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View as a flickr slideshow.
I’ve posted a set of photos on Flickr that follow my seven-day adventure of making a loopback Windsor chair at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Never have I worked so hard while on vacation, nor found it so relaxing and fulfilling. Spending 60 or so hours shaping into an 18th-century styled chair something that starts out looking like white oak firewood and a beautiful piece of butternut is — to me, at least — an intensive therapeutic (even meditative) experience. (To each his own, I guess). Pleasant mountain weather, delicious food and an annual gathering of dance-oriented folk musicians at the school during the week we were there also made for a unique experience that my wife and I will remember forever.
Lost photos: I shot this photo from my office window last April. Unfortunately, I can’t locate the photos shot from the same location on April 16, 1998.
My first ever accidental online “citizen journalism” (before the term existed) experience occurred ten years ago, today. Unfortunately, because of the ephemeral nature of the web and certain “wish we knew then what we know now” practices, there is no place for me to point to what I did on that day.
Today, posting “weather photos” is one of those participatory “user-generated-content” activities that even the most up-tight control-freak media company encourages. In the past week or so, I’ve been emailed by at least two big brand online services requesting that I join their network of weather watchers due to my practice of posting photos of weather outside my office window on the 7th floor of a building near Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Ten years ago today, Will Weaver (then an employee at Hammock, now the big-guy — literally and figuratively — at the e-mail marketing company, emma) and I did a rather remarkably dumb thing. We had an early digital camera and decided to take photos of a tornado that was heading straight towards our building.
All the smart employees (everyone but the two of us) headed to the core of our office building, but we were thinking how great it would be to take some photos and post them on the Hammock.com website. That was a rather out-of-the-box idea as the site was your basic brochure site at the time. Not like today where not only do we have several work-related blogs on the site, but every employee also has a “people page” where they can post information they’d like to share.
Back then, Will and I shot a series of photos (actually, I think Will was “shooting” and I was “photo directing”) of what turned out to be the tornado passing by our office as it touched down in Centennial Park on its way to hitting downtown (including the stadium, then under construction) before doing major widespread damage in East Nashville. (Today, the Nashville Tennessean has a retrospective of the days events.)
After the tornado passed our office building, Will and I and a few other Hammock employees jumped in a car and (I don’t recommend this to anyone — indeed, do not ever do this) drove out to survey the damage in the area immediately surrounding our office. A few blocks from our office, we came-upon what turned out to be one of the most tragic events related to that day. As we watched, a large team of Nashville emergency service and fire department personnel were attempting to save a Vanderbilt student who was pinned beneath a tree in Centennial Park. Unfortunately, the student died later.
When we returned to the office, Will posted the photos at the URL (which no longer works) hammock.com/tornado. Within an hour, CNN.com and other news services were pointing to the photos and the site, which perhaps on a good day got 100 visitors, was (thanks to a robust server) getting tens of thousands of viewers. Sometime during the night, a radio talk show host I had never heard of until then, Art Bell, linked to the photos and started talking about them on his show. (Later I learned that visiting aliens and bad weather were a staple of his show.) The link from Art Bell ended up crashing our servers, as I recall.
Several years ago, we discovered that we had “lost” those photos and any archive of what the site was like on that day. I haven’t actually given up on them turning up somewhere, but searches of the WayBackMachine and other services have not turned up any mirror sites that captured the photos.
One of the reasons I now am obsessed with backing up and organizing digital media — and displaying it on multiple platforms — is my disappointment in having lost that April 16, 1998 moment in time — as experienced by a few of us.
Today, Hammock Inc. would have the photos uploaded to Flickr.com/hammock and YouTube.com/hammockinc instantly and the photos would be backed up on three different servers in our offices and off-site. And, oh yeah, they’d also be posted on that “Out My Office Window” Flickr set. Additionally, we would grant rights to anyone wanting to display the photos for news-coverage purposes.
We’ve come a long way in the past ten years. Today, the city of Nashville has a network of siren alarms that warn people of weather emergencies. Vanderbilt students can be contacted immediately via text message during any type of emergency. And today, the notion of individual witnesses of an event providing personal coverage directly to an audience, and not mediated by a professional news operation, is accepted as a norm — and even “covered” by traditional media.
Later: Laura Creekmore, who then and now lived in East Nashville, recalls the day’s event (she was one of the smart people who went to our building’s basement). I spoke today also with Will Weaver whose recollection is similar to mine. If Lewis Pennock or others are reading this, please comment to fill-in-the-blanks of any details from that day.
[Note: After I posted this, Rob took down his original post and replaced it with a note saying the gallery needed a little work before going live. I've redirected his link to the new post and will update this when he gets the gallery working the way he wants.]
