Obama Flickr! Hillary, flick her.

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed Under Business, Marketing, Announcements | 10 Comments

Simply put, I’m not the greatest at following politics. I know I should be much more educated in the subject not only on a national but also a local level too. This year I plan on becoming more involved in the wonderful world of politics.

While I certainly have a favorite presidential candidate right now, I don’t want to force my thoughts or views on anyone and will maintain a strict objectivity to what you are about to read.

The web is playing a huge roll in the primaries right now. As you know all of the candidates have websites and most of them if not all are part of social networks. Perhaps the most interesting of social networks is Flickr.com a website dedicated to photo sharing.

To my surprise not all the republicans had flickr pages although John McCain did have a social thing called “McCainSpace”, to give him credit, he does also have a MySpace page.

So as far as myspace goes…

Barack Obama - 238,798 friends
Hillary Clinton - 169,829 friends
John Edwards - 53,317 freinds

John McCain - 43,237 friends
Mitt Romney - 34,916 friends
Mike Huckabee-32,104 friends
Rudy Giuliani- 10,886 friends

Drew Anderson- 201 friends

If only 18-24 year olds could vote.

Almost every candidate has a MySpace and or FaceBook page. They also had all connected through at least one video sharing site, mainly YouTube.

While some republican candidates did have flickr pages, my interest was really sparked while looking at the democrats on the photo sharing site.
Below you can see the flickr pages for the candidates
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards

Now my main interest is in profiling the candidates based on their social network pages. Basically you can tell a lot about a person by the way they have their sites set up. Since Obama and Clinton are the most interesting to watch of the bunch, I decided to take a closer look at their flickr pages.

The Profiles

Obama Profile
Barack Obama’s flickr profile

I look at this profile page and I would like to point out several important things. There is a great profile and picture on Obama’s profile. I notice he must have some money saved up cause he does have a pro account that costs almost $25 for a year.
You will notice he has 895 contacts, that’s pretty good but, I would expect more really. On the right hand side there are some really nice testimonials from a good number of people.

Let’s compare Barack’s profile on flickr to…

Hillary Clintons flickr profile
Hillary Clinton’s profile on Flickr

Well… She has a photo of herself. She too must have enough money to pay for a pro account. I’m going to assume that whoever helps her with the flickr page doesn’t realize there is a profile section or perhaps they assume that people already know who she is. Since she has zero contacts I’m guessing that who ever runs the site doesn’t want to have to deal with people leaving all sorts of negative messages about Wal-Mart or something on her site. That’s probably why she has no testimonials too. I guess it’s a lot of work to reach out to a small group of people like this.
She may not have any contacts but, you will notice she is one of mine.

Not too much to say about this profile. Compared to Obama’s profile, Hillary has a lot of work to do.

On to the Photos

Barack Obama on flickr
The photos in Barack’s flickr account are obviously snapped by a variety of people and cameras. I really like how a lot of the photos focus on the people supporting Obama. If you browse through, you can really feel the energy of the people. I love this shot of this dog. I think dogs are not only cute but charming too. Below the photo the words “Some rights reserved” along with iconic representation of the rights indicate that this photo can be used for non-commercial purposes, cool. I like that. You will also notice that there are 5 comments, I think most of them are talking about how cute the dog is.

and…

Taking a look at Hillary’s flickr page you will notice something that is kind of a turn off right away, the photos are all marked with a copyright and “all rights reserved”, so I had to practice some of my artistic skills a little bit. I guess she might figure out a way to make money off these photos someday. Other than my skills as an artist, you will notice that there are zero comments on this photo, that’s not an odd thing. The odd thing is that none of her photos have comments as far as I can tell. Once again, I’m guessing that someone doesn’t want to filter through all the bad comments people will leave. She does have some support out there though so, I wonder why Hillary would wouldn’t want to hear what the people have to say? It sort of baffles me. Despite being able to look at some photos, Hillary Clinton’s flickr page is cold and weak.

In Conclusion….

Barack Obama has 13,936 photos in his Flickr account
Hillary Clinton has 3,081 photos in her Flickr account

Net profiling is very interesting when it comes to social sites. You can certainly tell a lot about people. I realize that Barack and Hillary probably don’t personally handle their social networking sites but, these social networking sites are a direct representation of the candidates.
One of the key parts to a social network is the social part, it’s not just “hey look at my photos”, it’s about letting people put their voice in and share it with others. Obama gets it, Clinton doesn’t.

