i am starting to wonder »
if you don’t have a “before” and “after” photo - or any photo of it at all - did it really happen?
in other news, scruff and i made a movie and it is on flickr. loving that shit.
webstock photo walk
About 9.50AM yesterday morning it started to rain. As we are currently in Wellington I wasn’t entirely surprised but the main issue was that at 10AM we were supposed to be running the Webstock Photo Walk.
The idea came about shortly after Derek Powazek and Heather Champ cancelled their trip to NZ for Webstock. Heaps of us were disappointed but I talked to the Webstock team & we were all in agreement it didn’t have to mean there couldn’t be a photo walk and/or a photo exhibition at the conference. We started to put something together.
Despite the rain, a group of about 12 people gathered in Civic Square - mostly members of the Webstock Flickr group but a few other dedicated photographers as well. The consensus was to keep going even if it did rain off and on through the day - which of course, it did!
We walked over the bridge from Civic Square and down along the waterfront towards where the Chinese New Year stuff was happening at TSB Arena. After a coffee stop, we kept going through Post Office Square and on down Lambton Quay and up onto the Terrace.
After being almost removed from the grounds of Parliament (especially Tim with his extremely large lens) we walked down past Defence House, through the railway station and back up along the waterfront, weaving around a slightly different path to what we had on the way down.
We were pretty tired by this time and had lost a few walkers, but we ended on a high note with a reflected photo of us all, watched some kids jump off the pier and then had lunch at Felix.
It was awesome to meet everyone and as most of them are also Webstock attendees, I’m pleased to have made a bunch of new friends to hang out with while we’re down here. I met so many awesome people at Webstock 06 that it’s cool Webstock 08 is starting off the same way.
Attendance list as follows (and apologies from my fellow organiser, debsidelinger):
- your correspondent
- darren
- starla
- _elysium
- msneato
- heimatseeker
- dollierv
- drtimwright
- differentperspective
- -caro-
- etherelly
- nathandonaldson
Check out the photos from the Webstock Photowalk on Flickr and of course you’re welcome to join the Webstock Photo Exhibition group!
webstock photo exhibition
In the original Webstock line-up, Heather Champ and Derek Powazek were going to lead a photo workshop. They aren’t able to make it to Webstock anymore, but we’re going to have a photo exhibition and walkabout day anyway. Photos will be displayed digitally at the conference venue and archived online as a set.
The theme of the photo exhibition is FREEDOM. Interpret it how you like, but the basis of this comes from Webstock: Code For Freedom so we’d like photos that are conference theme related as well as ones that interpret this laterally.
To submit photos for consideration at this point please add them to the Webstock 2008 Photo Exhibition Flickr group. Other submission methods may be opened up later, depending on demand.
Images will need to be at least 1280 x 800.
The walkabout group details will be confirmed later, but keep Sunday 10 February free.
disappointment
I came into work this morning to some bad news: due to personal reasons, my internet heroes Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ will not be able to make it to Webstock. This means no photo workshop with them and no speaking spots during the conference.
Derek and Heather have long been heroes for a number of reasons - their involvement in projects like the Mirror Project, JPG, Fray and Flickr. Since 2002, I’ve had a quote of Derek’s linked on vortex, which I feel isn’t just limited to the topic it describes:
My advice to anyone running a personal website: Put your head down and don’t listen to anything anyone says about it. Ignore any dire pronouncements that include the words “genre,” “medium,” or “revolution.” Avoid referer logs, popularity rankings, and vanity searches at all costs.
Use whatever tool makes sense to you. Write your code by hand or not. Distrust all political parties. Never put a label on yourself unless you’re sure it’s really what you are, and even then don’t. Avoid cults of personality, even when they’re your own.
Remember that a personal website’s only defining characteristic is that it’s personal. And, as such, no one has to “get it” but you. It doesn’t have to “advance the medium” or “make the world a better place.” It just has to make your world a better place. It has to fill some need in your life. It has to make you happy.
Do what you love, baby. And don’t stop doing it for anybody.
I just hope that whatever has prevented them from coming to New Zealand sorts itself out (and hopefully for the better). We’ll miss you Derek and Heather - but the onus will be on the other speakers now to work that bit harder to make Webstock as amazing as it would have been.
EDIT: I suggested to Tash and Mike from Webstock that we have a photo meetup anyway…they seem keen to organise something around that idea, so stay tuned if you were booked for Derek and Heather’s workshop.
