I was hoping this post would include links to my photo’s for the summit all edited and ready for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately I have had some serious technical failures. My laptop did not survive it’s flight back from CLT for some reason and appears to be dead. My home computer that I typically edit photo’s on is not booting either and While I think it is memory related not sure yet.
I would have worked on these computer issues on saturday but I was attending Anime Banzai this weekend. Which I have some awesome pictures from as well.
So please stay tuned as I will have my pictures up as soon as possible.
I started a photo journey about 7 years ago and have been learning ever since. I’ve always tried to go to the summit with a goal/plan of things I want to photograph. For this year I have simple idea
“Capture the good times, Capture #sqlfamily and give the moments I have captured back for others to remember”
Capture the good times, Capture #sqlfamily
I will not be everywhere all the time. I have obligations and meetings like everyone else at the summit. I hope that my fellow attendees will take lots of pictures and be social and capturing all those wonderful times. Here are a few tips if you plan on shooting a lot at the summit.
Paul being…well Paul.
Charge those batteries. I’ve spent almost the entire day away from my hotel and by all day I mean 7:00 a.m. till 2:00 a.m. The summit has a lot of late night activities and you may not have time to stop between events. Make sure you are charging each night when you finally do go to sleep.
Flash the right people. Conference lighting sucks. The fluorescent bulbs look horrible and white balance will be your friend in post process. Use flash when you need to in the halls and at night. I would suggest bouncing the flash whenever you can. DO NOT FLASH the speakers! This is distracting to them and everyone else trying to attend the session. You should go for High iso Large aperture (2.8 or better), get closer in the session if you need to.
Capture the moments. I don’t ask a lot of people to pose at the summit. Sometimes I will want to get a specific group but I will frequently shoot from across the room and get pictures of people being people.
Share the work you have done. I will discuss this more in the next section.
Jason giving back, Although he ended up drinking both of these. 🙂
Give back
I am a firm believer in giving back to my community. I publish all my photos after the summit. Many I stream directly to flickr while I am shooting at the summit by use of an eyefi card. Regardless of what you do consider sharing your photos on flickr, facebook or smugmug. For flickr you can use the tag sqlpass and you just might see it in one of the monitors you are watching at the summit.
Permission
If you are an attendee and you find a great picture you want to use PLEASE ask permission to use the photo. We work very hard for our craft as I know you do as well please be respectful and ask permission to use it on facebook/blog post or whatever.
Finding my work
My Eye fi card has been giving me troubles lately so I’m not sure my photos will all stream to flickr. If I have that working here is the link to where they will be. Also some events are not publishing friendly. Meaning I do hold back what goes to the public stream late at night. Certain pics need editing.
If you just can’t find my photo’s anywhere or you want to know what has happened to them feel free to email me. You can leave a comment on this blog or email me directly.
The most important thing you can take to the summit is the words of Chase Jarvis.
“The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You ”
You don’t have to be a professional to capture a moment. Have a good time and remember those moments. You never know when one will change your life forever.
This is where the jaeger stories come from. A truly defining “moment”
Quick post listing out my Tech/Geek essential packing list for the summit, I’m starting my summit adventure very late Saturday evening so I can get some photo time in on Sunday afternoon. Because of that I need to make a reminder list of everything I need to take from the gadget side of things. No I have not listed clothes/bathroom needs that would be a separate list or just something easy enough to figure out. Many of these things already reside in my laptop bag but I double check to make sure I have them.
Devices
o Phone
o Ipad
o Laptop
o Camera (little one) – I have more than one.
o Portable USB Drive
o Usb mouse(small travel one)
o Speakers (I like listening to music in the hotel)
Camera Gear (Probably won’t have all of this on your list)
o Camera w/battery grip
o Camera Batteries X2
o 11-16mm lens
o 85mm lens
o 50mm lens
o 2 X sb600 (flash)
o 4 X 4 sets AA batteries (16 in total if saving weight buy these on site)
o Remote trigger release
o Lens cleaning cloth
o Bounce card
o 4 X Sd cards
Cables /Connectors/Chargers
o Phone charger
o Ipad charger
o 1 x ipad cable
o Extra phone battery
o 2 x usb micro
o 2 x usb mini
o Mac cable for vga/hdmi connections
o Laptop power cable
o Surge protector
o Camera charger
o Car USB Charger (I’m planning some driving)
o Network cable(rarely need this anymore)
o Logitech Presenter( if presenting)
o Mouse Pad mat (doubles as a lens cleaning cloth)
Those are all the geeky tech things I need to get around for summit. If I was doing larger photo shoots at the summit I would have more gear like light stands and soft boxes and so forth but I’m not this year so really I’ll be packing “light” in the camera world.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the summit in a few days!
Sql Insane Asylum (A Blog by Pat Wright) 