John Paul Caponigro's Next Step Alumni Group Exhibit Book

Alumni, Books, Event - Exhibit  Comment
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For over 10 years I’ve been mentoring a select group of individuals. Their progress has been thrilling to watch. It’s been a true privilege to be a part of their growth. July 7 their first Group Exhibit will be unveiled at the Maine Media Workshops. (link)
The members have produced a Group Blurb book to accompany the exhibit. The book includes images and statements from all 24 artists currently featured in the Group Exhibit.
You can preview and purchase the book here.
See the Next Step Exhibit at the Maine Media Workshops July 7 – 30.
Find out more about my workshops here.
Find individual member’s websites and Blurb books by clicking More.
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Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

Books, Creativity  Comment
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10,000 hours. The amount of time it takes to become an expert at something. That’s 40 hours a week for 250 weeks or 4.8 years. That’s what most people talk about when they talk about Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers : The Story of Success. But Gladwell goes much further than this. There are many other components to success. Culture. Family. Attitude. Receptivity. Flexibility. Versatility. Opportunity. Timing. Luck.
“Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky – but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.”
He gives many great examples, told in his inimitable style, part social psychology, part mystery/thriller. Perhaps the most interesting is the final chapter, the story of his own personal family history. Including this is an interesting move, not just from a human interest point of view, not just from the history of race relations, but also that he unveils many of the elements of his success portraying it as an inherited legacy. He’s right, in part. And this does no disservice to his individual accomplishments. Implied in this final chapter is that Gladwell is exceptional. He is.
All of Gladwell’s books are brilliant. Outliers is very good. Tipping Point is truly great. Blink is amazing.

Find them here, along with other books I recommend.
Learn about success in creativity in my upcoming Creativity workshop.

Blurb Seminar

Books  Comment
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Blurb put on a great seminar on new bookmaking possibilities at the Palm Springs Photo Festival.
Blurb makes possible small run, limited edition books, a majority of which wouldn’t be published in the mainstream publishing world. In comparison to high end traditional offset printing Blurb’s final product is a limited run, lo-fi approach. The cost per item is greater than traditional offset printing, but you can produce as few books as you like. You assume the financial risk, not the publisher, but you can limit or even eliminate your risk. There are only six sizes (harcover or softcover, with three different binding process. You have a limited choice of paper stocks – standard and premium. The color management is good but not excellent.
Blurb books look similar to traditional books, but they’re different. Really different. How? Create your own online private or public bookstore. Quickly and easily design your own book yourself with Blurb’s online software. (Some have done it in as few as 20 minutes.) Blurb will then produce as many or as few copies as you like and send them where you want them within a week. You can make them available for purchase by others. Blurb can fulfill orders for you. And if you make a profit, they’ll send you a check. You can update your book at any time; within hours or for the second copy ordered. And last, but certainly not least, everything in the text in your Blurb book is searchable; a Google search will find text in the captions for images! That’s amazing!
Blurb is a powerful new addition to the creation of book. They printed over 400,000 titles in 2008. This is a huge paradigm shift for the way we make books and share our work with others.
Check out Blurb here.
Check out my Blurb book Antarctica here (and stay tuned for the updated version coming soon).

The Elements of Color – Color Equilibrium

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Josef Albers’s Theory and Interaction of Colors is considered the definitive classic on color theory from a painter’s perspective. I actually prefer his colleague Johannes Itten’s The Elements of Color. Itten’s language is exceptionally clear. How important is language? Very! Itten does something brilliant. He avoids the whole mess of discussing color ‘harmony’, which is subjective (influenced by culture, region, individual, and time), and describes color relationships in terms of ‘equilibrium’. Complementary colors produce equilibrium; red and cyan mix to produce gray. ‘Color balance’ is produced by an equal mix of the two colors. An ideal color structure is produced by an equal mix of all colors. Equilibrium produced a perfect balance. There’s lots more where that came from. I highly recommend the book.
Find this and other books on color here.
Learn more about color in my DVDs.
Learn more about color in my workshop The Power of Color.

Olaf Willoughby – Alumni Success Story

Alumni, Books, Workshop  Comment
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Olaf Willoughby is one of my workshop alumns with an amazing success story. It’s a testament to how one man with focus can succeed personally and make a significant contribution in a short time.

“It all started with the mesmerising impact of a photographic expedition with Michael Reichmann and John Paul Caponigro. Antarctica was even more dramatic than I had expected. Glowing pink light at sunset. The vivid blue depths of the ice. Drifting sculpted icebergs. It was almost like a fairytale.
But the reality is different. Antarctica is under threat. Apart from the impact of climate change; the accords on land exploitation, whaling and tourism are all on a course of seemingly irreversible change for the worse.
This contrast between splendour and sadness led me beyond a photographic portfolio to produce a 48 page colour book, a work of environmental advocacy. “Antarctica, A Sense of Place”. The images and text contrast the natural beauty with the dark detail of the dangers facing Antarctica.
I produced the book within 6 months of the trip but I was still only halfway. John Cage said he didn’t consider his music complete until someone had heard it and similarly I needed marketing to create awareness and demand.
The World Wildlife Fund endorsed both the book and the images, using them in its web and print marketing activity. They also distributed over 5000 copies of the ebook on CD to help raise money for environmental causes. I have also blogged for the International Polar Year and their web site has featured the images. Additionally an article on the trip appeared in the UK’s most popular photographic magazine, Amateur Photographer, who also gave the book a very favourable review. A selection of images were exhibited at the ‘White Worlds’ exhibition at Nature In Art in the UK, Summer 2008. Prints have also been sold to support corporate environmental marketing programmes.
Through the WWF I have managed to create a good level of awareness, far higher than I might have managed on my own. I am going again in Jan 09 with John Paul and am currently planning the second edition.
JP’s workshops bring together a wonderful collection of like minded artists, rich with different talents. There are many benefits but, for me, the one outstanding lesson has been the expansion of the way I ‘see’ images, both provoking me to push harder and allowing me greater freedom to express my vision.”
Olaf Willoughby is a photographer, writer and researcher who lives with his wife Monique in London, UK. Creator: the WIT test of individualists and team players used in market research. Author: photography & travel books and articles. Values: the need to connect, environmental advocacy. Interests: the rhythms of data, images and words fuse into a long term fascination with creativity and pattern detection.
Check out a recent feature on Ag magazine here.
Find Olaf’s book here.
Learn more at olafwilloughby.com.
Stay tuned for stories from our upcoming January 2009 voyage to Antarctica.
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Enjoy my Antarctica galleries, book, and statements.
Learn more about my workshops here.
Early registrants get discounts at home.
Members get discounts abroad.