[Note #2: On April 14, Rob re-posted the gallery. I have updated the embed below.]
Rob Haggart, whose blog, A Photo Editor, has become one of my favorite magazine-related “skill” blogs, has put together a slide show (using Flickr) that displays the work of 297 photographers. Explains Rob, “This is a free promo that’s meant to supplement all the other ways you find photographers to hire.”
At Hammock.com, we have a map mash-up where people with whom we work (our clients, free-lance network of contributors, vendors and other friends — even several folks who follow me on Twitter joined in when I invited them to participate with a Christmas Day tweet) are posting photos of themselves wearing a T-shirt we’ve mailed to them. “Every T-shirt has a story” is the theme of this year’s version of our annual tradition. For each five shirt photos added, we’re donating funds for a computer to the One Laptop Per Child Foundation (up to 20 computers). Today, the incredible photo above (larger version) was posted on the map by a Bay-area photographer we work with regularly, Eric Millette. It was such an interesting photo, I emailed Eric to find out more about how he came up with the idea and captured the image. I thought some of my photographry-blogging friends might find interesting the short Q&A I’ve posted on our company’s Custom Media Craft blog.
Technorati Tags: hammockinc, maps, photography
My friend, Josh Hallett, has a great post today about blog posts that are photographs. I was thinking about his post when this photo presented itself to me this afternoon. The shot is of some Nashville buildings awash in sunset gold (coming from behind me) as the moon rises above them. How’d I get that shot? As Woody Allen said, 80% of success is showing up. When it comes to getting good photographs, 80% of success is having a camera with you at all times. In my case, the other 20% comes from being inspired by bloggers like Chris Wage who sees Nashville’s downtown as an ever-changing canvas and palette and Joi Ito who awes me with portraits he captures with the skill of a 1950s-era Life Magazine photo-journalist.
On the Hammock.com “Custom Media Craft Blog,” I’ve posted an item about the new Library of Congress page on Flickr. According to Librarian/Blogger Matt Raymond, “if all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity.”
This is the type of smart use of new media and collaborative communities that I believe more institutions, companies and associations should be experimenting with. Here’s one little example: Does your church or synagogue have old photos gathering dust somewhere? Post them on a Flickr account and invite your members to help you identify who are on the photos. Just think about all the images in old school yearbook files that could be organized via tagging.
In a smaller way, we all have our little Library of Congress archival photos sitting in files (and shoeboxes) somewhere.
Later: Dave Winer has updated his Flickr-fed, RSS-powered screensaver-caster, FlickrFan (see my earlier post) with a feed option for photos from the LOC Flickr account.
 Here’s my Flickr DNA. It’s from Big Huge Labs and uses the Flickr API to display lots of stuff about my photo-sharing life. Obviously, I’m a fan of Flickr. And, I’m a fan of ideas developed using the Flickr API. In a few days when the new Hammock Inc. website is launched, I’ll share how we’re using our company Flickr account and the Flickr API in some pretty clever ways — not just as a photo-sharing service, but as a marketing tool and content management system.
(via: Doc Searls, whose DNA is here.)
Technorati Tags: bighugelabs, flickr
 Longtime readers of this blog know I’ve always been a fan of 8020 Publishing (and JPG magazine). I started blogging about the founders when they announced their concept three years ago and later when their first issue was available. I also blogged about it when they announced they were going to expand the concept beyond JPG magazine and I lamented the startup challenges they faced when two of the founders left.
So today, I’m happy to see the New York Times has discovered them and has published a glowing profile.
Quote:
(CNet founder and investor in 8020 Halsey) Minor thinks he can also make money from old-fashioned print. Online readers vote on their favorite submissions appearing at JPGmag.com. Then a tiny staff of 10 designs a layout for the winners and about 50,000 high-quality slick-looking magazines are printed six times a year. They are sold through $25 annual subscriptions and on newsstands for $6 each.
Earlier this week, I linked to this TechCrunch item about a Google patent to, in Michael Arrington’s paraphrase of the patent-speak, “give users the ability to search and browse their own content, and receive an electronic or hard copy version of the final product. And that final product will include advertisements highly relevant to the user.” (As I noted at the time, Dear Google: Please sign me up as to beta-test this product.)
So, during this week of eBook reader hype, let’s consider the Google patent, the first-mover efforts of 8020, or, for that matter, the self-publishing services like Lulu.com or (for some Nashville-centric linking) the technology and unique distribution available through Lightning Source, an Ingram Book business unit that serves as the back-end for many on-demand book-publishing services. During this week when many seem obsessed with painting a picture of a future where print is only “replicated” on a digital device, let us remember that some primordial force is similarly pulling us in the opposite direction. Some force that makes bloggers love to see their names in print. Some force that makes people want to write or buy books about using technology, even technology that needs no explanation — need proof? There are multiple titles on how to use Flickr.
