(note: this blog was published later than it’s noted publishing date)

It feels like the quiet before the storm, no pun intended. On Saturday is the start of a week-long multimedia workshop at MediaStorm. We will guide three teams through the process of reporting and producing stories using stills, video, and audio. (iPhone photo at right: MediaStorm is in DUMBO, or Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass…and that’s the Manhattan Bridge)

One day is training, two days are reporting, one day is transcription, the next is for any additional content plus editing. Thursday is going to be the super long editing day; at one workshop Brian Storm, President/Founder/Guru/Dude, said he stayed so late he saw the sunrise.

Since arriving on Monday I’ve been getting clinics on Final Cut Pro (FCP) from FCP brainiac Eric Maierson. I know a lot of the basics, but it’s such a complex application that I’m still learning, especially their work flow here at MediaStorm. Data management is ultra important, something I’ve found out the hard way with digital photography (and have thus developed a rigorous work flow). Additionally there are tricks MediaStorm has developed for syncing cameras or, in the case of the new High Definition Digital SLR cameras (HDDSLR), syncing cameras and audio. These new tools, a physical example of “convergence,” produce beautiful video with the depth-of-field trademark of film but are absolutely terrible with audio capture. Someone here said that the new HDDSLR cameras are like taking two steps forward, then one step back as you figure out how to modify them to make them useful.

Read more about the MediaStorm family after the jump.
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I’ll be in Seattle on the weekend of March 13/14 to see the family and give a talk as part of a lecture series “The Price of Life” on human trafficking at the Seattle Public Library.

Come down to the Microsoft Auditorium in the Central Library at 2pm on Sunday, March 14 if you’re in town! 1000 Fourth Ave. 206.386.4636

Click on the image at right for the PDF invitation.

Click here for a PDF list of resources on human trafficking at the Seattle Public Library.

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To briefly live in the City means I’m on a budget in the City; I’m not eating out much, I’m not shopping for recreation, and I’m unlikely to spend a lot of time in bars or going to events…unless they’re photo-industry related and therefore deemed important. And working at Mediastorm may prove incredibly time consuming as well. There is a wealth of knowledge in their small office and I intend to absorb as much of it as possible. Which will likely mean long hours.

But my first weekend of this three month sabbatical was spent with Lu and we did things you do in the City. Including going out to a show. It wasn’t a Broadway show; it was something less traditional and more interactive. Something very Lu-like, which means very fun.

Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force) starts off with an announcement to the standing crowd that you’ll be asked to move about. The ticket office says to dress casual, that you’ll be standing for 65 minutes, and there will be strobes. And then, I overheard someone in the audience say to his friend “stand over here and you won’t get wet.”

In the darkness, an industrial fan and a spotlight came on, then shut off. Again, but in another part of the room. The music got louder and a lone man appeared on a treadmill, walking above the crowd, a lone light upon him. There are no words spoken the entire show, but it is his story.

He runs, he gets shot, he struggles up and runs again. He bursts through walls, he bumps through a crowd, he dreams, he searches, he meets people and joins them but, it seems, he is lying to himself. Finally, he risks himself and in that process he finds himself….at least, that’s my interpretation. It’s all very fluid and visually rich; a water-filled clear stage descends from the ceiling and actresses slide back and forth until they stare down at you, mermaid-esque, making eye contact with the audience. Touching through the clear barrier.

Finally, in the darkness, to a techno beat, the sky opens up and artificial rain pours down on the dancing audience. Happily, we were soaked.

We dried off (a little) in the theater’s bar where drinks were 2-for-1. In the bathroom Lu met part of the cast and later, when we went to the bar they went to, they reacquainted themselves with her. Somewhere around 3 a.m. we stumbled home. A true night out, with many thanks to Lu; I never would have gone without her.

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This Friday, March 5, check out the Photo Center Northwest on the southern end of Capitol Hill near Seattle U. They’ve got a great gallery space and, even better, work from the top 50 winners of Critical Mass.

And, yes, I do have a print in the show; the Inupiat Boat from my Spiegel Magazine assignment in Kivalina, Alaska. Read the Kivalina blog posts here and here.

