“You don’t have to be an artist to draw! In this beautifully illustrated talk, Ralph Ammer shows how drawing your thoughts can be a powerful tool for improving your thinking, creativity, and communication. He wants you to believe in your drawing abilities and provides numerous exercises to help you get started.
Ralph Ammer is a professor at the Munich University of Applied Sciences and teaches biophilic design, which aims to create life-friendly objects, images, and services based on nature. Ralph believes in the diversity of 21st-century craftsmen, regardless of whether they produce well-written programming code, carefully crafted prints, or the occasional ceramic vessel.”
Find out more about photographer Rick Allred here.
The United States (and the rest of our world) needs this message – now more than ever.
“Fear tends to stop people from pursuing their passions, even the smallest passion. What if, the way past that little voice in a person’s head saying, “Play it safe!” was just to have the next conversation with someone? What new possibilities for adventure would open up? This is what happened when Rick Allred read one book that inspired one project to take one million paper cranes to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan. Find a passion. Talk to strangers. Create an adventure. Rick Allred, a graduate of New Mexico State University, is committed to people pursuing their passions. Allred’s passion for photography started back in 1986. He currently teaches photography workshops at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and classes at craftsy.com. He is passionate about growing as a human being and encourages others to explore and discover their humanity as a means to creating a life they love. His explorations have taken him from tracking navigation satellites in Thule, Greenland, to photographer specialist at the Space Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to head of the photography department at the Hui No’Eau Visual Art Center in Maui, Hawaii, and back to Santa Fe, while pursuing an MFA in photography in Maine. Allred finds that the beginning of adventure starts with that first step. In 2017, he took that first step by creating “In the Folds of Peace,” a project to start conversations and take one million paper cranes to Hiroshima, Japan.”
Victor Wooten (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) delivers his inspiring message that music is a language anyone can learn. View more creative Music Videos here.
“In a world so motivated by the future, how can we use modern technologies to capture the wisdom off the past?
Using the power of photography, Chris Rainier National Geographic Society Fellow takes us on a journey to cultures that are using modern technology smart phones, computers, cameras, and video to both preserve their quickly disappearing ancient traditions, as well incorporate traditional knowledge with cutting edge technology to find sustainable solutions for the pressing
global issues.
Traveling the planet for over thirty years, Rainier has been in a race against time – to document ancient communities struggling to save their ways of living for future generations. Now with the advent of technologically driven storytelling and social media – he focuses his energy on helping empowering indigenous communities to gather around the “fireplace” of the web to tell on a global level, socially important story’s for the survival of the planet – story’s of what it means to be alive and human in the 21st Century.
As a National Geographic Explorer and Photographer, Chris is most acclaimed for his documentation of Endangered Cultures around the globe. He is also Director of The Last Mile Technology Program, preventing traditional cultures from being left on the wrong side of the Digital Divide.” Learn more about Chris Rainier here. Read my conversation with Chris Rainier here. View more 12 Great Photographs From Great Photographers. View more in The Essential Collection Of Documentaries On Photographers.
“Neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s amazing brain scans show meditation can actually change the size of key regions of our brain, improving our memory and making us more empathetic, compassionate, and resilient under stress.” Read more on Meditation here. Find recommended books on Meditation here.
Chris Orwig shares 8 of his favorite quotes.
This one’s my favorite from his selection.
“When the artist is alive in any person, whatever kind of work it may be, he becomes inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive, and creative. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows that there are more pages possible.” – Robert Henri
Which is your favorite? Read all 8 quotes here. Read Chris’s Q&A and view his TEDx talks here. Visit Chris Orwig’s website here. Find more photographer’s favorite quotes here.
“Chris Orwig brings unique perspective, creativity and passion to all that he does. As a photographer, he subscribes to Marc Riboud’s observation that “Photography is about savoring life at 1/100th of a second.” For Chris the adventure is now, and the journey has already begun — discover, look, listen, learn and live.”
Chris shares that what’s imperfect or broken can be a source of depth, strength, and inspiration. Find out more about Chris Orwig here.
Find his books Visual Poetry and People Pictures here.