Thursday, 31st Art Opening!

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed Under Art, Announcements | 4 Comments

This is one not to be missed.

The opening is on Thursday, January 31st at the Goodfoot from 5-11pm

From the press release.

The goodfoot will have an art opening last Thursday, Jan 31 from 5-11pm, show will be up until Feb 25. The artists this month are David Whelan, Drew Anderson & Michael Fields.

David Whelan has been working in Portland for the past ten years, exhibiting his art on a mobile picture gallery on a vintage tricycle for most of that time. He regularly show’s at Saturday (Skidmore) Market as well as first and last Thursday. He will continue the market/street vending through the end of 2008, at which time he plans to take a hiatus to explore other ventures and mediums. David is influenced by the subconscious, dreams, myths, old fairy tales, ghosts, and various states in between. The images reveal themselves as he allows the medium he is working with to exist in tandem with each other, balance between expression and restraint. David oftentimes uses charcoal (burnt wood) upon panels of found wood, taking inspiration from the forms within the grain. He is most inspired when working with stream of consciousness and developing a narrative as he discovers more and more within the piece to bring out and elucidate.

Drew Anderson is an artist, inventor and idea person. Drew’s creative depository is known as Millions of Hundred Dollar Ideas www.MoHDI.com where for the past year and a half many of his ideas are shared with the world.
Drew’s pen and ink work is continually evolving and translates to the direct visualization of his creative process. This series combines abstract logic and alchemy to help create a unique and inspirational experience for each viewer of the work.

Michael Fields is a self-taught artist based in Portland, Oregon. His work is mixed media, juxtaposing fine-line detail, layers of color, and collage. Highly technical creatures come to life while small solar systems orbit indefinite backgrounds, all hinting at a much larger picture. Field’s work is born not of planned composition, but inner dialog, challenging the viewer to decipher intricate messages buried with both form and structure.

Hope to see you at the opening. Thanks.

I hope to see you there.

Library of Congress + Flickr

Posted on January 24, 2008
Filed Under Business, Announcements | 2 Comments

Just soak your hands a little in water and the splinters come right out.

I know it’s kind of old news however, this is so amazing it’s ridiculous.

You can read about Flickr Commons.

or just start browsing photos from the Library of Congress.

So many photos, so much fun.

Bobby Fischer.

Posted on January 18, 2008
Filed Under Announcements | 3 Comments

1943-2008

Fischer passed away on Thursday at the age of 64. For numerous reasons, I’ve always looked up to this person as a role model. I love his story and consider if very inspirational.

Get’em in! Ignite Portland Proposals!

Posted on January 14, 2008
Filed Under Announcements, Inspiration, Events, Portland | 16 Comments

Hey Portlanders, you have till Tuesday the 15th to get your proposals into Ignite Portland.http://www.igniteportland.com.

I sent in a proposal a while ago. I probably wrote the thing sometime around 3 in the morning so, I’m not too sure if it sounded coherent or not. You can read all the proposals and submit your own if you would like at the Ignite Portland site. If you are passionate about anything at all and would like to share that passion, you should submit.

[If you have a great proposal and need help putting a presentation together, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll gladly help you implement your idea into presentation form for this]

The first event was amazing and the upcoming 2nd Ignite event should not be missed!

I hope to be presenting this time, if not, I hope one of you will. It would be great to see the proposal board explode with entries. I certainly can’t wait till the event.

Caption Contest Winner

Posted on January 12, 2008
Filed Under Art, Ideas, contest | 2 Comments

I decided only a few short moments ago that I’m going to be a caption contest winner. After a quick search of the internet several caption contests popped up. See…
http://www.google.com/search?q=caption+contest

I may not ever be the greatest caption contest writer although, I have set a goal to be a caption contest winner sometime in 2008. Now I’m not talking about just any captions, I’m talking about funny captions.
Since the New Yorker Caption Contest is probably the most well know. If you search blogs on google you will notice many bloggers will have caption contests from time to time.

My plan to go about actually winning a caption contest is as follows.
1. Start writing captions for everything.
2. Enter caption contests.

Pretty simple really.
Since I’m just getting started I would like to get some practice in before actually hitting the underground caption contest scene.

Below some of my newly formed and always changing caption writing techniques.

State the obvious
Simple, state the obvious of what’s going on.

