A juried photography exhibit sponsored by the Boulder Jewish Community Center in collaboration with Boulder Digital Arts

Opens Sunday, September 22 with a wine and cheese reception and runs through January, 2014

This juried photography exhibit of work expressing spirituality is open to all Boulder Digital Arts members. The definition of spirituality is very broad, embracing nature photography, portraits, abstract work, and images specifically referencing any religion or devotional practice.

Details:

• There is no entry fee.
• Photographers may submit up to 10 digital images with an indication of the final size when printed and framed by Monday, August 5.
• The jury may select up to 10 photos.
• The photographer will deliver the selected prints, framed and ready to hang, with a show-ready label indicating title (optional), photographer’s name, and price on or before Thursday, September 12.
• The Boulder JCC handles all sales and takes a 20% commission. Any additional work for the photographer that is generated by the show does not fall under commission.
• The Boulder JCC and our curators will hang the show on Monday, September 16.
• The free opening night meet-the-artist reception is Sunday, September 22 from 5:30 – 7 pm. Wine, cheese and desserts will be provided and there will be a screening of a documentary about Annie Liebowitz immediately following the reception (Tickets $10).
• The photographers are responsible for picking their work up when the show closes.
• The photographers will be provided with electronic marketing material to advertise the show to their lists.
• The Boulder JCC and BDA will also promote the show.

How to enter:

• Email your images to Kathryn@boulderjcc.org before Monday, August 5. Please include your phone number. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within 48 hours, please call 303-998-1021.
• You will be notified of acceptance by Monday, August 19, allowing 4 weeks for framing.

Questions?

Kathryn Bernheimer
Director of Menorah: Arts, Culture and Education at the Boulder JCC
3800 Kalmia Ave., Boulder 80301
Kathryn@boulderjcc.org
303-998-1021

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a passion for compositing.  In recent years, thanks in part to Matt Kloskowski’s Photoshop Compositing Secrets book, Corey Barker’s Down & Dirty Tricks for Designers book, and the remarkable video tutorials of Joel Grimes, I’ve gone deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of compositing.  More than anything, I’ve enjoyed crafting composites that look like they belong on movie posters or book covers. Here are a few recent examples.

When I dream of all the creative possibilities associated with compositing, I experience an actual glow in my heart that sometimes keeps me up at night.  But despite my best efforts to do what I love on a consistent basis, until recently, I kept bumping into a self-created barrier.  That barrier was a desire to be in charge of every aspect of the compositing process.  This meant photographing the model, the background, and the design elements (such as fire, smoke, dirt, or sparks).  After the shoots, I would spend hours blending the images with Photoshop to produce something that made my heart sing.  The process was definitely fun, but required more time than I had available.  So despite loving to composite, I just wasn’t finding time to do it.  Then I had a breakthrough.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles, I had the good fortune of visiting my friend Chris Wood who was one of the lead compositors on the Oscar-winning film, Life of Pi.  He took me on a tour of the Rhythm & Hues studio and gave me a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the composites from the movie.  While I was looking over his shoulder and listening to his commentary, it suddenly dawned on me that these mind-blowing composites were not the creation of a single artist.  They represented a collaborative effort between dozens of people, including 3D artists, matte painters, color and lighting specialists, and compositors like Chris.  It literally took a village of talented and dedicated artists to create the masterpieces that we all enjoy when we go to the movies.  Wow!  That’s when it hit me that it is okay to stop trying to be in charge of every aspect of the compositing process.  Suddenly I was giving myself permission to use stock photos, 3D elements, and illustrations in order to get back to what I love most…compositing.  These images, captured or created by others, would become my creative community.  But then I had a thought that made my heart sink.

How was I going to afford all of the images that I need?  Fortunately, the answer to this question arrived quickly.  During my online search for stock images, I realized that some sites, such as Shutterstock, have reasonably priced plans that allow you to download a surprising number of high-quality, high-res images over a designated period of time, such as a month or year.  The day after discovering that I could actually afford lots of stock images, I began assembling images into a Shutterstock lightbox.  As I searched for images and added them to the lightbox, several things happened.  I started dreaming.  The landscape of creative possibilities unfolded before me. I also stumbled across volumes of images that inspired me.  By patiently adding images to the lightbox before buying, I gave myself time to scour the inventory for images that excited me most.  At last, when I was satisfied with the quality and depth of images in the lightbox, I ordered a subscription and started downloading.  The process of downloading each day felt a lot like opening birthday gifts.  During the first week of my subscription alone, I generated more composites than I had in the previous six months.  And although the original photos are not my own, I’m enjoying the creative process beyond measure.  It’s true that if you begin with great raw materials (no matter who creates them), and you take the time to develop the skills necessary to composite them, there really is no limit to what’s possible!  Giving myself permission to be creative again (even at the expense of sacrificing control) is a decision that I’ll try to hold close to my artist’s heart for years to come.

