a few months ago, jill foster asked me if i’d be interested in speaking at a future dc media makers (dcmm) event. not only was i totally psyched to do so, but i was thrilled to be the kickoff event for the new year. this was a change for me – i’m usually talking about technology, social media, etc. but last night at the npr offices downtown, i got to speak about photography to a large room of people with various degrees of photography-knowledge, all types of questions, talents and expertise.
photography has been a part of my life since I was a little kid and while i did feel some nerves early in the day, i felt relaxed and confident with the group. mostly because they were so welcoming and interactive. at first i actually thought everyone was ignoring me, but then i realized they were all live-tweeting the event from their devices. it’s a new sort of engagement that i guess many speakers have had to get used to. reading through all the tweets was great and i thank everyone who came out for the fun (and chocolate – i’m pretty sure that played a role!). jill was a fantastic host and andy carvin, co-host, had some great stories to share. if anyone is interested, here are the slides i used… although there was much more to the talk than what is here.
in addition to the slide content, we had fun little discussions about polaroid cameras, film, image quality, backing up files and so much more. lighting was definitely one of the biggest challenges encountered by people.
my most important message to everyone is this:
experiment, play with your cameras.. pixels are free now! the only way to improve is to shoot much, much more than you do today, pay attention to your results and then shoot more.
this image is one of my favorites. i probably took 30-40 (maybe more) pictures of the ocean when i took this shot. it was an accident that i left the shutter on a slower setting and got this blurred, artistic effect. that only happens when you experiment and shoot.
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4 Comments
JEN!
You just rocked the house last week. Thanks for starting a fantastic conversation with DC Media Makers. I learned a ton (…fyi – sending a note that includes your great slides + Twitter transcript today via http://www.meetup.com/dc-media-makers/).
Appreciate you sharing your creativity!
Thanks Jill! It was so much fun – what a great group. Thank you again for having me!
Thank you for this event. I just posted some photos to Facebook — take a look! — that tried to incorporate some of what I learned. Because my camera lacks sophistication, I could only do so much with light. However, I’m still pleased at how the light looks like how I saw it as opposed to washed out. Thank you for an excellent program!
I just did – they look great! You really got close with the camera and the colors definitely pop. Thank again for coming – glad you were able to take away some of the tips
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