bob sacha » shallow thoughts

The Power of Words in the Creative Process

bob sacha — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:50:55 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of Ira Glass.

Also hate to admit that I feel like I suck more times than not. Good to know I’m not alone…

Click here to view the embedded video.

and I need to be producing more work.

What sets YOU apart?

bob sacha — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:29:53 +0000

” Now everybody is a photographer, everybody is a film maker, everybody is a writer.”

So what will set YOU apart?

take a minute, yes, just a minute and check this trailer from the new film Press Pause Play.>

——–

love this segment from the film about Seth Godin too.

It’s a great way of visualizing a story.

I especially like the way they framed him in the interview.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film premiered at SXSW in Austin. Look for it in your city soon.

Internet = empowerment? censorship?

bob sacha — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:56:19 +0000

Brilliant!! (animated) storytelling about web, censorship and democracy by web scholar

Evgeny Morozov tries to put all the pieces together, visually.

Or what else you can do instead of showing a boring talking head.

Click here to view the embedded video.

and here a video of Evgeny Morozo’s actual lecture so you can see the difference between a creative approach to visual storytelling and just capturing what was present in the lecture hall.

Repo Man

bob sacha — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:54:56 +0000

I’ve finally moved by old Phlog (short for PHoto bLOG) from WordPress. Now I can run hog wild on my own site…

If you’d like to see the millions of previous posts, check out my original wordpress site, sacha phlog.

How the Sausage is Made

bob sacha — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:37:39 +0000

The folks at the American Society of Picture Professionals asked me to come speak on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @6.30pm. I thought I’d be fun to follow the genesis of my first MediaStorm MultiMedia Piece: Bearing Witness. Details. Hope you can make it.

China, mon amour

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:04:04 +0000

Sunday’s New York Times hit my doorstep with a major package on China’s pollution crisis, headlined with a huge photo stretching across 4/5 of the top front page.

What caught my eye was a prominent notice under that Chang Lee photo that read: This series, with extensive multimedia features, can be found at nytimes.com.

Well, I finished my coffee, pushed aside the rest of the paper and rushed right over to my computer to find a juicy online package with a beautiful slideshow by NYT staffer Chang Lee, a small uncredited video complete with the excruciating Times reporter as badly lit talking head –god sakes, I want to see China, not some American talking to me with books behind him. I can get that in my own living room– and interactive graphic/map. You can even hear a summary of the story read to you in Mandarin.

At least check out the slideshow in full screen mode.

[I did a similar story for National Geographic Magazine in 2004, in the age before multimedia.]

Just talkin: my Adobe Podcast

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:21:22 +0000

I love talking with interesting people. Last week I had breakfast with George Jardine, a very cool guy from Adobe who helped design Lightroom. We met at one of my favorite restaurants in NYC and talked about a few things that we’re both extremely passionate about, with the big one being photography.

Two days later we got together again and this time he recorded our conversation for his great series of podcasts. We spoke about photography, new media, films, audio and where this might all be going. It was a fascinating and enlightening conversation for me plus I got to wear a very cool and amazingly efficient microphone on my ear, just like a popstar.

Have a listen.

Photography in Modern Times: same as it ever was.

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:13:07 +0000

Last month in Rome, I visited Paolo Pellegrin’s Broken Landscapes, an excellent exhibition at Museo di Roma in Trastevere.

It’s a retrospective of sorts, work from 1995-today by a still young photographer who seems to have won every major journalism award: a Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, eight World Press Photo awards, the Leica Medal of Excellence, the Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, and the Olivier Rebbot Award for Best Feature Photography and on and on .

After I looked at the work, I started to wonder why everyone–myself included–seems to be still shooting in a style developed in the 1960′s. Clothes have changed, music has changed, even car design has changed. And thank goodness people like Pellegrin have changed the way they see this world too.

How about the rest of us? When are we going to start taking pictures in a way that’s a little more contemporary? Yes, a good picture is a good picture but the way we deliver it can change. It’s no wonder that the NY Times Magazine is equally populated by photojournalists and art photographers. Maybe we’ve bored ourselves out of business? Maybe we’ll have a second chance with multimedia?

You can also see a video interview with Pellegrin, part of a project by Lelen Bourgoignie-Robert and other faculty in the Visual Journalism program at the University of Miami and part of the World Press photo website.

Broken Landscapes closes 09 September, 2007.