Photolucida’s Critical Mass is a way to bring together photographers and photo buyers. 200 jurors–from high end art buyers to small galleries or online publications–review the work. On Friday you’ll have a chance to hear guest lecturer and juror Andy Adams of Flak Photo and to see the top 50 Critical Mass winners.

See the press release, address, and hours after the jump.
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Apparently I’d been to the American Museum of Natural History as a child. At least, that’s what my Grandma told me on the phone last night.

I don’t recall a lot from early childhood, which makes me wonder what T will remember about his childhood. He’s six now and, while at the museum, all I could think about was how much fun he would have–even if there is no Robin Williams version of Teddy Roosevelt (he’s a statue outside) nor is there a display featuring Lewis and Clark or Sacajewea. There never has been (we asked).

However, there is a giant blue whale, chunks of meteorites, crystals bigger than your head, and much to my pleasure, a northwest coast Native American dugout canoe hanging dramatically in a large hall.

Luciana and I walked through the museum, seeing as much as we could but quickly realizing there was way too much to absorb in one visit. It was impressive; the quality of the displays, the breadth of the work…and we didn’t even make the special exhibits or the Imax films.

The one unfortunate thing about the trip is how far the museum is from where I am living in Prospect Heights. It’s nearly an hour by subway, though I’m sure if I could navigate the system better I could cut a few minutes off the trip. However, on the way back home we managed to add a few minutes…and take a new train in the process.

As I was getting off the train Lu, who was a step behind me, had the door close on her. As the train picked up speed I pounded on the train, creating our own little Hollywood moment, and pantomimed “I will come to you.” We laughed when I caught up with her. From the sounds of it, this isn’t so rare.

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Lu and I caught a red eye flight and were bumping down through turbulence over JFK before we knew it. A cab ride in morning traffic with an ancient cabbie with gnarled hands. Rain was mixed with snow; they were forecasting another winter storm, 6-14 inches over the weekend. A very New York welcome for us as I prepare for the next three months working with Mediastorm, an industry leader in multimedia production.

Not knowing for sure if my Craigslist housing ad was for real, we arrived in Brooklyn, near Prospect Park, to meet my new roommate. Shore had taken the day off from work to welcome me and meet Lu and, much to our surprise and delight, had flowers on the dresser and two folded towels with the apartment keys on top. It’s a beautiful apartment, well appointed and well located, and I’m looking forward to getting to know Shore and our other roommate, Clay.

Shore took us out to the local deli, showed us the grocery store and the coffee shop. And then, just to keep things real, somewhere along the way we stood too close to the road and…yes, we were completely soaked by a passing SUV splashing through a slushy puddle. Ice water in our noses, down our jackets, across our legs. Soaked. We laughed it off and, shrugging, I finished my water logged sandwich.

Lu is here for a long weekend to meet the folks at Mediastorm, my roommates, and help me get settled. I love traveling with her. Though professionally stimulating, it’s going to be a long three months away from the family.

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It’s that time of year again: World Press publishes the results of its 2010 photo competition. Here you will see some of the best photojournalism from 2009. This is powerful, and sometimes graphic, work.

Yes, I entered. No, I didn’t win. Maybe next year.

Click on the image:

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Who would have thought President Regan’s Strategic Defense Initiative would really have a practical application? Yes, there are missile defense systems that seem to work, but shooting nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles out of the sky with a laser? As a kid in the 80’s, I liked looking at the diagrams and thought the “Star Wars” nickname was kind of funny. But it looked really, really complex.

(at right: click on image to see video of mosquito zapper in action–scroll down to 3rd video)

Intellectual Ventures, an outfit run by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, is re-purposing concepts in an spare-looking lab that is a tech-head’s equivalent of a souped-up garage workshop. Check it out in this PDF of a Seattle P-I article. It sounds like a cool place to work–lots of interesting projects.

Take, for instance, the mosquito zapper. Technology developed for laser printers is coupled with digital camera sensors and imaging software that can differentiate the size and sex and species of insects flying through the air. It then fires the laser, searing the insect, and killing it.

Apparently all of this was assembled from parts found on eBay.

