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All Blog Posts Tagged 'Personal' (80)

The Salt Of The Earth – about Sebastião Salgado

The Salt Of The Earth – about Sebastião Salgado

Last week I watched the documentary “The Salt of the Earth” about documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado. This is one of those films that I can’t stop thinking about, which is a good thing.

For those that aren’t familiar with Salgado’s work, he is a Brazilian photojournalist and social photographer that has traveled the world photographing indigenous cultures and the social effects of major geo-political actions on these…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on August 23, 2015 at 9:17pm — No Comments

“I wish I had met you…”

For the past few weeks I have been involved in a back and forth phone tag with a potential client.

Each time he’s called me, I returned the call, and each time I called, he was  busy and told me he would get back to me. A couple weeks ago he asked me to send him some more information about my work so I sent him a flyer, and links to several video clips and testimonials. But we never actually had “the conversation” about…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 31, 2015 at 11:44am — No Comments

When Is Your Memory Truly Forgotten?

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”  — Banksy

While this quote was directly attributed to the graffiti artist Banksy, the sentiment is not his alone and appears all over the place, attributed to…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 14, 2015 at 10:03pm — No Comments

My Documentary Screening at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Sunday May 18, 2014 was the first public screening of my documentary, “Martin Elkort: An American Mirror” at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It showed to a crowd of about 200 people, which is an terrific turn out for an early Sunday evening, on a graduation weekend.

Anne Wilkes Tucker, The Gus and Lyndal Wortham Curator of Photography, gave a wonderful opening speech where she helped the audience to create a context of what it was like to be a photographer during that time period…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on May 23, 2014 at 6:50pm — No Comments

“The Great Beauty” And The Small Moments In Our Own Lives

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), an epic Italian film in the style of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, but with more cinematic greatness achieved by the advances in technology since the 1960s as well as a more existential examination of life. It was truly captivating and I am planning on a second viewing next week as the MFAH is bringing it back for an…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 21, 2014 at 12:03pm — No Comments

My Reality of Attending a School Reunion

I recently attended my 40th class school reunion out in Southern California. There was a whirlwind of activities, two parties on a Friday night, the real reunion on Saturday night and then a brunch picnic the following Sunday morning. I didn’t attend the brunch, choosing instead to have breakfast with a small group of woman I have known since I was a very young girl. It was a good choice. It allowed us an intimate time to reflect on our lives and the past two days, and I didn’t want to…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on October 30, 2013 at 5:52pm — No Comments

Legacy Multimedia Featured In The New York Times Article on Video Biography

This week an article about the process of immortalizing one’s memories made it to a special Retirement section in the New York Times. My company, Legacy Multimedia, was prominently featured along with other projects and organizations that focus on the preservation of physical mementos and recording of memoirs.

For me, this is incredible validation of the work I do. The excitement I feel working with each new client, discovering who they…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on March 20, 2013 at 1:05pm — No Comments

2013 Resolution – Time to Get That Personal History Done!

2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of Legacy Multimedia. It will be later this fall and I will commemorate the decade in a fitting manner…. later.

Right now, with the new year, and this huge blank slate of time before me, I want to focus on my new mantra regarding my own personal history, “get ‘er done!” (Since I live in Texas, I can talk to myself in cowboy language.)

Right about the time that I was starting Legacy Multimedia, I also started the long and complex process of…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 4, 2013 at 5:04pm — No Comments

Danish Cultural Perceptions Toward Oral History

Last week I was at an annual conference for the Association of Personal Historians in St. Louis, Missouri. This is my fourth conference to attend, and one of the highlights for me is catching up with people from all over the world that I communicate with regularly but don’t get to see in person all too often, as well as meeting new historians and learning about the work that they are up to.

This year I had the pleasure of having dinner with a Danish woman. She told me about a long…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on October 31, 2012 at 12:57pm — No Comments

Creating an Oral History to Capture and Preserve Unique Life Stories

First of all, what is oral history? Put simply it is a collection of testimonies by living persons to record their unique life stories. They are not based on gossip, hearsay or rumors. Instead, oral histories are chronicles of direct observations as told by the people who witnessed the events or lived through the experiences being described. They are taken straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak.

This can be a great way of capturing the life and times of your family, close…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on September 29, 2012 at 10:37am — No Comments

Hope Chest

A Hope Chest was originally used as a dowry. It was property that a woman owned and brought into her marriage. Some women could not find a suitable husband, for various factors; therefore, the dowry was used as a way of enticing a man into marriage.

