Portland

In honor of my current stay in my hometown I'd like to share a few things about the fabled Rose City. Despite the crazy attention over the past few years it's always been a damn good place to reside or spend extended time. Here's why:

Forest Park
McMenimins, local micros in general & oregon wines
Portland Saturday Market
The music scene
Voodoo Doughnut - donuts 24/7!
The Oregonian (2007 Pulitzer Prize winner for breaking news).
A huge athletic/outdoor based industry - Nau, Vanilla Bicycles, Keen, Merrell Addidas, Columbia Sportswear, Nike ...

Not to be forgotten are the outstanding agencies, designers and creatives behind these giants such as Weiden + Kennedy who started out and are based here. In case you're unaware they've put together a few diddies from humble little Portland for clients everyone, everywhere knows. (And once rejected from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) they still won't join the orgnaization. In a recent Advertising Age Dan Weiden's spokeswoman said that they'll never be part of the organization, primarily due to an initial spurning back in 1982.) They do, however, offer an amazing ad 'school'. The application alone, which is uniquely WK, amounts to anything you can fit into a 9 x 12 envelope.

Their blog is an inside offering into the quirkiness and brainwork that makes them tick. And not to be outdone, the London office has one as well called 'welcome to optimism' that offers a look into the ad world.

TED & Blog Inspiration

Straight from the source, here's the word on blogging via a great personal speech from Mena Trott who with her husband founded Six Apart. Six Apart has produced Moveable Type and Typepad among others and they've been credited with helping heft the 'social media' revolution. Her take on her own expertise is a great primer / background on how blogging and web 2.0 media is shifting everything. The two ideas, Influence of Blogs & Personal is Universal, are unique ideas to carry out into the world via blogging.

Her wrap up is spot on, "... think about blogs, think about what they are, think about what inspired them and then actually do it because it's something that's really going to change our lives."

And if you don't know TED where the speech is hosted (and related blog) it's a huge trove of technology driven ideas and inspiration. Definitely dig in.

Imagination = 193 Miles

Two extremes of imagination hit me today that I thought worth sharing. It's amazing in the creative industry how much time goes into ideas that spring from various angles. Then with enough effort (and belief) on the backend how those ideas actual get shaped into useful and/or appropriate outputs. At least that's what we'd all hope for.

This first example is something we all need from time to time - a chance to turn up the volume, color outside the lines and simply let our freak flag fly. It's the spontaneity that drew so many of us into our current endeavors in the first place. Without what I call the wild imagination then the work and the fire behind it tend to mellow. In my photography that's the one thing I fear - the 'your work is nice' stake through the heart. I have a feeling that this guy doesn't have that problem. And if you think he's patient check out his wife's take on it at the end of this CNN piece.

And on the other end of the spectrum, but still deeply rooted in the imagination, is this from Brian Storm's MediaStorm. If you haven't dropped in before definitely check out the amazing array of work hosted here. It's a multi-media production studio covering everything in the worlds of photojournalism, photography, video, audio & storytelling. Have your sound on as the website is slick with audio samples paired with rollovers. The original piece that caught my eye is Patrick Brown's Black Market though it's hard to miss National Geogrpahic's J. Michael Fay and Michael 'Nick' Nichols and their romp through Zakouma National Park in Chad in Ivory Wars.



But as much imagination as each of these pieces have one could argue the efforts are of a different shape than that of the animated music video Low Morale: Creep described as, 'one man's cathartic opus against despair'. Laith Bahrani spent more than three months and one million key frames putting his twist to Radiohead's Creep.

Regardless of your choices or the needs of those depending on you, make sure you keep that brain active. Just don't forget the parachute.

Point & Shoot

With our day of indepence in front of us here in the US and far too many freedom issues across the world today paramount it seems only appropriate to highlight imagery loosely based on that. Our friends at Magnum have put together a powerful video called Point & Shoot of work and voice by Philip Jones Griffiths and spot on tunes by Wink Applebee and the Medicinal 9. The images are all powerful, especially those of the youngest boys. It only makes you wonder about the power of freedom and violence.

Celebrate wisely.