Barcamp Belfast April 2009 from David McDonald on Vimeo.

I’ve been thinking more about the type of image I’m after and I think I can expand this brief a little. I still want images of Irish people at work, but this could include people selling goods, e.g. a market or shop, a hospitality business (barmen, café hotels etc.), bus drivers, taxis, even general things like shopping and general social interaction. So you may have more luck finding images like that in your collections

For those of you who expressed an interest in shooting some new images for this (thank you!) the following info may be useful…

If you find someone willing to be photographed, try having them look natural, doesn’t have to be smiles! – thoughtful/serious is good too.

Very important to note that you will need a signed model release form if the photo is selected for use, I just can’t use a photo without it, if the person is identifiable in your shot. If you don’t have model release forms here is a link to a good example to base your own form on. I recommend you print a batch of model release forms and always have them in your gearbag anyway.

If your subjects are not identifiable then I will not need the model release, e.g. if they are too distant/underexposed/looking away from camera etc.

Finally here is a visual guide as to the layout I wish to fill on the website, ideally the text area should be reasonably clear and overall proportion as shown.

Easy, eh?

Feel free to post comments here if you have any questions, or reach me on Twitter: @davymac

Such a project would involve several capable, and efficient, people with a diverse range of skills to complete this project in such a short space of time. They would also have to be prepared to work for free. The initial request for voluntary help came, as always these days, via my favourite network: Twitter. I saw the request on Wednesday last week and said yes immediately, I thought it was an inspiring project and, although I didn’t know Maryrose all that well in person (only met once at Belfast CreativeCamp) I follow her on Twitter – and I do find Twitter to be a pretty reliable reference in finding like-minded personalities. I knew I could work with Maryrose’s team so I offered to lend my help in designing the cover for the book, for the PDF download version and for the final printed copy.

Then the fun started! The project kicked-off like a wild west barn-raising party, such an energetic bunch of people, I’m so impressed with the effort and work of all involved here in accomplishing so much in such a short timeframe. Much of the team were freelance like myself, and had never even met, yet here we were operating swiftly and almost friction-less thanks to the organising skills of Maryrose and Basecamp. I’m a big fan of Basecamp, but my typical use is for longer span projects and fewer (known) people involved, really good to see how robust Basecamp is when under pressure like this, it really did keep the project moving.

I had early concepts for the design of the book cover planned by Friday and first visuals uploaded to Basecamp on Saturday, team members were dropping in to the project site during the weekend (freelance working hours – don’t you just love ‘em!) and the favourite idea was chosen Sunday night. I was pleased with the final choice, it was the strongest idea, nice clean graphics and all done with illustration and background texture – no stock photography needed. It was also a tricky brief to answer, we didn’t want to dwell on depressing images of losing a job, especially important as David’s book is all about the practical things you can do to improve your situation.

With unemployment scare stories becoming horribly repetitive nowadays it’s good to see such a positive, and practical, attitude in David’s book. I hope this book helps a lot of people deal with their situation, if they are unlucky enough to find themselves out of work.
You can still download a free PDF of the book until midnight tonight, after that it becomes a paid edition at €4.99 – with the paperback version to follow soon after. Be sure to checkout the website and the blog.

I’m thrilled to have been part of this project, much thanks to Maryrose, David Jones, Rachel Early, David Duignan, Alex Gibson, Gordon Murray and Digiweb, great to ‘meet’ you all and keep in touch.

Good People, Good Work, Good Karma…

Good Grief!

Despite the good advice of promoting only one consistent avatar (and I do agree with that) I wanted to have a bit of fun with mine. After all my logo itself is intended as a witty play on my own physical appearance, so I thought to play around with it a bit on a temporary basis. I take my work seriously, but I don’t take myself too seriously.

I will point out though that these avatar variations were only used for my Twitter account. The Twitter environment is more fluid and faster moving than most other networks I know of, it is temporary by nature, so it’s a place where I feel more comfortable playing around with my public representation. Having said that I like taking some artistic licence with my icons and I may extend the variations to my email signatures too. Then I’ll have to make sure they are all synchronised, great, like I don’t have enough to do!