Note: This lesson is one of 15 in my Color Correction with Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw video tutorial series. Download the series, view the complete contents, and watch the Introduction at http://www.msjphotography.com/index.php/color-correction-video-tutorial-series-download/.

“Documentary is one of the most powerful mediums that we have,” she says.  “I find myself working with groups or people that don’t have much money, because I like being able to help people get their message out through documentary.”

After years of working in the fast-paced world of 1- to 2-minute films for broadcast news, Truesdale fell in love with the storyline development that documentary allows.  And those years of prior success have allowed her to pursue her passion, bringing high-quality documentary production to those who may not otherwise have access.  She puts most of her time and energy into producing films for non-profits and small businesses, charging only a small fee for high-quality films.  Truesdale does still pick up a handful of more lucrative clients in between, allowing her to stay in business, keep her office space, and keep helping groups to get their message out through professional films even if they are not able to pay professional prices.

Her first documentary film to hit festivals, Conviction (2006), focused on three Colorado nuns who were imprisoned for trespassing in a missile silo to call attention to the horrors of nuclear weapons.  She gave over 12 months of 40 hour weeks to the production and earned only about $2000 in the process, but she says the experience changed her life and rewarded her in countless other ways.

Used with permission from robintruesdale.com

“It was a big turning point for me personally,” she says. “I had been working on the film for over a year and they were in prison all that time, so when I finally got to meet them once they were released, it was amazing to meet someone that I felt like I knew.”

Truesdale’s participation in a local marimba band has taken her as far as Africa to produce documentaries for social causes.  Her most prominent work of this nature was Tumbuka Bloom, a 2009 film about a young man promoting gender equality and AIDS awareness in rural Zimbabwe.  Starting out with personal connections helps her to gain a greater understanding of the context of her films when they are based in foreign places.

“I’ve met a lot of people from Africa and gotten to be really good friends with them,” she says.  “That opened the door for me to travel.  I had people to stay with, and I wasn’t traveling as a tourist, but more as a filmmaker really.”

Here at home in Boulder, where Robin has lived since coming to CU to do her undergraduate degree in 1982, her office space at Boulder Digital Arts allows her to continue to grow as a filmmaker within a community of thriving digital artists.  She came to BDA just over two years ago, leaving the mass media film industry for good.

Courtesy of Robin Truesdale.

“I came over and took a look at the offices and thought oh, that looks great.  And then I realized I sort of wanted to quit my job,” she says.  “It was perfect timing.”

Sharing the BDA office with other coworkers has meant recommendations that lead to new clients as well as exposure to other digital media, some of which have inspired Truesdale in her newest documentary film.  Truesdale will be incorporating illustrated images, animations and a musical score composed for the film, which explores the work of a local educator and theatre performer, Len Barron.

“I don’t know the name for it yet, and it’s all a little scary at the moment,” she says.  “It’s more of an artistic documentary whereas I usually do social issues.  It’s the first time I’ve done anything like it, and it’s a challenge for me.”

But Truesdale seems up to the challenge, and remains passionate about the opportunity for exploration that is afforded by documentary filmmaking.  One of her priorities as a local filmmaker is to pass this passion onto the next generation, which has greater access than ever before to documentary.

“You can make documentary these days with your iPhone or your Android or whatever,” she says.  “There’s an art to it – it’s not just as easy as point and shoot.  But young people today can document the world around them so easily, and that’s a power, so it’s important for them to see how other people make documentary films that are valued in the film community.  They can really learn how to express themselves and tell their own stories.”

What could flying possibly have to do with graphic design?

For Tim Meehan, certified paragliding instructor and digital artist, these are the two seemingly unrelated yet intertwined facets of his life.

“I try to use my creativity and the things I do in the creative world to help the companies in the flying world to grow and mature a little better in their markets,” Meehan says.

Take, for example, the several years he spent as art director for the magazine of the U.S. Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, “probably the closest I ever came to completely mixing the two career paths together,” he says.

And with such a unique dual skill set, Meehan sometimes finds himself with extraordinary opportunities.

Perfect example: Meehan is now in Ghana for the nation’s annual Easter paragliding festival.  In return, he is voluntarily helping the paragliding group redesign their website.

