Lawrence Sherman Adds a Little Wit to the Future of Medical Education

Lawrence Sherman uses humor and wit to talk about the future of medical education at FutureMed this week to an audience of investors, physicians, medical visionaries, thought leaders and healthcare executives:

Ultimate Women's Expo Hits Phoenix on April 30

The Ultimate Women’s Expo hits Phoenix next weekend, which will consist of two full days of events, giveaways and talks designed specifically for women. The conference features keynote speakers Patricia Heaton and Ricki Lake and over 550 shopping booths, along with complimentary pampering and rejuvenation for women in and outside of Arizona.

Exhibits include the very best in fashion, beauty, health, fitness, home décor, careers, financial planning, education and much more.  Admission includes an amazing array of complimentary spa services, including free makeovers, haircuts, manicures, massages and facials. They'll have four stages, book signings, celebrity appearances, and cooking and design demonstrations. The Decorating Stage features renown design experts providing new ideas on home décor, while the Cooking Theatre features some of the Valley’s most talented chefs preparing the latest in new and fresh meal ideas.

Emmy Award Winning Actress, Author, Producer and bestselling author Patricia Heaton will deliver an empowering message to women on making the most of everyday and living your best life on Saturday, April 30, 2011, Susan Lucci, the vixen from All My Children, will also speak and then conduct a book signing and award winning actress, author, producer, Talk Show Host and Women’s Advocate Ricki Lake will finish off with a talk on exceeding your own expectations on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

How cool is this? They'll also have a Rejuvenation Tea Garden Lounge, which will feature over 500 trees and flowering gardens, and there within, attendees will receive free champagne, martini’s, margaritas and wine tastings throughout the weekend.

Celebrity Portraitist Brian Smith Shares Fabulous Insights

 

Among other fabulous photographers, I had the pleasure of meeting and learning from celebrity portraitist Brian Smith at the recent San Francisco World Photography Festival.

Based in Miami, he came to the event to share some of the things he has learned from photographing celebrities, CEOs and models over the past thirty years.

A few things I took away from his style, which is very different from my own, yet he makes it work so well, you can't help but admire his work in the same way you'd admire a Salvador Dali but may not want to hang it on your wall. 

There's a fabulous shot that doesn't look like much when you first look at it, but note the careful selection of white against white yet his shoes nearly match the floor; natural earth tone next to natural earth tone. And....it just works.

Whereas this one combines a natural look with a little glitz in the background, but glitz in a solid color making the whole thing feel unified and balanced.

A few other takeaways.

Use contrasts. If you're shooting a boring subject - a traditional conservative CEO for example versus a Las Vegas singer, set him in a dramatic environment or change his / her clothing dramatically, i.e., outside the office and against a large gold pillar background or his example of putting Bill Gates in a black turtleneck.

OR combine the look of deep rich contrasting colors with contrasting images that don't appear to go together -- on the surface, such as what Brian did below. I LOVE THIS PHOTO btw. 

You can also put celebs or other subjects you're shooting in different clothing, different backdrops (tennis player in a suit on the top of a large building or an athlete in a graveyard showing their strength/that the rest of the industry should fear them because they're so good). He made some really interesting points about getting creative with 'how you depict' something.

For example, there are several ways outside of traditional thinking you could visually represent wealth or academia or entrepreneurship or design or glitz or fashion or beauty or health. You get the idea.

Other tips on speed....he says, "you don't always need to shoot 10 frames a second or more, you can do it one shot at a time with a strobe."

Apparently he uses strobes frequently and on touching photos up in the post shooting process, he had this to say, "I like to touch people up so that they still look real, but perhaps just left a really fabulous spa treatment - in other words, it's not so dramatic that someone wouldn't look at the subject and say it's an unrealistic representation of them." I thought it was great advice.

The keep it simple message kept coming up, which frankly is a message that works for most things in life. He also suggested not skimping on production or background since the environment (next to lighting) could make or break your shot.

I found him inspiring and down-to-earth, not to mention an easy listen. What I loved about his "show-and-tell" approach was the human part of the shot, i.e., not just what light or lens he used for the shot, but what the environment was like, the situation and occasionally adding funny add-ons throughout. Below is some video that I shot during the session.

Check out his work over at www.briansmith.com, where you can see countless images, ranging from travel, lifestyle and celebrity portraits to fine art and athletes.

Clothia.com: Create It, Wear It, Share It

I had a chance to chat with Clothia.com founder Elena Silenok who was on the west coast recently from New York. Although their product is still in beta, I got a sneak peak of what's coming and as a fan of fashion and great design, I love the concept. Clothia is an online destination for "everything fashion."

On Clothia, you can create virtual closets, mix-n-match outfits, and share them with friends. You can also watch videos, read blogs, experiment with trends, as well as connect with stylists and fashion designers. Listen to what Elena says about the service and what's coming. More when they launch.

Geek Fashion at TechCrunch Disrupt

A whole lotta geek fashion at this week's TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, so fabulous that we had to repost it here.  (original at Geek Fashion Week).

 A Happy TechCrunch Disrupt Audience 

 

Chamillionaire Backstage 

Labels? nah. Black on black: always a classic.

Keiko Kim is 2 for 2. This “mini” dress from Banana Republic is actually a top! Works really well with the weather. Louis Vuitton bag (again).

Tech is getting more Fashionable

Love that she’s launching a fashion blog, Clothia. Sigerson Morison flats, vintage frames and very unique cuffs from Jerusalem. Details, details.

How to Stand Out in a crowd?

Wear orange pants. Greg always wears these Italian beauties to conferences. Nice watch too!

Brooks Brothers… 

No surprise – The Sage wears the classic brand.

90 degrees, Shorts

Love that she’s wearing shorts at the conference.