So, let’s not get carried away with the whole “print is dead” meme (Isn’t it ironic that such a book is available in hardback, and not eBook only?). Google understands it’s worth patenting something based on the proposition that print is not dying. And others get it, including Apple and Flickr and, obviously, HP does — they even have a wiki devoted to the topic of getting stuff you create digitally into print — using their technology, of course.
Related: Over the years, I’ve softened my stance on the notion that people may want to view a replication of a printed page on a digital device — but I’ve not completely come off the stance. (And a note to those who don’t read this blog: Obviously, I think people want to access damn-near everything digitally — I just don’t think the best “form” for accessing that material is in a way that replicates how the information appears in print.) Also, In February, I made some predictions about the future of magazines, one of which is likely to become a quote I’ll be known for forever in some circles: “As long as there are coffee tables, there will be magazines.”
Bonus points: The NY Times piece today includes the prerequisite Samir Husni quote.
Technorati Tags: 8020, lightningsource
I’ve posted a set of photos from the Thanksgiving morning Nashville tradition — and my personal favorite annual event of the year — the Boulevard Bolt.
I finally found time to post this set of photos on Flickr. At some point in the future, perhaps I’ll even find time to blog about it. (Bonus: Flickr photos tagged FOBM)
Technorati Tags: fobm, paidcontent.org
A few minutes ago, I posted a couple of photo sets on Flickr. As I looked at them together, I felt a little amazed that I live in a place where I could take photos of otters, geese, turtles, herons, titans and raiders all in a two-hour period. The top photo was shot at Radnor Lake around 10:30 a.m., the bottom photo was shot at LP Field around 1:00 p.m. Pretty awesome.
The New York Times covers the launch today of Corbis-owned SnapVillage, the latest entrant into the “microstock agency” arena. Like the Getty-owned IStockPhoto, the site allows amateur and “semiprofessional” phtographers to submit pictures and (in the case of SnapVillage) set their own prices.
The site is geared towards selling “royalty-free” rights. Some image rights can be purchased for as low as $1. While not exactly the same, it is similar to purchasing CDs of “royalty-free” photos — except you can purchase the images one at a time. (Downside: photos you use can be used by anyone else, so don’t build an ad campaign around photos that can also be used in your competitors ad campaign..)
Interesting quote:
“SnapVillage will also function as something of a farm system. Corbis editors will scout the site to pinpoint photographers who show potential and may become part of Corbis’s regular stable of photographers. Corbis generates stock photos for advertising and media clients.”
Last week, my friend and fellow photoblographer, Josh Hallett wrote that a photo he’d posted online hit the radar of a photo-editor working on a story for BusinessWeek. In essence, the photo-editor was using Google images or Flickr or however he/she discovered the photo as an auxiliary photo agency. I can understand why Corbis, Getty, et al, would see the threat — and opportunity — of creating a marketplace for the “semiprofessional” photographers.
Google today announced a new feature for its Flickr-like (or, Flickr-lite) program called Picasa Web Albums. It offers an easy, one-click way to embed (YouTube-like) a flash-player version of a slide-show like the one on the left. Tech-savvy users have long known how to hack this, so today’s announcement is merely simplifying and making it “a feature” for the rest of us. Also, there are ways to embed a Flickr Slideshow, however, it is not “a feature” and may not work with a new version of Flickr Slideshow.
I know there are several startups (Slideshare and Slide and others) that allow one to create and embed presentation slide-shows. However, when Google adds a PowerPoint-like program to Google Docs later this year, and it adds this embed feature to a platform where individuals create and store photos, video, text and spreadsheet documents, well, these are the things juggernauts do when they demonstrate the difference in “products” and “features.”
On a personal note, while the Picasa feature is great, I’m still hooked on Flickr. By the way, the photos on the accompanying slideshow are from my Nashville Greenways maps/photo sets project that uses both Flickr & Google.
Technorati Tags: flickr, google, picasa, google
 Yesterday, on del.icio.us/rexblog, I pointed this animated gif shot and created by Nashville blogger and photographer Chris Wage (who has a day-job, as well, but I know him from Nashville blog meetups and by following his awesome photo-posts.). On his Flickr post of the photo, I asked if he’d explain how he shot the photo(s) and created the animation. He was nice enough to explain it here. He says, “it was probably less complicated than you may think.” Yeah, right. (I’m inspired, however, to attempt this some day,) He left out the part about how not to get electrocuted in the middle of a thunder storm in downtown Nashville.
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Over the weekend, I added a 