As a graphic designer, Meehan spent over 20 years teaching at CU Boulder – first in the Art Department and then in the Continuing Education program – before coming to Boulder Digital Arts.  As a paraglider and paragliding instructor, he has been sharing the joy of “foot-launched flight” with others for decades.

“I started to learn to fly back in the late 80’s, early 90’s – before there were instructors or books or anything like that,” Meehan says.  “Somehow I’m still alive.”

In the meantime, he has undergone an arduous process of ten-plus years to earn his certification as a tandem instructor.

Meehan’s adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit helped propel him into BDA, where he teaches regular workshops on Photoshop and other Adobe software.  Meehan also has his own office at BDA, and he feels lucky to have scooped it up.  In fact, he missed his opportunity the first time around.

“When they said hey, we’re leasing some offices, I called back the next day to say I want one,” Meehan says – but all of the offices had already been claimed.  “Then a year later they decided to expand, and they didn’t have to ask me twice.  I just said, I’ll take this one!”

Teaching and coworking at BDA has been a definite asset to Meehan’s graphic design business.

“The first year I was there, there was a lot of new client activity simply because I was at BDA,” he says. “I’ve never had to advertise for anything.  It’s amazing how many people just show up out of the woodwork and say hey, I hear you do this, can you do it for me? Can you design us a new printed piece for our product?”

After decades of working from home, having his own office at BDA is as much about interacting with other digital artists as it is about simply forcing himself to get out of the house.

But if anything, it would seem that Meehan might need to spend more time at home.

“In the summer time, it goes about 50-50,” he says, referring to his time spent paragliding versus designing. “Almost every morning I’ll drive down to Golden and take people flying as a tandem instructor, and we’re usually done in the late morning.  Then I’ve got a number of hours of daylight left to drive to Boulder and take care of my design clients at my office at BDA.”

But whether flying or designing, Meehan’s real passion is for teaching and sharing with others.

“We have such a good time in these Photoshop classes, and I turn out such a good caliber of students with good caliber skills,” Meehan says.  “I tell them I’d like to just breed a race of clones, and teach them everything I want them to know about Adobe products, and they would be my Adobe slaves.”

Teaching at BDA has been the most valuable, fulfilling teaching experience that Meehan says he’s had.

“Everybody’s excited to be there, extremely invested in learning this stuff,” he says, unlike some of the courses he taught at CU.  “Where that can break down is at the undergraduate level. They had no idea what a tremendous gift they were being given in a college education.… It just broke my heart.”

Meehan himself never went to college, but he says he always wished he had the opportunity.  “I think that’s why it bothered me so much that they were so unhappy,” he says.

But teaching digital design and artistry is also fulfilling for Meehan from a business standpoint.

“For me the biggest hang-up is hiring freelancers that don’t really know as much as they say they know,” Meehan says.  “The job market’s pretty competitive, so there’s a lot of incentive for people to overstate their skill sets, and unfortunately that ends up costing me and my clients along the line.”

His other biggest hang-up is the cadre of newcomer, overconfident paragliders – the kind that think they’re indestructible.  But Meehan says there are only two kinds of paraglider pilots: the ones who have been hurt, and the ones who are going to be hurt, and probably soon.

“There’s a lot of – as you might imagine a troop of baboons – picking on each other, and yelling and barking and the whole bit,” he says. “If I wasn’t a design guy, I’d be a psychology guy, studying these other guys as an anthropology experiment.”

Check out Tim Meehan’s flying / designing career, at flytim.com and x2001.com.

In the flash class I teach here at BDA, students are often intimidated by their camera flash. When it goes off, it’s nearly always a surprise as to what they’ll get. Good? Bad? Ugly? Many don’t know until they look at their LCD after a photo.

One area that seems elusive is “what will the light look like?” As in, where will it go? What gets illuminated, and how does the light “paint” the subject? As to *how much* light goes out — that’s a different topic. But as to HOW it falls on the subject — here’s a simple tip you can practice: use continuous light. That is, use a flashlight. What does the light look like on another person when you hold the light right by your eyes and shine it right in theirs? (hint, that’s what your on-camera flash will look like). What if you bounced it off the ceiling? (another hint: that’s what flash will do too, but more *volume* of light). What if you hold it high and to your left and angle the light at your subject?

See how that works? You have to KNOW what the light will do, how it will look, before you flash if you want to get speed and confidence with instantaneous light (your flash). So play with continuous light, whether that’s a flashlight, a little shop light from Home Depot, or whatever. You can even practice with your flash – but you can’t see what you get till after the fact!

