website

Jim Heid – Author, Photographer, Flickr-er

As far as I know, there is no bigger fan of Apple’s iLife software than Jim Heid. He’s a self-described poster child for the software and has been using it since pre iLife, when there was only iMovie. Jim is also the author of the extremely popular book entitled The Macintosh iLife. I met Jim during my time at Apple and we became good friends, mainly because we’re both pretty rabid about Apple software, though we disagree on one or two points.

Jim and his standard poodle and mascot, Sophie, divide their time between San Francisco and the rugged coast of Mendocino, California. On most Wednesday evenings, he co-hosts “Point & Click Radio,” a weekly computer radio show, which you can listen to here.

You can pick up the book from your favorite book reseller, or get it directly from the publisher. Jim is currently putting the finishing touches on the 2009 revision to the book that will cover the new features we discuss in this video. It should be available in May.

You can check out Jim’s very active Flickr stream here.

MC Yogi – Vote for Hope

Obama ’08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

From MC Yogi’s Vimeo post:

“Vote For Hope” was written to encourage and inspire the hip hop generation—and everyone—to get involved, and contribute their time, energy, creativity, and other resources to be the change they want to see in the world. We have been inspired by the artistic and musical contributions that have been pouring out accross the nation in support of Barack Obama’s campaign. Vote for Hope is our offering to this creative movement. It is our way of adding our small voice to the collective voice of millions of Americans calling for a change.

Congratulations President-Elect Barack Obama

The First Family

John Nack – Photoshop Principal Product Manager

Along with managing one of the most popular software products of all time, John Nack, Adobe Photoshop‘s Principal Product Manager, is also a blogging pioneer at Adobe Systems, Inc.

Having paved the way for folks like, well, me to blog and otherwise participate in public forums he has helped lift the curtain on the sometimes “mysterious” Adobe to reveal that the company is actually NOT staffed by droids — but rather human beings. At some “other” companies, blogging is expressly forbidden, so the fact that blogging is encouraged at Adobe is very refreshing.

In this video, John talks about what’s next for Adobe Photoshop, the future of digital imaging, and of course his sometimes controversial (but always informative) blog.

What if instead of giving you yet another way to do the same thing, what if we gave you the right way?

John is one of the most committed bloggers I’ve ever met, sometimes publishing multiple times a day. Remember, he also has a day job (and a family). It’s almost like he serves as a human RSS filter for legions of creatives. To get your “Nack-filtered” look at the creative world, just point your browser to:

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/

Adobe Photoshop clearly has a bright future (and I’m not just saying that). Creative people everywhere can rest easy knowing that John Nack is on watch.