My first exposure to a photographic story was when I was a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory. One of my colleagues had taken a road trip from Washington, DC through Mexico and shared a photo sequence of his trip. It had a profound impact on me and became something I wanted to do. It also launched my interest in photography.

Much later, I had the opportunity to try this as part of my work as President of FX Palo Alto Laboratory. We were an American research lab that worked for the Fuji Xerox of Japan and Asia.  I was scheduled to attend a TED Conference and my Japanese boss presented me with a new Japanese camera which recorded video and audio as well as photos, and I was to bring back a summary ofthe conference for the lab. There were no english instructions and all the controls were in Japanese. I was able to conclude my mission which included several accidental images of the floor. The reviews from lab members were quite positive, which motivated me even more.

Since many in Fuji Xerox were not comfortable with english and I did not speak Japanese, multimedia presentations became my main vehicle of presentation. This also included prototype demonstrations of our new technologies.

So the visual – “a picture is worth a thousand words” – is still my preferred communication mechanism.  The goal is to tell stories with images (still and moving) supplemented with text and audio (speech and music). Some results are contained in the stories presented here. It is my laboratory for experimenting with different techniques for telling more effective stories with multiple media.

– James D Baker