Vincent Laforet is among the most influential pioneers working in contemporary photography and film today. His unique commercials for such well-known brands as Apple, Nike, General Electric, CNN, and Canon, and his groundbreaking photography for magazines such as National Geographic, Vanity Fair, and Sports Illustrated, to name just a few, cover a broad spectrum of subjects and narratives. Yet a common thread runs through his work: It always features cutting-edge technologies that make the photographs and films inventive, iconic and unforgettable.
As a visual thought leader, Laforet is deliberate and direct in how he talks about his work and teaches his craft, whether speaking to millions on national news networks, like CBS Sunday Morning, or working one-on-one with directors and photographers in film or photo workshops. He’s also a popular speaker at media, photo and film conventions, and is a highly sought-after advisor to start-up Silicon Valley companies. When engaging with an audience, whether it’s a large public gathering or a small group of investors or influencers, he enthusiastically shares his experiences, from winning a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage in The New York Times of post-9/11 events in the Middle East to creating his commercial films, which won him three awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2010. His success in traditional media has also made him one of the most recognizable photographers in the world of social media: More than 40 million people online have seen and shared his mesmerizing, high-altitude, nocturnal, aerial photos of cities around the world, which have been collected and published in his photography book, Air.

http://www.laforetvisuals.com/         http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/

from Propaganda to public relations, a history of branding
Edward Louis James Bernays (/bərˈneɪz/; German: [bɛɐ̯ˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as “the father of public relations”. He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the “herd instinct” that Trotter had described.[2] Adam Curtis’s award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.

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