President’s Blog: 2020 Dayton Calendar

[From time to time, Oregon’s President, Judd Plattenburg, provides commentary for the Oregon blog about the state of the business, industry, and community affairs.]

So, I’ve wanted to do a project like this for a while: A book that showcased images of Dayton, highlighted by specialty printing effects. But, like so many things, it never got off the ground. Then the idea for creating a 2020 calendar to provide to our customers as a holiday gift came up late in 2019, and we thought, “Why don’t we revive that idea? Better yet, let’s get some Dayton photographers to collaborate on this project”.

I sent out an email to a handful of photographers I knew, and the ones that responded are this year’s contributors. And the final product exceeded our expectations.

I was surprised at how generous and willing everybody was to cooperate. They all gave me a great selection of photos to pick from, and you know, to come up with “Dayton” themed pictures quickly and on-demand is not the easiest thing to do. But we got a great variety, I only wish there were more months in the year to include more of the images!

The contributing photographers were Paul Bruce, Bill Woody, Andy Snow, Bruce Soifer, Berth Larson, Tom Gilliam, Dan Landis and Jeff Smith, and I put in a few myself.

I love Beth Larson’s bald eagle in a urban setting, and Andy Snow had a couple of great aerial shots of the 35/75 freeway exchange and riverscape.  Bill Woody’s shot of a dancer in Grace United Methodist church is just awesome, and Jeff Smith captured the river at twilight as he does so well. August was a challenge, but when Tom Gilliam suggested a series of shots from the Gem City Shine event, we knew that was perfect. Bruce Soifer’s Dayton Dragons shot, Dan Landis with his colorful across the bridge shot add a sense of place. Paul Bruce captured the Victoria in black and white, and it has an almost eerie feel to it.

I hope everyone who wanted one, got one, and if you did not, let us know, and we’ll make it happen…even if we need to print more! Thanks again to everybody who helped out on this project, including Charlotte and Summer for the design and all the details that need to be caught, as well as everybody who had to put up with me wanting to make something faster than it needs to be done. I hope we can keep things rolling and create more projects like this!

Happy Holidays!