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  Dave 9:58 pm on March 1, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: flickr (31), leeds, photocamp (2)   

  Photocamp Leeds 2009 

  

  I thoroughly enjoyed Photocamp Leeds 2008 last September. The first one was a huge success and the second one seemed better with more constant buzz as I wandered around and spoke to people. As a result of various sessions and conversations I’ve found so much stuff, my head is spinning!

  Here is a short list of some of the things that really had an impact on me:

  • Peer Lawther from the National Media Museum in Bradford did a session about their collaboration with Flickr on the Flickr Commons project. There’s an article in the British Journal of Photography about this:National Media Museum praises Flickr collaboration

    The photo above is taken from the National Media Museum’s collection in Flickr Commons. It was also on one of Peer’s Moo cards that I didn’t pick entirely at random if I’m honest!

  • The first session I attended in the morning was about travel photography. This was split in to two sections which were interesting in different ways. The first half was presented by Nick – this contained a lot of useful advice that only becomes obvious after you’ve been through the process and experienced or avoided the pitfalls. Nick has posted his slides here. Also check out his galleries.
    In the second half of the same session, Ade Freeman talked us through some of his travel photographs. Lots of these were truly beautiful. As a result of seeing these, I tracked down his book and purchased a copy.
  • In the afternoon, I went to a session presented by John Dolan about his experiences doing a 365 set of self portraits. This kind of thing gets attempted by many people, but however you look at it, John has gone the extra mile and then some. I’ll be very surprised if at the end of the year he doesn’t want to take a year off to become a hermit and get away from cameras. The good thing from our point of view is that he’s produced a fascinating set of images that is still growing – and well worth a good browse:John FotoHouse – 365 Days

  I went to other sessions and met and talked to lots of people and could go on typing here for a long time. This event was so very enjoyable. The good news seems to be that events like this should be happening in more and more places as time goes by. The UK Photocamps web site doesn’t give much away at the moment, but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on.

  Finally, have a look through some of the photos taken at the event – there are more and more appearing all of the time: Photocamp Leeds 2009 photos on Flickr.

  John Dolan (FotoHouse), and Nick are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Nick 10:50 pm on March 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Good to hear you enjoyed Ade’s and my presentation. I was nervous enough about presenting without discovering we were going first! But its always good to get positive feedback.

    I think it must be your turn next time! How about “Horns and Hooves – Photographing Animals”?

    My own presentation aside, I didn’t manage to attend the previous one so this was my first photocamp experience. As you mention there was so much going on it did leave me a little overwhelmed at times. My main problem is throughout the day there were always multiple presentation going on at the same time that I wanted to see. Choosing which to attend was the hard part.

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    John Dolan (FotoHouse) 11:20 pm on March 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Thanks for the kind comments Dave. I really enjoyed the day too and having past the half way mark with the 365 I see some light at the end of a very long tunnel!
    The main thing about the day, as you say, was the general buzz.
    Looking forward to more photo networking later in the year!

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  Dave 12:10 pm on September 8, 2008 Permalink
  Tags: 2008 (7), leeds, photocamp (2)   

  Photocamp Leeds 2008 

  I went to Photocamp Leeds 2008 on Saturday. This was a conference with around 100 delegates and some of those delegates would be providing presentations and projects.

  Before going, I wasn’t that sure how well the day would go. It was the first one of these things I’ve been to and the first Photography barcamp-type conference in the country too, so it was new from the organizers perspective as well as the attendees. As it turned out, the day was thoroughly enjoyable and insteresting. I watched a number of presentations – including some that I didn’t think I had much interest in before hand. An example of this was a presentation about street photography at night in Leeds. I’ve never really got that excited about street photography but the presentation was fascinating and the images shown a lot more powerful that I had previously thought.

  Another presentation that I really enjoyed was about self portraits. Now this I thought in advance would be very limited – I mean, how much can you do? Well, it turns out, quite a lot – and there was quite a lot of inventive and creative things in this. It was funny seeing how the two presenters started with fairly simple shots that are kind of typical of what you’d get when looking for self portraits, but then they quickly got carried away with the idea and really went for it, creating a lot of interesting shots as part of a 365 day project. It’s really impressive that not only do you make it though 365 days of a photo per day, but keep up that enthusiasm throughout most of it.

  Links to a lot of these people’s photos are listed in the references section below.