A select group of professional photographers are contributing their personal “Thin Places” interpretive images to the Arapahoe Studio gallery walls.

The ancient Celts described places that relax us, transform us, and help us step beyond the mundane world as “Thin Places.” It can be any place where the veil between the ordinary and the transcendent is thinnest, where heaven and earth are only steps apart. Thin places are highly personal and often old – cathedrals, ancient ruins, windswept coastlines – but they can also include bars, ball parks, libraries, public places of all kinds.

The show will include 50-60 images and kick off with an Opening Reception on April 12 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. Artists who are willing will be able to make short presentations on their work in the main classroom. To enter this show, or for more information, please email show curator Steve O’Bryan at steveobryan@msn.com.

“But I’m often on teleconferences and meetings, and you can’t really have a professional teleconference in a coffee shop,” she says.

By happy coincidence, Van Damme started to Google “coworking in Boulder” just as Boulder Digital Arts was opening its doors for shared office space. She saw that BDA would be just the right coworking niche for her digital media work, and soon became one of the first tenants in its brand new space.

Van Damme is what’s called an instructional designer, creating e-learning modules for Performance Impact, a small firm specializing in web-based training. Part researcher, part designer, and part educator, her job involves blending an expertise in storytelling and education technology with a given subject matter. The key, she says, is to make the training as engaging as possible while providing high-impact, immediately applicable knowledge and skills.

“In the old world of a year or so ago, I would do the design and essentially put a design document together that says, I want this to look this way, I want this graphic to be here, I want this narration to occur,” Van Damme says. “Then I would pass that off to a graphic designer and a developer to code what I directed. But now we have a tool that essentially lets me do a good 80 to 90 percent of that myself without having to know how to code.”

An example of an e-learning module from Performance Impact

As a former pharmaceutical industry professional, some of Van Damme’s biggest and most successful instructional design endeavors have been for companies like Merck and Amgen. But she recently landed a contract of a very different sort, one that she may not have been able to negotiate from a coffee shop.

“The work that we now do with UCAR came directly out of be

ing at BDA,” she says, referring to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and its affiliate educational program, the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, or GLOBE. “A project manager from the GLOBE program came to BDA to take a class, and she talked about what GLOBE does. … I had a three-minute chat with her in the hallway and it turned into a contract.”

Whereas Van Damme’s web-based training programs for pharmaceutical companies tend to focus on teaching new protocols and procedures, the unique UCAR-GLOBE e-learning platform trains teachers around the world to help students learn science by doing science.

“They go out and do real data collection, they enter it into the database, and then students around the world can use this data for their own projects, even scientists can tap into the GLOBE data and use it for their research,” Van Damme says. “It’s like having millions of scientists around the world gathering data, feeding into one large database.”

Her main design challenge on the UCAR-GLOBE project has been to help them move from a face-to-face instructional format to an e-learning format, while preserving the rigorous training and quality interaction necessary for GLOBE teacher certification.

Lisa Van Damme of Performance Impact

In the past, Van Damme has solved other design dilemmas by tapping into the digital media knowhow that surrounds her at BDA.

“There’s always the, ‘hey, does anybody know this, or I’m struggling with this idea, anybody have any suggestions?’ For me that’s been really helpful, because sometimes when you’re in a creative job, and you’re all alone, you get caught up in your own head,” she says. “Even if they don’t exactly give you the idea, sometimes they can trigger something that takes you in a different direction.”

For one particular e-learning module, Van Damme structured the training content in a comic book layout. But when she hit a wall in the design process, she turned to her fellow coworkers at BDA.

“I don’t know the rules per se of building a comic, so I showed my storyboard to my coworkers: two documentary people, one comic book writer, and a graphic designer,” she says. “The feedback they gave me was wonderful, stuff I would never have thought of. I had been thinking more about the learning on top of it.”

With input from her coworkers, the scenes began to lay out on the pages in a much more natural and engaging way.

“Tiny little changes to how I was presenting images on the page made a big difference,” she says.

As the only representative of Performance Impact in the western U.S., the BDA cohort is an invaluable resource for Van Damme’s work. Still, there are things she sometimes misses from her former “office” space.

“I almost kind of wish they could pump in the soundtrack of a coffee shop once in a while,” she says.

Enhanced campaigns help you reach people with the right ads, based on their context such as location, time of day and device type, all from a single campaign by using bid multipliers and ad preferences.

“Reach consumers at the moments that matter across devices with more relevant ads. Relevance is not one-size-fits-all”

Examples:

Discount Mattress Company wants to reach on-the-go customers within 5 miles of their store during business hours. Now, starting with a single campaign that reaches people across all devices, Discount Mattress can easily increase bids by 20% for a prospective customer searching on a smartphone who’s 5 miles from the store, or decrease bids by 30% during the hours the store is closed.

