O2’s ode to summer
This week marked the first snow accumulation here in the Fraser Valley. We at O2 really enjoyed seeing the changing seasons on the surrounding mountainsides. We also enjoyed the spectacular snowy fall photos that have been trending on social media. So cool to see fall and winter in the same pic!
The first snows also signaled that summer is officially over. Like, for real this time. We took a moment to reflect on what was a great summer for all of us, and reminisce about some of our favorite moments from the warmer months.
Eric and Philip both enjoyed their first summer of camping in their new RV camper. They took the camper to some of the most colorful corners of Colorado’s Favorite Playground and beyond, enjoying the glamorous style of camping (“glamping”) that the RV affords them. The whole family enjoyed camping, including their son Jacob…
…and the pugs too…
…well, maybe not so much for Sophie.
Jaryd looked back on some cool camping trips of his own, including a hike-and-camp on the 4th of July. The Fraser Valley’s fireworks looked incredible from up on the Continental Divide!
Brad, of course, enjoyed yet another summer season of fly-fishing. He also got a cool camera capable of underwater photography, which allowed him to capture some stunning images of trout. It’s also apparently proof that, yes, sometimes he actually does catch fish. Sometimes.
With that said, we’ve accepted that summer has passed, and we’re ready for the snowy season. The snowfall also got us excited for all the wonderful winter activities in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Time to get ready for some skiing and snowboarding!
As an agency, we also realize the winter months are among the busiest of the year for local businesses, and we’ve already been preparing for it. (Remember to get your winter marketing planned today!)
So what was your favorite memory from the summer? Are you excited for another snowy winter? Which season do you like more??
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Photography tips from O2
At O2, we take a lot of photographs. Photos of work, photos of wildlife, photos of sunsets and flowers and other pretty stuff too. While out getting some photos the other day we briefly discussed photography tips and tricks that have worked for us. We figured some of our fellow photographers might be interested in the discussion, so we thought it’d be fun to share some photography tips in this week’s blog post.
Here are just a few quick ones:
– Experiment with angles. Consider every little thing that will be in the frame of a photo – foreground, background, the angle of the subject, the angle of the camera, the angle of lighting or shading, and countless other factors that can affect your finished photo product.
– Consider the lighting of your photo. Most of the time you’ll want the subject of your photo to be as well lit as possible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative with certain backlighting, shadows, and other lighting schemes. Yet another element of lighting is…
– Flash photography. Your camera’s flash can be a useful tool in the right opportunity, allowing you to capture a photo when the situation may otherwise be too dark or too backlit. Don’t overdo it though, as flash can also wash out the subject of the photo.
– Take multiple photos. Sometimes you can take 5 photos of the same thing from the same spot, and for one reason or another, one of the photos will be better than all the others. This is especially true once you get home and upload or develop, and you’ll often be surprised by the look of the finished photo, so it’s worth having multiple takes.
– Be patient. Photography is all about capturing the image of the fleeting moment. Sometimes a photographer must wait for the lighting and the timing and other factors to be just right. Patiently waiting for the right moment can be the difference between a good photo and a great one.
– No really, be VERY patient! Patience is especially important when photographing subjects such as sunsets, wildlife, or anything else that is notorious for not sitting still. For instance, simply waiting for the sun to come back out from behind a cloud can make all the difference.
– Stay steady. A blurry photo usually isn’t a good photo, so try to keep the camera as still and steady as possible. Using a tripod or steadying your camera against a fixed object can help toward achieving clearer crisper photos.
– Know your camera. No two cameras are exactly alike. Be familiar with the shutter speed, buttons, settings, film or memory capacity, and every other factor to your camera. Though they tend to be more user-friendly (or is it user-friendlier?), these factors can even apply to camera phones.
– Be ready. If you hope to get good photos, have your camera – as well as your eye for photography – ready at a moment’s notice! This may seem obvious, but often when you’re out in the field, it’s easy to lose focus on photography. If you aren’t prepared to snap a shot, you aren’t going to get the photos you want.
These are just a few basic photography tips, all casually discussed while out in the field with camera in hand. There’s virtually endless little tricks and tweaks when it comes to photography though. The main point of it all is the opportunity to get CREATIVE! If you have any cool photography tips you’d like to share with us – or for that matter, any cool photos you’d like to share – please do!
