bob sacha

digital dreamscape

bob sacha — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:15:22 +0000

This is an interactive portfolio, click on the arrows to cycle through the images (and my dreams).

Every Sunday I’m left as an internet widow by my partner, who writes the wildly popular website Gastropoda. So while she was ranting online about food and politics, I was posting pictures. The site was designed by Audrey Chen and Billie Mandle, making a site that reflected both my dreams and photography in an even cleaner and more clever mode than what I imagined.

Too long?

bob sacha — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:11:24 +0000

I’m a big fan of the Bombay Flying Club (“Online Journalism as it could be” is their motto) BFC produces stunning multimedia. I checked in to see their most recent piece, Streetlight Ethiopia, which was commissioned by the NGO “Hope for Children”

There are a some great things about this work: I like the the wonderful use of ambient sound (they have ambient sounds under everything and it gives it a wonderfully rich texture to the piece.) I love the full screen experience, full screen even BEFORE you click the full screen button in the upper left, and the use of subtitles on the entire piece. The B&W images are beautiful too.

But, I think the use of dissolves on every frame overly romanticizes the work, on a subject that, in truth, is really not very romantic. Cuts are harder but that’s the way we see the world.

One thing I find very disconcerting is that there’s no playbar. This piece is a little long and I really don’t like the fact they they’ve taken control out of my hands. I can’t skip ahead, and I can’t return and see the piece without starting at the beginning. I didn’t make it to the end the first time and when I returned, I was sentenced to start all over, like a punishment for abandoning it the first time.

So, how long is too long? This 11 minute piece has generated interesting talk on the blogs, summarized over at Tracey Boyer’s Innovative Interactivity. BFC even admits it’s too long in their blog, where they talk about how happy the client was and how they aim to please.

But why not make a shorter cut for the BFC site? You edit differently for a portfolio than you do for a client, right?

Luz, a new photo agency

bob sacha — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:05:12 +0000

Grazia Neri Agency was the best European photo agency I worked with: they sold every story I sent them. So I was sad when they called it quits. But now there’s Luz, born from the ashes of Grazia Neri and with an eye toward new media also.

I’m also a big fan of it’s founders, especially Alberto Giuliani, an amazing young photographer. Great to be in such good company.

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.

1 Magazine 3.5 minutes 21 years.

bob sacha — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:49:02 +0000

Published work from National Geographic Magazine.

Here’s a selection of the photography I published in National Geographic Magazine, on assignment for more than 20 years.

How fast time flies…

Thanks to Pamela Chen who wrote the music.

2010 multimedia workshop schedule

bob sacha — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:40:32 +0000

“Bob Sacha taught me to think about storytelling in a completely different, and much more effective, way than I ever had before.” … Chris Linder, photographer, scientist and multimedia producer

“Bob Sacha changed the way I work. His workshop helped me learn how to tap into the emotion of storytelling and the importance of good audio.”… Lauren Hermele, photographer, Fulbright Grantee and translator

Listed below are the workshops I’m teaching this summer. Click the name of the workshop for more info. Hope to see you this summer.

Jewish Museum, Berlin.

Students learn to use all the tools of multimedia more fully. Video b-roll is discussed, more advanced interview techniques, rack focusing, time-lapse and sequence photography is explored along with workflow and story structure. This will be a practical guide to using these techniques in the field.

Far Away Lands

bob sacha — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:52:24 +0000

This is short film I made with a point-and-shoot pocket-sized digital camera.

It was the opening piece for a lecture on travel photography at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY. The series was called Wish You Were Here.

On Thinner Ice

bob sacha — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:56:25 +0000

The news about what we’re doing to our planet keeps getting worse and worse.

My latest multimedia story was a collaboration from MediaStorm and the Asia Society, is On Thinner Ice“ a look at how we’re losing glaciers and what that means to the earth’s “bank account.”

This piece features some amazing photos by mountaineer and film maker David Breashears.

Artist in Residence

bob sacha — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:24:44 +0000

Just finished a three day artist-in-residence in the School of Design at Stevenson University, a small private university outside Baltimore. It was a lot of fun to be teaching students who were interested and motivated and willing to listen, pitch in with all their energy, and try new things.

The final stories are on the blog. I think they’re really good, especially for a group of undergrads who had never recorded any audio and never created a multimedia story before. Oh, and they produced them under deadline too.

Hats off to Stevenson University student Mike Jett for creating the awesome poster too!

Times of Crisis: a year in the life of the financial meltdown

bob sacha — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:03:48 +0000

I’ve been living the financial crisis for the past several months from the safety of my desk at MediaStorm. Working together with Reuters on a multimedia story bringing together the past year of their reporting in words, pictures and video, we tried to explain what went wrong.

The result is the introduction, which I edited and produced, plus a very cool timeline of the year of financial meltdown. See it at Reuters Times of Crisis.

Here’s the YouTube trailer.