  One of tasks that was designed to be an ice breaker and get you talking to somebody you didn’t know, was the act of pulling a name out of a hat and going to take a portrait of that person. This didn’t quite work as planned for me, somebody I knew who I was sat near picked my name out. While we were laughing at the ‘ooh, what are the odds of that’, I put my hand in and picked out that person which has got to be highly improbable! – I ought to rush out and buy a lottery ticket before it wears off!

  The portrait taken of me is also listed below as a reference. I chose not to embed it because you really need to have the choice of looking or not!

  There was so much more stuff going on and my head is filled with all sorts! I did a short presentation about digital infrared photography – which was really a summary of what I’d learnt and the pitfalls that I discovered when starting out with it three or four years ago. There is a set of slides to go with that, but the slides were mainly a set of prompts for me rather than something useful to watch.

  You can flick thought them here if you wish:

  So, all in all, the event was great, and if there are more of them, I’ll definitely try and go again.

  Jon Eland, and Diana L-S are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Jon Eland 10:42 am on September 9, 2008 Permalink

    Hi Dave,

    Firstly – thanks for blogging about this – and also thanks for presenting; I loved your session (tho next time I may ask you to present on livestock photography!) I need to try harder at IR…

    Cheers! Jon

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    Diana L-S 2:37 am on October 3, 2008 Permalink

    Sounds like a great experience! I went through your slides and learned quite a bit, then fired up B&H Photo website looking up filters ;)

    Thanks for sharing!

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  Dave 9:41 am on February 3, 2008 Permalink
  Tags: flickrmeet (23), leeds, sheffield (5)   

  Leeds Sheffield Flickrmeet 

  

  The Leeds Flickr Group planned a trip to Sheffield. The most relaxing and easy way for me to get to Sheffield is to park at my local train station for a £1 parking fee all day and get the train in for less than a fiver. There was a bit of snow on the ground near home, but more and more of it was to be seen approaching Sheffield. It was cold at 10AM, but the snow was already melting and wasn’t evident for the rest of the day.

  Chinese New Year celebrations were occurring in the city and I did get a small number of shots of that, but busy crowd events aren’t really my cup of tea, so my heart wasn’t in it. Instead I just wandered around taking photos of anything that took my fancy. I did get a couple of Dragons however…

  

  Although, if I’m completely honest, I prefer this one (even though the photo isn’t that good…)

  

  It’s the only time I’ve approached somebody and asked “Excuse me, can I take a photo of your little dragon?”.

  Once the (Chinese) dragon had made it’s journey, we stopped for a coffee before wandering the streets again and making our way to a pub. I’ve posted a handful of photos from the pub, but I think the one below is my favourite. Pictured are members of the Sheffield Flickr Group. It’s blurry and messy, but I like the reflections.

  

  Finally, it started getting dark and we headed back to the station. I had nearly half an hour before my train departed so I stopped for a coffee and was amused to see a pigeon fly in to the cafe kitchen unnoticed. I then saw it fly across the doorway at about head height followed by a rather amusing (and rude) exclamation from the staff member inside there.

  My Leeds Sheffield Flickrmeet 02/08 set contains more photos from the day.

  Afterthought: Whenever I go to Sheffield, I find it hard to resist the big steel balls…

  

   
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  Dave 6:59 am on October 23, 2006 Permalink
  Tags: leeds   

  Royal Armouries 

  

  Day two of a weekend that was spent being less active than normal. I had my bike repaired and working beautifully but the weather forecast was worse than grim. I decided to get out somewhere different and take some more photos, trying to further get used to the new camera.

  I couldn’t believe that The Royal Armouries had been in Leeds for over 10 years. I remember when it was new and in the news and thinking that sounds interesting I’ll have to go! It’s a fascinating place for sure and well worth a visit – especially considering admission is free.

  Camera wise, it can be a little challenging in there. They don’t like you using flash and it’s quite dark in places. They also don’t like tripods because they get in the way and cause a hazard.

  I think I managed to get a few good photos out of the visit though and did learn things about the camera while I was using it. I am more and more impressed with it the more I use it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can reap the benefits of the better quality optics and sensor.

  The image above was one of two taken in the Hall of Steel – a very impressive column going from the bottom of the building to the top lined with armour and weapons.

  My Royal Armouries set on Flickr