For my latest State of the Art column, I focus on multimedia and Brian Storm, who is the founder of MediaStorm, and, in my view, the creator of some of the best multimedia projects around. One early project Storm worked on a number of years ago was called Iraqi Kurdistan, which features images by the extraordinary photojournalist Ed Kashi. Storm developed a flipbook, based on several series of photo essays Kashi created while in the Middle East. (Note: To watch the entire video, you’ll need to pay $1.99.)
Kashi provided the images for the piece after spending seven weeks in 2005 in the region on assignment for National Geographic, taking thousands of photographs of daily life across many segments of the population. Here’s what Storm said about the project on his website: “Edited together in a rapid, filmic succession, the images create a collage-like portrait of a peaceful region that is full of promise, even as it sits so near an ongoing war.”
It’s a very moving piece that combines exquisite photography, storytelling and music. The piece itself can be broken down into a number of components: a sound track, transitions between images, some text and many, many photographs. But by tying together a variety of media, Storm creates a powerful piece, where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Although most of us might not be able to capture the extraordinary compositions that Kashi does, with powerful image- and video-editing software apps available right on our phones and computer tablets, we’re able to at least access many of the same tools.
To find out more about Brian Storm, MediaStorm and multimedia, check out my State of the Art column, in the August/September 2016 issue of Professional Artist magazine, available on newsstands and online on ProfessionalArtistMag.com/Shop in June.
Terry Sullivan is the former editor of Professional Artist magazine and the former technical editor at American Artist magazine. He currently is an editor at Consumer Reports, where he covers digital cameras, camcorders, smart phones, printers and digital imaging. He is also an artist and musician. Follow him on Twitter: @TerryCR.