Sally’s Flower Shop has a physical store on Main Street and a website where customers can order online. Within a single campaign, Sally can customize ad headlines, text, and landing pages so that people using smartphones see ads that take them to her mobile site, while people using computers and tablets see relevant links on her desktop website.

With this roll out Google will also be introducing reports for new conversion types.

Example:

Steve’s Realty Company advertises a mobile app homebuyers can use to help in their search for a new house. Steve also promotes his business number in his ads so prospective clients can contact him. Enhanced campaigns will increasingly be able to help Steve measure new conversion types, such as calls and digital downloads. For instance, Steve can track app downloads and have AdWords count phone calls to his business lasting more than 60 seconds as a conversion.

Enhanced campaign features are being rolled out on an account by account level currently however starting in mid-2013 (June); all campaigns will be migrated to the new Enhanced format.  Once a campaign has been upgraded, it cannot be reverted to legacy. If you are an enhanced campaign, you cannot toggle back to a legacy view. If you have a legacy campaign, you can view it in legacy view.

Click here to view Google’s official upgrade guide.

This is very relevant as search behavior continues to shift toward a multiple screen experience for most searchers.  Last year Google / Ipsos and Sterling completed a studyabout the new multiscreen world. This study highlights that 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially. Google’s move to enhanced campaigns is embracing the future. This move will force advertisers into a more cohesive integrated approach across devices. It will also make advertisers get ready for the future where mobile search volume will overtake desktop, which is predicted by the end of this year. This change encourages advertisers to get their mobile website experience streamlined and responsive in design.

For more information on Enhanced Campaigns Click here.

This innovative approach to architectural modeling has helped to set Barnard apart from others in his field – and Barnard and his studio offer much more than architecture.

“It’s not just architecture or just film,” Barnard says. “It’s a blend of all fields. My ideal client would be, say, a retail space that needs an interior redesign as well as a new website or online presence.”

This is certainly part of Barnard’s competitive edge in the modern design business environment. It is also the hallmark of what industry analysts are calling “Generation Flux”: a generation of successful professionals who enjoy “recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions,” who are comfortable with uncertainty, and driven to adapt and thrive in a changing market.

Barnard considers himself part of this new generation of professionals, who need to be small and flexible to succeed. With his firm, Analog Design Studio, Barnard designs logos, creates websites, produces innovative marketing films, and more – along with providing architectural design services.

“This new generation can’t just stick to their career path and only their one career path,” he says.

Barnard earned his Masters of Architectural Design at the University of London, where he honed his innovative and experimental approach to the industry by exploring spatial relationships through film. Now back in his home state of Colorado, Barnard has created Analog Design Studio to market his unique approach to design, blurring the lines “between technology, art and space” while aiming for “simplicity, ingenuity and most of all authenticity.”

This isn’t as easy as it sounds in a place like Boulder, which Barnard considers to already be ahead of the pack in terms of architecture and design.

“You’re automatically designing to a level, sustainably speaking, that’s higher than the rest of the country,” he says. “I’m looking to be on the edge of what’s new and what’s current in the field.”

Having his office at Boulder Digital Arts helps Barnard to keep that edge sharp, and fits perfectly with the flexible, enterprising ethos of Analog.

“BDA has been great, just to be able to have that flexibility, in terms of space for example,” says Barnard, who began with a desk in BDA communal space, and now has his own office and is looking to upgrade to a larger one. “It’s been nice to have BDA, to kind of move along that scale, without having to jump right into a big rent situation.”

Barnard first came to BDA two years ago simply to get out of the house, and he found himself immediately drawn to the creative, collaborative venue.

“They have the conference room plus the larger storefront. And you’re not buried in some back room someplace; you’re not hidden,” says Barnard. “You really get a lot bigger presence as a business than you would if you were buying square footage downtown.”

Although Analog is the only architectural design firm at BDA, Tyler is not the only Barnard sharing the space.

“As soon as I signed up, my wife also wanted a desk out of the house and was jealous of my situation,” he says of his wife Lauren, a young-adult fiction writer. “We’ve both been working here ever since.”

As much a collaborator as he is an innovator, Barnard will be offering a workshop at BDA in the near future, where he will share his tricks for creating unique, alluring digital designs, and for using film to take these designs to the next level.

Think you might want to learn from him? Check out Barnard’s work at the Analog Design Studio website.