At Hammock, we tell stories about people from all over the country, and photography plays a big role in the way these stories are told. Through the years, our art director, Kerri Davis, has built an amazing cross-country network of freelance photographers who conduct photo shoots of small business owners, soldiers, preservationists and other subjects featured in our magazines and on our Web sites.
When I asked Kerri what makes a freelance photographer stand out in her mind, she immediately thought of Eric Millette, a San Francisco-based photographer who does a lot of shoots for MyBusiness magazine. When we find a photographer we like, we’ll use them as often as possible! Here are five characteristics that Kerri looks for in freelancers.
1. A creative, simple, well-designed website to show your work. Check out this site for a great example.
2. Initiative and willingness to jump right into a project. With all the photo assignments that flow through our art department, it’s nice to be able to hand off an assignment and not worry about it until the proofs come back, Kerri says. She tries to give photographers “as much info as they will need so there aren’t a lot of questions.”
3. Organization. We appreciate photographers who can offer an easy way to view the shoot, especially through something like a Web gallery. Providing high-res files promptly is also a plus.
Here’s an example of the type of Web gallery we like to use.
For this “Beating Burnout” story, Eric did a few setups. One was a tightly focused candid portrait of a small business owner relaxing; another was a wider shot of his messy, hectic office. The juxtaposition of the two captured the essence of the story perfectly.
4. A creative approach. The most important part of the whole process is getting that perfect shot. A photographer who is willing to shoot at least three different setups will often walk away with something original. “I like to see something unexpected when I get the shoot back,” Kerri says.
5. Flexibility. This is a big one for our designers who art direct from a distance and know little about what the location will be like. “You expect the photographer to be able to make judgment calls on the spot and make the best of the shoot no matter what curveballs get thrown at you,” Kerri says.
The monsoon season we’ve been experiencing lately here at Hammock HQ couldn’t keep me inside last weekend. I decided to dive in and embrace middle Tennessee’s lakes and waterways by actually becoming ONE with them. Who knew you could have so much fun when there’s water, water everywhere … even without a boat or a paddle.
On Saturday I joined a group of volunteers for a big cleanup day at Percy Priest Lake as part of the Nashville Clean Water Project. One of the supporters of the well-organized event was the Cumberland River Compact, an educational nonprofit that promotes the water quality of the Cumberland River watershed. We dodged the thunderstorms and managed to pick up a ton of the usual trash—glass and plastic bottles, aluminum cans, Styrofoam containers—and a few unusual (and disgusting) items—a tent, camp chairs, wheels, camouflage underwear (I KNOW). Recycling champion and green blogger Barbara Mathieson posted a video of the event here.
On Sunday, I competed in my first triathlon, the Lost Loon, benefitting the Harpeth River Watershed Association, another great nonprofit devoted to preserving and restoring one of our area’s beautiful waterways. It feels cool to say I’m a triathlete, but that moniker is a little bit misleading. It was the lowest stress team triathlon you can imagine: 9-mile bike ride, 2-mile canoe race, 4-mile trail run, and I just participated in the bike and run portions of the race. Because of the deluge of rain we’ve been having, Lone Hunter State Park’s Couchville Lake rose to meet us: In portions of the trail, we ended up wading in water up to our shins. But once you’re that wet, it just gets more fun. One of the best parts about the race was crossing the finish line: Race organizer extraordinaire Willy Stern required all finishers to squeeze a loon stuffed animal that was hidden in a tree. Join Willy and friends–and me!–for the seventh annual event next year!
P.S. What am I like when I DO have a boat and a paddle? Not too smooth, lemme tell you. Late last fall, friends and I paddled down Swan Creek, a winding and gorgeous creek not too far from Nashvillle. Things started off grand … until my canoe partner and I got caught in a strainer and sank our lil boat. Luckily we were rescued by the kind experts at the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association (TSRA). I’m hopeful that by enrolling in one of TSRA’s future paddling classes, I can keep future waterlogging to a minimum.
America’s truckers are learning a new language, while forgetting one that dominated the superslabs for decades.
Back in the Internet’s Age of Innocence – aka dial-up – we launched one of the early websites for the trucking industry, as an online presence for a truck-driver oriented magazine we published then. The conventional wisdom at the time was that truckers would never adopt the Internet – availability was the practical reason, and perceived “inability” to comprehend such a technology was the other, if whispered and elitist, reason most often given.
We reasoned that truckers already comfortably inhabited a virtual world – they were always on the move, doing business via phone and fax, and relying heavily on the citizens band (CB) radio to obtain all sorts of info and communicate with each other. Much of the communication occurred as “10-code” – numbers adapted from military and law enforcement use to convey larger concepts with extreme brevity.
