Our Thursday, September 30th, 2010 speaker Andrew Savikas is interviewed at Podcasts on Publishing. Check out this link to get warmed up about our upcoming topic entitled, “Publishing without Boundaries: What’s on the O’Reilly Radar for the Future of Publishing.”
CDPUG BlogSphere
News for Digital Designer and Members and Friends of the Cleveland Digital Publishing Users GroupFor a video on how to use Photoshop Express for iPad, iPhone, and Android check out this link to the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast by Terry White.
For a video on how to create an ePub Documents with InDesign CS4. From the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast with Terry White.
For a video on how create an iBook (ePub) for the iPad, check out this link to the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast by Terry White.
Confessions of a Public Speaker
By Scott Berkun
Book review by Judy Beveridge
I do not like speaking in front of a group. And I don’t know anyone among my friends and co-workers who enjoy it either. So when I volunteered to present a slide show of my work to fellow graphic designers and peers recently, I became very nervous.
Therefore, I found the book, “Confessions of a Public Speaker” by Scott Berkun to be comforting in a strange way like a good friend who kept reassuring me that everything was going to be okay and that I would not die of stage fright.
The book is an easy read with lots of funny stories from Scott’s personal experience as a public speaker for many years. He also goes into detail about our fear-response system and how to deal with it and with practice, to overcome it. Scott also offers insight to just about every bad situation that can happen to a public speaker and provides simple solutions or options.
The book is filled with tips and tricks to help produce entertaining presentations and to hopefully keep the audience’s attention for most of the time.
With several lessons and Scott’s confessions of life behind the microphone, I felt more confident with my own presentation and I think being comfortable in a public speaking situation all comes down to one thing…practice. And practice again and again.
The book is one I consider a “keeper” and I’m sure I’ll refer to it over and over to help calm my internal ‘butterflies’ the next time someone asks me to speak in front of a group.
Available in bookstores or for more information,
O’Reilly Publishing (oreilly.com)
Book Review by Howard Kass
Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity, and Personal Style by Alain Briot
2009, Rocky Nook, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA
In Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity, and Personal Style, Alain Briot shares his philosophy surrounding photographic composition and the development of one’s personal creative style, but not before displaying some of his personal anger toward those “purists” who disdain any manipulation of a photograph, except in a traditional wet darkroom. Once Briot gets past that personal issue, he does share some valuable thoughts on the process he goes through in creating photographs.
He begins by explaining a number of technical issues pertaining to photography, leads into a discussion of composing with light, then with color, and, finally, in black and white. Following this discussion, he delves into the development of one’s creativity and personal inspiration and, eventually, one’s personal vision.
For the most part, this book is a worthwhile read and can be a useful tool in helping photographers develop their personal creative styles. While the content was, indeed, valuable, I was troubled by the number of typographical and grammatical errors in the book, and was particularly troubled by the fact that, in some cases, captions were switched between photos on a page. I would have expected a higher degree of care in editing.
This book is clearly targeted for the serious photographer who has gone beyond the basic “rules” of composition. If the reader can get past the deficiencies previously described, this book can be a useful tool in further developing one’s creativity. I recommend it, with the reservations expressed in this review, for the serious photographer.