Still, something tells me that tried and true methods like insecticide impregnated mosquito nets and awareness building advertising campaigns might be the best thing for the near future. Like in Brasilia–we used a net to keep T from getting bit at night. And I couldn’t help but notice all the bright advertisements at bus stops. Empty out all standing water, they were saying, to deprive dengue fever infected mosquitoes a place to breed. Pretty simple solutions…but still, I always like a good bug zapper.

…as a side note, this just out: Boeing shoots down a ballistic missile with an airborne laser. It only took two decades.

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It was somewhere back in the 1990’s, probably on some gray, wet Seattle day, when I picked up a back issue of Climbing Magazine and read about Mugs Stump and his unfortunate death in Alaska. I was a retail climbing shop lackey, an apathetic employee of Feathered Friends steadily making his way through the shop’s library of climbing literature. (Fortunately, today’s staff at the shop are more energetic than I was). As I read, using my new-found climbing vocabulary, I saw that for all the pioneering hard climbing he had done, it was something simple and basic to mountaineering that got him. Climbing, simply put, is risky…and that makes it attractive.

At that time I was still coming to understand what “the climbing life” really was, an all-consuming lifestyle with a level of commitment rarely found in anything else. When I think of the moments I have pushed myself to the edge, when the only thing keeping me from collapsing, giving up, or possibly falling to serious or fatal injury, I realize it was my mind. It was my will. I put myself there, and I got myself out, and for this I feel a sense of personal accomplishment. With a climbing partner, it built camaraderie through shared experience; shared suffering, shared success, and shared failure.

Then I look at these friends of mine, Colin Haley, Dylan Johnson, Joe Puryear, David Gottlieb, Jesse Huey, Kate Rutherford, who have pushed even further. Some, to contrast the sport’s all-consuming reputation, even pursue professional lives and maintain relationships and marriages. They and their climbing partners have the vision, the will, and the skill to challenge themselves in the mountains; pushing the limits of the sport, and lifestyle, that much further. For this, the Mugs Stump Award recognizes them. I wish them success and the best of luck. That, and to come home alive.

Read about the 2010 award at Alpinist.com
Read about the Mugs Stump Award

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The adventure of this trip was to experience the Brazil Lu calls home. This trip wasn’t about work; though stories abound, my purpose was to meet the parents, the brothers, the aunts, the cousins…extended family is big in Brazil…and learn a little Portuguese and some cooking tips. I began in earnest on day two; Lu was busy, so her father and aunt took me out to see the city and have a few beers. In a stumbling mixture of English and Spanish, and as those big bottles of Skol beer disappeared into those tiny glasses, we got to know each other. Both of them are a riot.

There is still a lot to think about from this trip; the cultural differences, the stories of her youth, the trips to the countryside, and, predominantly, my growing role as a step father and member of Lu’s family. But I thought I’d start by sharing some travel photography.

Brasilia was carved out of the plains of central Brazil 50 years ago. It was designed, planned, and plunked down in row-upon-row of concrete and steel. The “Plano Piloto” was created by urban planner Lucio Costa; shaped like a plane or a bird in flight, the north-south axis is filled with housing super-blocks anchored to the highway, each of which could be city unto itself. The eastern tip of the east-west axis is dedicated to symmetric rows of uniform government ministries, the presidential palace, supreme court, and congress. Graceful curves and towering spires were predominantly the work of architect Oscar Niemeyer and the extensive green spaces belong to landscape architect Burle Marx. The city was planned for fewer than 1 million, but suburban sprawl and satellite cities, like Guara and Aguas Claras, have sprung up, bringing the overall population to around 2 million. However, when leaving the city by car the urban infrastructure quickly falls away, leaving wide valleys and vast mesas covered in soy, corn, or cattle.

I often found myself in the front passenger seat, as a guest for the views. We never took the metro, we never rode a bus; her father, as the family driver, wouldn’t let us. So I began taking pictures through the windshield and stealing snaps out the side. This series, rather loosely edited, is taken from within the car or very near the car (with a couple exceptions). It is my initial overview of Brasilia and the surrounding countryside, including Caldas Novas with its water parks and natural hot springs, and the Chapadas dos Veadeiros, a national park with some of the oldest rock outcrops in the world, at 1.8 billion years old.

Brasilia, Brazil: Through the Windshield – Images by Tim Matsui

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