Author: adam

How to avoid snoozefest PowerPoint presentations (and Facebook posts)

Digital Hollywood Conference

With three years under my belt in the corporate world, I’ve been spending a ton of time listening to, and creating my own, PowerPoint presentations.

Seriously. Cog-folk love us some PowerPoint.

And as a social media professional, I also spend most of my life on Facebook, either managing my company’s page or trolling reading the latest from my friends and subscription lists.

Given my intense exposure to both of these modern marvels of communication, I’ve developed a nose for the good and the bad, and can sniff out both pretty quickly.

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Roid Week 2012

Roid Week 2012: Not a festival of performance-enhancing drugs or a promotion for Preparation H.

It’s an annual celebration of Polaroid photography. Every day, from August 13-17, Polaroid enthusiasts from all over are asked to post their two best new photos on the ‘Roid Week 2012 Flickr group.

I discovered Roid Week on the Sunday before it kicked off. Fortunately, I’d recently picked up a Polaroid OneStep camera and some SX70 film from The Impossible Project (the only place still producing Polaroid film), so the timing was perfect.

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Haboob horizon

Ah, summertime in the desert.

Cars double as ovens. Pools turn into luke-warm bathtubs. Air conditioning is essential, like water, food and the pursuit of happiness. Along with highs in the 116s (and lows in the 100s), we’re also blessed with the occasional haboob.

They usually pop out of nowhere in the late-afternoon in the late-summer months. And when they do, Valley photographers salivate. Yesterday – Saturday, August 11 – was one such occasion. I’d been meaning to try for a nice panoramic, wall-of-dust shot sometime this summer and jumped at the opportunity when this one presented itself.

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Designing Tri for Les: Lavaman

Triathlons and fundraising have taken up the large majority of my time over the past year and I wanted to take a moment to show how I incorporated and sharpened my design skills on the road leading to my recent Tri for Les Lavaman race.

I designed the images below in Photoshop with a few key elements in mind:

  • Purple drops – to represent Team in Training and LLS
  • “Live every day” – a quote from my aunt Leslie, to whom Tri for Les is dedicated
  • Triathlon – swim, bike, run

Emblem logo. Designed with guidance from this this excellent tutorial.
Tri for Les Emblem Logo

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Film review: Nostalgia for the Light

A breathtaking portrait of Chile, astronomy, archaeology and the paradoxes and similarities therein

This past weekend I was lucky enough to stumble upon a free screening of the documentary, Nostalgia for the Light at the Phoenix Art Museum. The 2010 film, by Chilean director Patricio Guzmán, painted a stunning picture of some of the most fascinating elements of Chile. I highly recommend it, even if you don’t know anything about the country, or its veiled past.

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