DVF with a Burberry Bag

Time to bring the fashion back to the blog. The color just pops.

The good, the evil and the beautiful

Gavin was happy to share his designer – Zegna. Fresh from the Governors Debate earlier today, he apologized for the tie. No need to apologize! Rumor has it he is getting Clinton style speech training right now and I can certainly hear the Southern influence.

Eric Schmidt takes the stage at Disrupt

He was a little shy about sharing and insisted he did’t have a designer (or even a label) for his very fine suit.



Thanks Kathryn Shantz for some fabulous geek fashionistas to start following.

 

iVillage & Fotobabble Team Up on Beauty & Style Contest

Fotobabble Teams up with iVillage on the “iVillage I love my…” Contest, which encourages women to share their beauty & style secrets.

In this campaign, talking photos serve as an innovative social media tool to drive user engagement, brand awareness and traffic. The contest, which is currently underway and will run through midnight of June 30, 2010, encourages users to create Fotobabble-powered Talking Photos to start a community dialogue around the products and clothing they love, and express their personal style.

To participate, users simply sign up (takes a few seconds), upload a photo and then click a button to record their own voice and share their secrets for style and confidence. Participants can then share their Talking Photos (or Fotobabbles), with friends and family through email, Facebook or Twitter. Fotobabbles with the top views are eligible to win a $500 gift card from Sephora.

The Fotobabble Platform can provide deeper brand exposure and increase traffic to a site. Easier and faster than video, more engaging and dynamic than photos and easy to embed anywhere on the web, Fotobabble provides companies and individuals a powerful and engaging way to connect with their customers and further extend their reach into popular social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Click play below to learn more about the contest and see a fabulous example of how established brands are using unique social media platforms, such as Fotobabble, to increase fan and customer awareness and engagement.

Redefining the Way the World Looks at Natural Beauty

Delta Gallil and CEO Isaac Dabah are an amazing success story in intimate apparel. Founded by Dov Lautman, the Company is a model of leadership in co-existence employment and corporate responsibility. 

Making new fabrics using real lasting cotton results in garments looking like new after 30 washes. Suits that Delta Galil created have won 16 medals in the Winter Olympics. 

Delta is the # 1 producer of intimate apparel in the U.S. with 110 stores in Israel. 40% of the men's underwear market share is under the Delta Brand, 50% market share is in socks, and 15-20% is in ladies' underwear.

Lance Kalish, Chief Carrot Counter at Yes To Carrots was founded in Israel in 2006 with six products across 16 stores. Today, they are in 28,000 stores, and are the fastest Beauty Brand in the world. "We have redefined the way the world looks at natural beauty," says Kalish. He adds, "we are the YES company in the NO environment. When asked how they grew so fast, he says, "we understood our limitations and we ignored them. We also do whatever it takes to get it done."

Israel's Sense of Fashion Picks up Steam

Israel's Sense of Fashion is starting to pick up steam. CEO and Founder Daria Shualy and her crew below in a creative shot that paints an image of their corporate culture and what they have to offer.

Their vision is to create an online home for independent fashion designers, trendsetters, fans and shoppers. They don't believe in an artificial separation between the different elements which compose the real live indie fashion scene, so the goal is to enable all these elements to come together in one place online.

If you're into indie fashion, whether you're a designers, fashionistas or a student, you can show off your creations, personal style and style picks. You can also shop, sell, interact, influence and be inspired.

For designers, Sense of Fashion provides an online shop with a live clientele base and access to clear and open communication with buyers, fans and other designers. For people interested in buying, you can tap into a massive gallery and shop for independent fashion, which will grow over time and include vintage and second hand, one-of originals and new unique designs.

They do not currently charge a listing fee and they enable you to upload an unlimited amount of photos for an unlimited amount of time for free, and most importantly, because the fashionistas and buyers have real live profiles on the site, they offer a real connection to the fans, and a real live clientele base, which gives constant feedback to the designers, and promotes them. Cool stuff from a new player to the market eh?

Says Daria, "we add value to Flickr, where there are a lot of designers which will now be able to send interested buyers to us to actually shop. We add value to Facebook for both fashionistas and designers, by enabling commerce and supplying a more targeted audience, so that they don't have to “bother” all their contacts, but can target the ones who are fashion oriented."

She adds, "we also add value to shops by big brands, anywhere from Gap and H&M to American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, by supplying a large variety of photos of 'how real people wear this.'”

Plans to support mobile are coming in the future.

One last comment: we need a little more fashion in San Francisco - bring it on Sense of Fashion team. It seems like the further west I migrate, the more the fashion culture migrates to jeans, tattered t-shirts and schwag. I miss the hats, funky shoes and scarves of London, the sassy but edgy casual suits of Milan and the fashionable overcoats and stylish boots of New York.

Great Fashion Week Shot

Such a cool shot from Fashion Week 2009. Credit: Studiolit

Where Sarah Palin Really Fits? The Guiding Light

On the campaign trail, hockey mom Palin needs $150K worth of clothes and accessories to demonstrate just how to down-to-earth she is. Some of the top publicists I know who also have to look sharp haven't spent that much on clothes in their lifetime. Trying to justify this at a time when McCain touts budget cuts and the economy is collapsing is not going to get very far. What were the Republicans thinking?

It's hard to believe that a high-end hair stylist was part of that $150K judging from her public appearances. $4,100 for makeup and hair consulting? Hair consulting? And apparently the McCain campaign also reported paying $13,200 in September alone to celebrity makeup artist Amy Strozzi. (she fetches the highest salary in McCain camp). Are you joking? Folksy "you-betcha" Palin doesn't want to serve the American people, she wants to "play celebrity." Nothing wrong with wanting to play celebrity Palin but give up the political gig and go home PLEASE - this is a national embarrassment.