The skeptics were dead-wrong: Truckers and trucking companies adopted the ‘Net early and strongly, forcing truckstops to add phone lines and data ports for drivers who stuffed laptops into their duffel bags. It was, and is, a great way to help drivers do business.
In the 15 or so years since then, truckers have continued to adopt technology that helps them communicate (cell phones were once also regarded as beyond truckers’ means and desires; once cells became commodities, they took to the highways by the thousands).
Texting is now widespread, and Twitter is the newest wrinkle – because I keep up with the trucking industry, I’m seeing it become more and more popular. (Which worries me, because I know some drivers are texting and tweeting while turning miles. Like a lot of 4-wheelers.)
That aside, though, I’m also seeing the demise of the old 10-codes as a new generation of drivers come aboard. It’s like watching the children of immigrants shed their parents’ native tongues in favor of the new culture’s lingo – and in some cases, that is literally what is happening. I recently wrote an opinion piece for a trucking magazine about this phenomenon; you can see it here.
(For an explanation of the 10-codes I use, check here.)
As major magazines are decreasing page counts to deal with the economic downturn, custom publishers and the associations and corporate clients they partner with seem to be doing just the opposite, according to a new study by the Custom Publishing Council.
Released in April, the study—“A Look at the Volume and Type of Custom Publications in America”—found that the average number of pages per issue for custom publications increased last year from 22.2 to 23.2.
On Tuesday, May 5, in the wee hours of the morning, Barbara and her husband, Fielding, welcomed little Elizabeth Reed into the world!
She weighed in at just under 9 pounds and measured 21 inches long. We all welcome her to the Hammock family!
Social media surprises from our mothers
It wasn’t until I was in high school that I really started to recognize my mom had an identity beyond being putting a healthy, home-made meal on the table every night, making sure we understood our homework, and offering encouraging words or a forgiving smile when we needed it the most.
Now, I always knew she was a cool lady, but recently I’ve been starting to see where I must have gotten the Internet-nerd gene from in the family. Over the last couple years, my mom has started to get into social media: She uses Bloglines to read RSS feeds (she’s got mine in there!), we chat more over IM than we do on the phone, and a few months ago she asked me how hard I thought learning Dreamweaver, a website-building application, would be for her (my answer: Go for it!). Oh, and although she doesn’t have an account yet, she knows what Twitter is. I can’t even say that for most of my friends.
Since we’re all very passionate about social media here at Hammock, I figured I wasn’t the only one whose mom was starting to warm up to the new media bandwagon. Read on to find out whose moms have embraced this new technology and whose might still be a bit leery.
With the media hysteria over swine flu – excuse me, 2009 H1N1 influenza – I thought I’d take a shot at clearing up some confusing terms related to health and illness. They may not make you feel any safer, but take heart – it appears that the hysteria over the disease may be more to be feared than the actual germ. At least it’s not “Captain Trips”:
Epidemic/pandemic
An epidemic is a sudden outbreak of illness affecting more than the usual number of people or a wider range or people than usual. A pandemic is a multi-country or worldwide epidemic.
Nauseous/nauseated
We’ve already heard flu this and flu that, ad nauseam, but does that make us nauseous or nauseated? “Nauseated” is that unpleasant feeling in your tum-tum; “nauseous” is something that provokes that ill-feeling. As one source put it, if you say you’re nauseous, you’re describing how people react to you.
Infectious/Contagious
Contagious diseases spread via bodily contact with an ill person. Infectious diseases are spread by germs through air or water or some other medium. All contagious diseases are infectious, in the sense they are caused by some foreign substance entering the body, but not all infectious diseases are contagious. In any case, wash your hands!
Virus/bacteria
A virus is a chunk of protein that contains genetic material. A virus is not considered to be a living thing. It cannot reproduce on its own; it must infect a living cell to grow. Flus and colds are caused by viruses.
Bacteria, however, are one-celled living organisms. They can multiply and reproduce themselves. They cause diseases like strep, tuberculosis and scarlet fever. Antibiotics kill bacteria, but do nothing to viruses. So taking an antibiotic to fight cold symptoms or the flu is a waste of money and effort.
Inoculate vs. vaccinate
These originally were two different processes to achieve the same goal – immunity against a disease. Inoculate at first meant introducing some kind of substance into the body to provoke an immune system reaction that would provide lasting immunity. Vaccinate meant to introduce a vaccine – a liquified preparation. Their meanings have since merged.
Prone/Supine
If you catch something, either contagious or infectious, and don’t have immunity, you may wind up in bed. But prone or supine? That’s mostly your choice: Prone means face down, supine means face up. Me, I just curl up in a ball and will the world to go away.