Change perspective
Look at this differently than people generally would. What is the perspective of each element in this?
Offscreen
Write about what is going on offscreen.

Question
Ask all the questions. What is going on? Why are they there? Who is there? Who isn’t there? Why? What? How? When? Who? … Ask questions, then answer them. Either write your question or answer, tah-dah instant funny caption.

Abstract Logic
I could go off on abstract logic for a very very long time. This is by far my favorite type of humor. Basically you make things relate through a chain of other things. It’s like playing chess and being able to think several moves ahead. With abstract logic you basically let the viewer make the relationship. It’s hard to explain however, I will give examples.

You got It.
This method is basically taking people to a certain point and letting them discover the punch-line. You simply influence people to come to the same conclusion.

Nearly Perfect Fit
Write a caption that is nearly a perfect fit. No rules, just make it work.

Keep in mind these are practice captions and I’ll be using some great photos from the USDA ( United States Department of Agriculture).

Let’s see if I can put into practice these ideas of writing funny captions…

State the obvious: That’s a lot of meat.

Change perspective:“My buns are cold.”

Offscreen:Where did I put all those sandwiches?

Question:Arrgh scurvy dogs! Who be hungry?

Abstract Logic: Garage sale today.

You got It: Harold was found 3 days later.

Nearly Perfect Fit: Pass the salt.

State the obvious: Hold your horses.

Change perspective:Nice shoes.

Offscreen:We have the same color of eyes.

Question:Where are the instructions for this thing?

Abstract Logic: I store my carrots in there.

You got It: It was a beautiful wedding.

Nearly Perfect Fit: My hand is stuck.

State the obvious: Nice Pairs.

Change perspective:Your hands are soft.

Offscreen:Why brussels sprouts are sad.

Question:What are these things for?

Abstract Logic: I should run for politics.

You got It: Heir of Mr.Rodgers estate.

Nearly Perfect Fit: I can only afford one.

Having fun?

Last one for now.

State the obvious: Hmmm? “Raising Bran” or “Raisin Bran”?

Change perspective:Singles shopping market.

Offscreen:This should clear her out.

Question: Now where does it say how many scoops of raisins are in here?

Abstract Logic: This novel is pretty good.

You got It: Seconds before a major isle clean up.

Nearly Perfect Fit: Caution: This product main contain raisins.

Another great practice is to re-write captions for cartoons. Generally one panel cartoons work best for this and remember Ziggy and Family Circus captions are almost always interchangeable.

Research Notes
10 rules for humor
Design Better with CRAP
Sloganizer
19 Ideas for writing funny cartoon captions

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School

Posted on January 10, 2008
Filed Under Art, Sketch Book, Events, Portland | 1 Comment

Dr.Sketchys drawing 2
One of my many drawings from the evening

For a while I had thought about taking some life drawing classes, even at the last CFF meeting the conversation came up about getting motivated to do some life drawings. It was always one of those things that I would eventually get around to.
Last night Jason (who happens to be an amazing artist/illustrator) had told me about the event and suggested I check it out. The idea of a burlesque style life drawing session sounds amazing although at the time, I wasn’t really feeling like doing anything, I guess that’s the sign when you actually need to go do something. After checking out the Portland Portland MySpace Page for Dr. Sketchy’s I was sold.

In Portland Dr. Sketchy’s is every Wednesday at Dante’s from 7-9 and cost $6.
There are over 40 Dr. Sketchy’s events around the World that operate similar to the one in Portland, so try to find one near you.

There was only a small crowd there and last night there where 2 female models. I guess most of the time they have a male and a female. Probably 15 artists showed up all with different skill levels. Glancing at some of the peoples work, I was amazed at how they could make something so good so quickly. It was my first time and I have to admit, I was a bit nervous. For some reason one of the models kept making direct eye contact with me ( I suppose everyone felt that way) I had to fight the laughter a little bit as a half naked model was almost trying to make my laugh by locking eyes. I was slightly intimidated too cause I didn’t really want her to see my drawing of her as I struggled along. Next time I go (most likely next week) I kind of know what to expect so, I don’t think I’ll be as nervous and shy about my art.

As far as my art skills go, I have a lot to learn and Dr. Sketchy’s was just what I needed.

Dr. Sketchy’s
Another of my drawings, most of my drawings looked like they had been done by a 12 year old boy after 5 cups of coffee.