Robert Hoekman – Stupid User Syndrome

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Robert Hoekman talks about Stupid User Syndrome: Why We Become Idiots Online (And What Web Designers Can Do About It) in his excellent book Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action.
“Whether we like to admit it or not, we’ve all been victims of stupid user syndrome at some point or another. Designing the Moment author Robert Hoekman Jr. outlines the symptoms of this terrible malady as well as what Web designers can do to prevent it.
We learn the wrong things
First, we learn to do things the wrong way, often by learning from an uninformed friend or colleague, or by simply guessing.
Because we live in the Information Age and are constantly inundated with a huge amount of things to know, learning to do things the wrong way is often completely fine. The fact is, we don’t need to know the correct way if the incorrect way gets us to the same result and is “good enough”.
Most of our users will never become experts at using our—or any other—application. For most people, most of the time, a low- to high-level of intermediate knowledge is all that is ever needed to get by. So, we’ll learn just enough to do what we need to do, and we’ll stop.
And because this nice little shortcut works so well for us in life, we do the same thing online. Instead of learning the proper way to set up a filter for spam email (in email applications where this is not built in), for example, we may learn to simply get by with repeatedly clicking the Delete button.
But the problem doesn’t end there. Once we learn to do things the wrong way, we often settle in and never learn the correct methods. Why not?”
Check out the rest of Hoekman’s post on Peachpit here.
Get the book and check out other books I recommend here.
Sounds like learning any software interface that evolves – like Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2.
Check out my DVDs here.
Check out my workshops here.

The Printed Picture at MOMA

Books, Printing  Comment
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Photographer Richard Benson is the man behind the highly informative new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC – The Printed Picture (on exhibit through June, 2009). Anyone who goes will expand their understanding photographic printmaking and it’s short but rich history. I did. In it you’ll see exceptional examples of a wide variety of printmaking methods from offset to gravure, platinum to silver gelatin, and inkjet. I highly recommend the exhibit and the accompanying book.
“The Printed Picture traces the changing technology of picture-making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. The book surveys printing techniques before the invention of photography; the photographic processes that began to appear in the early 19th century; the marriage of printing and photography; and the rapidly evolving digital inventions of our time. From woodblocks to chromolithographs, from engravings to bar codes, from daguerreotypes to modern color photographs, the book succinctly examines the full range of pictorial processes. Exploring how pictures look by describing how they are made, author Richard Benson reaches fascinating and original conclusions about what pictures can mean. Includes 326 illustrations.”
Also visit the exhibit of Benson’s personal work – Found Views, Chosen Colors – at the Pace Macgill Gallery in New York through November 29.
Seen it? Comment here!
Find out more about The Printed Picture here.
Get the book here.
Visit Found Views, Chosen Colors online here.
Read my conversation with Richard Benson here.

Ben Wilmore – Up To Speed CS4 Book

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“If you want to learn what’s new in CS4 and you want the most in-depth coverage of these features that you’ll find anywhere, then this book is a must. It covers every change made to Photoshop CS4 and nothing else … Also, if you’re on the fence about upgrading and really need to know if it would be worth it in your specific situation, then this book will allow you to assess exactly what you’d get by upgrading to CS4.”

Find out what’s in it and what others are saying about Ben’s book here. Ben’s offering a special discount that beats Amazon through the end of today here.
Read my review of Ben’s Up To Speed CS3 here.
Check out other books I recommend here.

Blurb Announces Premium Paper

Books  Comment
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Blurb, the most popular print on demand book maker, just announced their new Premium Paper option.
“Premium Paper is the crème-de-la-crème of our paper offerings. This 100-pound text silk-finish paper is 35% heavier than our standard paper, featuring improved opacity and stellar image quality to make your best work shine.
For our pro users, Premium Paper is another way to present your best work to your clients on 100-pound paper. If you’re already using the B3 Custom Workflow process, adding Premium Paper to the mix will simply blow you – and your clients – away.
You can order books with Premium Paper starting on October 23, for all our book sizes and types, up to 160 pages. All your existing Blurb books can be ordered with Premium Paper too (if they’re 160 pages or less).
Adding Premium Paper to your next book is as easy as a single click – just choose “purchase with Premium Paper” at check-out to order your best-looking Blurb book yet.”
Selecting the new Premium Paper option adds a few dollars ($3-5) to the cost of each book.
Check out my Blurb Premium Paper here.
Check out my Blurb book Antarctica here.