In October, I was priviledged to present to our Utah C-Forum group about some creative projects that I have been a part of recently. First off, I taught a bit of photography including ghost photography, digital badges, and solarized portraits (example to the right). I also taught a bit about how to record and use podcasts in your classroom. It was such a great experience to share all the creative processes that I have been using in my work.

A few years ago I was fascinated with Adobe Character Animator. I had my yearbook students make their own avatars and then make photography explainer videos. It was just so much fun to play around with little cartoons and make a video with my voice. Adobe just upped the game with a web version that relies on an audio recording of your voice. It takes that recording, auto animates to your voice including arm and head movements. The whole process of making the video to the right took me about 10 minutes

About a year ago Adobe announced Project Shasta, an online podcasting tool for revising and editing podcasts. I joined immediately. I loved the simplicity and getting a transcript as I spoke, but I just didn’t want to add something that was in beta to my podcasting workflow. A few weeks back, Project Shasta was rebranded as Adobe Podcasts and is working towards being a full part of the Creative Cloud.

Maybe it is my nostalgia for the 90s or my years of overpaying for bits of plastic with music on them, but there is something to holding a physical media object in your hands. CDs, DVDs, and A-Tracks all feel different than the several thousand songs I have on my iPhone. A CD has artwork that people put work into, it has a lyric sheet, and sometimes, as noted by many a punk kid, other bands to check out and/or a reading list of all the amazing books and zines that informed the music.

There is a comic book store/game store near my house that I go to at least once every couple of months. Usually to check out missing issues of on going series that I need to read, but often I find myself looking for a long time at the vintage trading cards. They have this great section of vintage superhero and movie trading cards and, even though I know I don’t need them, I always pick up a pack. There was just something magical about picking up these little cellophane packages when I was a little kid and even as an adult popping those packages open is just a little too much fun. I always loved the vintage 90s Marvel cards. The artwork was always rad and before the internet it allowed me to know about all the characters without buying all the series.