The idea of a Hope Chest symbolizes so many hopes and dreams. It’s about seeing the future unfold before your very eyes and it’s about preserving a lifetime of memories and building a family legacy, a heritage. It’s a place where a young…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on September 3, 2012 at 1:36pm — 2 Comments

Every Memory of Your Life Stored Forever – MyLifeBits Project

What would it look like if you had a computer with every single memory stored on it forever? You would be able to access every webpage you’ve ever looked at, every email you’ve read, every photo you’ve taken or been in, videos of your public speeches, records of conversations. Everything that you felt was important or not important stored away for you to review or others to find out about you.

Back in the late 1990′s Gordon Bell decided, like many of us, to start scanning and…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on June 21, 2012 at 4:43pm — No Comments

The Soundtrack Of My Life Story

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I went to visit our friends in New Braunfels, a town near San Antonio, Texas. The next town over, Gruene, (pronounced, for some unexplainable reason, as Green) is a well-known tourist spot and home to Gruene Hall, built in 1878 and the oldest continually running dance hall in Texas. Many famous musicians have made their start at Gruene Hall and often come back frequently to relax and entertain.

The night we were there, Jerry Jeff Walker was in the…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on June 6, 2012 at 1:34pm — No Comments

The Importance of Acknowledging Your Employees

This article, in an edited format, was written for the Houston Business Journal and ran in it’s “Best Places to Work” issue in July of 2008. I am sharing this as I never posted it to my blog when it originally written.”

Employee acknowledgment is one of the best tools a company can use for creating a work environment that fosters loyalty and stimulates high achievement. Put simply, people appreciate and respond to recognition. They are motivated by praise, which validates and…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on May 31, 2012 at 6:43pm — No Comments

Muhammad Yunus and his Legacy on Poverty

Note: This article was originally published in January 2008:

This past week I had the privilege of seeing Muhammad Yunus speak at a World Affairs Council of Houston luncheon. Yunus, of Bangladesh, is a 2006 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and a 1999 recipient of the Indira Gandhi prize for peace, disarmament and development in India.

In the late 1970′s, he started Grameen Bank (“Bank of Villages”, in Bangla) to address the…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on May 5, 2012 at 5:08pm — No Comments

How Much Should You Pay A Personal Historian?

Dan Curtis, my friend and fellow Personal Historian in Victoria, BC, recently penned this excellent blog posting on determining the costs of a personal history. This article tackles head-on, the perceived discrepancies of pricing when shopping for a historian. From the buyer’s point of view, it can often be difficult shopping for this service as in their mind, they’re just looking for a tribute, and may not appreciate the vast range of options available today. Dan has attempted to provide…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on April 9, 2012 at 11:23am — No Comments

The Three Dynamics of Personal Histories

Since October is Family History Month, I was already thinking about this subject for a new blog article when a Canadian writer and film producer named Robb Lucy asked that I make a contribution to his new book. Scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2009, it is tentatively titled “Legacies aren’t for dead people – It’s about creating and really enjoying yours… now!”

Robb wanted to get additional perspectives on this specialized form of storytelling from other professional…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on March 28, 2012 at 4:39pm — No Comments

Video Biography – Why Are We Recording Memories?

I have been working on what I refer to as a long-format video biography. My client has hired me for a year to develop a personal history as well as to film significant events during the year. We’ve been doing this since November 2011 and so far we’ve shot four different events. A couple of the events, we’ve turned into short individual videos to send out to people who attended while other footage is waiting to fit into its bigger scope.

Sunday I was at my client’s Super Bowl party,…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on February 8, 2012 at 5:13pm — No Comments

Concepting and Scriptwriting Tips for Family Video Productions

Part 2 of a series about capturing the joy of family events on video

Last week I introduced this series about creating videos to capture the joy of family events and special occasions like weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and holiday get-togethers. Now let’s delve a bit deep into the process by discussing the first of four main phases used in multimedia productions – concepting / script writing.

First, try to develop a concept that really captures the spirit…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 22, 2012 at 4:23pm — No Comments

Video Production Techniques for Capturing The Joy of Family Events

Part 1 – Overview (This will be part 1 of a 5 part series)

Okay, admit it. What do you normally think when someone announces, “It’s time to show Home Movies”? You mentally roll your eyes while giving them a blank stare or at best, a forced smile don’t you? That’s because most home movies are dreadfully boring affairs with no audience appeal outside the immediate family. The joy of these events is often lost in the transition from live experiences to the screen. Well, it doesn’t have…

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Added by Stefani Twyford on January 15, 2012 at 5:01pm — No Comments

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