To contact us at O2 Creative, give us a call at 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog about blogs!
Blogging about blogs
At O2 Creative we offer many different services to businesses both large and small – graphic design, web design, marketing and advertising, even promotional products. But did you know we also offer blog writing service as well?
That’s right. At O2 we can create relevant professional blogs that will benefit your business in a number of ways. From a marketing perspective, blogs are a great way to communicate with your market. They create a personal side to your business to which your customers can relate.
Blogs really build your business’s online presence as well. When we write blogs for clients, we include key terms that help to improve search engine optimization (SEO). This means your blog is optimized to make it easier for Google and other search engines to find you, which in turn helps customers find you. Blogs bring a bump to your website traffic too.
What if your business just doesn’t have the time to blog? That’s where our blog writing service comes into play. As an agency, we can research your blog, draft your blog, revise your blog, publish your blog, even take photographs for your blog. We can be your creative agents both in the field and online. We can write just about any sort of blog you’d like as well, from technical and informative to adventuresome and fun.
So if you think your business can benefit from a blog, contact us at O2 today. Trust us – a blog really can help to attract customers and generate attention for your business. After all, you’re reading our blog right now, right?
To contact O2 Creative, call us at 970-726-8021 or email us at [email protected].
Click here to read our other blogs!
O2 around the campsite
You probably already know us O2 guys as the adventuresome mountain types. We’re often out and about in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Especially in the summer months, you can find us fishing, or rafting, or even longboarding. But did you know we also love to get out camping as well?
Yup, that’s right. We’ve been out camping a lot lately, and with several weeks of summer still ahead of us, we hope to get out even more. Philip and Eric recently got a sweet new camper as well, which brings a whole new dimension to the camping experience. Actually, Philip and Eric affectionately refer to their camping style as glamour camping, or “glamping,” if you will.
Of course, when Philip and Eric go camping, they bring the whole family along. Jacob loves to explore the campsites!
Even the pugs and buggs come camping too.
You know the adorable puppy and Grand Dog candidate, Thumbelina…
…and Wylie, who enjoys the quality time relaxing by the campfire…
…and Sophie too. Though sadly, Sophie isn’t always the happiest camper…
Brad likes camping as well, and enjoys backpacking into some secluded backcountry campsites around Colorado. Indeed, Brad can carry an entire campsite’s worth of ultralight equipment on his back.
(Oh, and remember Brad’s late-season backpacking trip last autumn?)
Jaryd likes to camp too. He particularly enjoys getting off the beaten path to find some room to roam with his dog Roscoe.
All in all, camping is part of the fun of living in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. If you have any good camping stories of your own, please feel free to share! Get in touch with us at O2!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for last week’s blog about Thumbelina’s Grand Dog campaign!
A year in review
Whoa, has it really been a whole year since Brad started at O2? That sure went by quick! As we toasted a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the anniversary, we asked Brad to reflect on the past 12 months and share some of his favorite moments.
Let’s see…there have actually been quite a few cool experiences at O2 in the past year…where to begin? Oh! There was that one particularly powdery weekday in January when Granby Ranch called and asked for fresh photos of the snow on the slopes. As much as Brad wanted to stay in and sit at his desk all day, he mustered the will to cruise over to Granby Ranch and strap on the skis for some fluffy photo ops. Tough work, but someone had to do it.
Then there was the other time some clients requested photos of their private pond – a pond that just so happened to be stocked with trophy trout. Being the hard-working guy Brad is, he again obliged. While he was out trying to create photo ops of a fisherman enjoying said pond, one of those handsome trout just happened to sneak up and slurp his fly – how about that!
Brad also enjoys all the writing he gets to do – writing for clients, writing for O2, writing about camping or skiing or even dogs. He loves the opportunity to write blogs, and he ESPECIALLY loves writing from a third person point-of-view!
But for real: Brad really does enjoy his job, and even says it’s a privilege to work for O2. He’s very thankful for the opportunity, and thankful to everyone and everything that makes O2 the cool agency it is: his coworkers Philip, Eric, and Jaryd; all of O2’s awesome clients; Grand County and Colorado’s Favorite Playground; even the pugs! (Except Thumbelina…she’s a bad dog).