Now there’s a thought – why doesn’t someone come up with a cool web app that synchronises avatars across the various social networks? There’s a business opportunity for someone.

I had been thinking about designing a set of themed icons for a while and Halloween seemed like a good time to do it (I’m a fan of classic horror movies) and there are many iconic references that readily spring to mind. The challenge here was to break the reference down to the most basic graphic information so that the image survives the very small size for (in this case) a Twitter Avatar, also that it match the aesthetic of my own avatar, which was the starting point. The Halloween theme had a couple of exceptions, I created one icon as a tribute to the excellent radio drama of ‘War of the Worlds’, as performed by The Devious Theatre Company in Kilkenny, podcast of the show is available soon – check the Devious site for details. Although I’m not a native of Kilkenny I knew the show was coming up as I follow Ken McGuire in Twitter. The other was a Joker image, vaguely horror I guess, but I couldn’t resist making that one.

I certainly had fun designing these, it was a pleasant and creative break from my other ongoing projects. I typically created these icons in a very short timeframe as and when the inspiration struck, so they did not consume a great deal of my time. Thanks to all my Twitter followers who complimented me on the icons, feedback was great and the ratio of enjoyment gained, compared to effort applied, has been most rewarding.

You can see the full collection of avatars here.

Now I’m a veteran of two Flickr meetups, both hugely enjoyable and both very inspirational in getting me out with the prime directive of improving my photography, what’s not to like.
In a post-shoot discussion over lunch in the Kitchen Bar I mentioned that I thought Flickr is the contemporary evolution of the ‘Camera Club’, Phil thought that made sense too and Photography definitely is booming on the web, as opposed to being notable by it’s absence in the real world. I’m sure there are still active clubs, I just found it difficult to locate them.
Just like Twitter, Flickr is now becoming mildly addictive, an easy achievement to someone already addicted for many years to creating images. Yep, Photography is my drug of choice and Flickr is my dealer.

The second meet-up was in Dublin, fantastic day out, thanks to our fearless leader for the day Shauneen and the rest of the photographers who turned up; Caitriona, John, Darren, 73 Man, Phil, Nathalie, Alexia, Debs, Will, Bob, and Claire. A separate post is required for that one I think.

Having thought some more on the whole phenomenon I think we should now be officially recognised as Phoblographers.

I’m a huge fan of Basecamp from 37Signals, so I’m pleased to see they chose to publish the ‘welcome message’ that I enter as the first post on all my Basecamp projects.
I remember writing this and, not having too much time, just blazing through it in an effort to succinctly get across the important ‘ground rules’ for new users unfamiliar (and possibly hostile to) using Basecamp.
Thinking back on it now I was really focussed on a ‘Just the facts ma’am’ missive, even though there’s quite a bit of text to the finished piece. Thankfully most of my clients ‘get it’ fairly quickly with Basecamp, but I like to think that putting out the ‘Welcome mat’ helps.

Good fun and, as always with those who are fired with enthusiasm for their work, some exciting projects under discussion. One such project is The Big Word Project

I chatted briefly to Lee from the project last night and so I thought I would throw my tuppence-worth in ($4 actually, luckily I have a short nickname) and buy my name:

This is a very interesting, and popular, project – already getting picked up on the web by many highly-regarded sites (such as one of my favourites: daringfireball ).

I wish them all the best with this and maybe you’d like to pay them a visit (and some dollars) and buy your own word.

Built by Kolbrener, a branding company

Our brief is to promote Northern Ireland as a leading resource in ‘best practice’ web for business, hence ‘Northern Ireland’s Digital Hub’.

But, as they say, “a picture’s worth a thousand words” – so go check out a few million word’s worth in the video.

Hmm, word’s worth – how poetic…

We’re using Brightcove to host the media file, will probably post to YouTube as well, in due course.