So if you see Brad around, send some congratulations his way!
To contact us at the O2 office, call us at 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
O2 Addicted to Powder
Members of the O2 team were recently invited to enjoy some backcountry skiing with our friends and clients at Powder Addiction. What a treat!
Powder Addiction is a Winter Park-based business offering up backcountry skiing and snowboarding tours. They have special permission to guide guests in the Jones Pass area, using their snowcat to take skiers and boarders to 2,600 acres of untouched snow. Powder Addiction is “serving fresh lines daily!”
(In case you aren’t familiar, “snowcat” is one of those big closed-cab vehicles that runs on tracks designed to operate on snow. This is the vehicle that takes guests up and back down all that epic backcountry terrain.)
As far as backcountry ski areas go, Jones Pass has it all: high-elevation, north-facing slopes, alpine bowls, glades and meadows, tree runs, open chutes, and more.
And when we say backcountry skiing, we mean it. Powder Addiction equips each guest with a backpack containing all the important safety gear: avalanche transceivers, shovels, and all the other required equipment.
Powder Addiction even provides guests with a fat pair of powder skis, though folks may bring their own skis or snowboards instead (Eric and Jaryd elected to bring their own boards). The adventure includes tasty Rudi’s Deli sandwiches for lunch, and even a complimentary beer to end the day.
Both Eric and Jaryd said it was one of their best snowboarding experiences ever, which means it probably also counts among their greatest experiences of all time. “It was my best experience in my entire life,” Jaryd exclaimed. “Never before have I been in such deep pow-pow!”
“The Powder Addiction experience is definitely on top of my list as one of the funnest things I’ve ever done. I would recommend everyone to do it at least once!” Eric VanHerwaarden
The O2 Creative team would like to personally thank Jen and Jason Harper and our guides for two amazing days!
So if you’re looking for some of the most exciting backcountry skiing around, check out our friends at Powder Addiction. Click here to visit Powder Addiction’s website (which is currently being redesigned by yours truly, so check back for design updates!)
To contact us at O2, give us a call at 970-726-8021 or email [email protected] .
Click here for our last post: Why every business needs a sign
Photo files explained
Photo Files explained
At O2, we work with digital photo files every day. There are lots of photo file types to choose from, and it’s not always clear which one to choose. Here are a few of the more common photo files explained.
JPEG: This is perhaps the most common photo file format. A Joint Photographic Experts Group, or JPEG file, is the standard method of “compressing” an image file. This means the pixel variations in the file are “compressed” on a minute level so that the file will take up less memory space. Because they can be compressed, JPEGs are a good option when memory space is at a premium, but JPEG files tend to be a slightly lower quality as well.
PSD: This is the standard file format for a Photoshop image (Photoshop is a fancy image editing program we designers often use). PSD files have an advantage when it comes to image design and editing – a PSD file can be easily edited, layered, colored, filtered, and otherwise manipulated for design work. If you anticipate a lot of editing work to be done on your photo files, PSD is a good choice.
TIFF: A Tagged Image File Format, or TIFF, is an uncompressed high-quality file format. TIFF images maintain the most detail when saving an image, though they also take up the most memory space. TIFF files are good if you need the highest-quality images possible, though they can be difficult if your camera has a small and/or slow memory card.
RAW: This format is used with DSLR cameras. (DSLR stands for Digital Selective Resonance Imaging, which is a fancy way of saying a professional-quality camera). RAW files capture the “raw” image with no digital processing or enhancements. RAW files are arguably the highest-quality file format, though they also take up the most memory space because of it.
There are many other files we could have mentioned, but these are the ones we probably encounter the most. So which files do we prefer? Actually, we’re accustomed to working with any and all file formats. As a rule of thumb, however, we find that JPEG files are easiest to work with for digital media (e.g. designing a website or online ad), and higher quality TIFF files work best for print media.
If you have any other questions about anything we mentioned in this week’s post, from file types to print media, give us a holler! You can call us at 970-726-8021 or email us at [email protected].
Is Print Dead? Read here to find out.