DigiCluster Gathering at University of Hertfordshire

I set off from Marston Moretaine for Harpenden In what I had hoped was plenty of time to meet up with Product Designer, Peter Carr to head for another Networking event further South in Watford. I met  more traffic than anticipated, but still with adequate time to relax before the joint run to the venue. 

We should have anticipated that perhaps the traffic I had met was indicative of further delays, as there were similar volumes on this leg too, and we initially chose the wrong Car Park, and neither of us had enough loose change for the one we entered, so added more delay! This meant at least from my angle, there was no time to lose in getting my camera out and covering the assembled delegates already gathered and already buzzing. I did however at least grab a quick drink and put it in an accessible place before spotting the most animated groups to shoot and some of the organisers, such as Syd Nadeem, putting the screens and presentation material together. There were many faces I knew, but also a good number that were fresh, and I did get a few brief words with a few whilst catching up with as many informal shots to get my eye in.

The  light level was good, but the crowd in amongst the heavy furniture meant moving around an amount of carefully negotiated strides over three-legged blue-fabricced seating to choose different groups in animated conversation. In the short time I had before the start of the formal introduction to the presentations, I wanted to ensure I had captured as many of the delegates in the small groups of conversations as possible, before I became static as far as my viewpoint was concerned. Having located a spot from where I had a good view of the group of Speakers, I asked if my seat could be kept before taking a few more shots of the group as a whole. This ensured I had a shot of the audience for the evening, and fortuitously this came as the final shot on Page 2, with the start of proceedings on the following page of images — Phew!

Enjoy. I certainly did, and thoroughly appreciated Mark McDermott’s interesting relaxed telling of his journey. I hope that the images I captured convey the spirit of the evening for those attending.

Watford Digi-Cluster – Networking Event at University

Tuesday afternoon I set off south to meet up with Product Designer and friend, Peter Carr to head on down to the Digi-Cluster at the University of Hertfordshire. This is a networking evening for Creatives with some excellent speakers, Josh and Ollie Bolland of JB Cole, and Julian Morency, in this instance to cover the inspirational story of the Agency called Browser and its metamorphosis into a Product company Twine, though Browser actually survived the transformation; to continue, having facilitated the birth of Twine. Another speaker, Ollie Bollond, discussed the values of APIs in the creation of efficient software. The evening was organised jointly by JB Cole, Clock and the University of Hertfordshire to promote creative collaboration through Local Enterprise Partnerships or LEPs, Paul Witcombe explained their role in that context.

As is often the case at such meetings the number of questions asked at the end was bordering on minimal, but nevertheless meaningful and answered expansively, setting the scene for much informal discussion whilst partaking of the generously supplied refreshments and pizzas.

I met up with some familiar faces from past events, such as Nick Rayner of Image 2, and Richard Allibone of TheWayForward.Com, and shamefully someone whom I had met before, but had forgotten, Paul Meyler; he had to jog my failing memory! During my trying to record the event in photographs, I was able to engage in conversations with  some new characters, from whom I took business cards to assist in retaining their details beyond the evening!

I was using my recently acquired wide aperture prime wideangle lens on the full-frame Canon 5D MkIII camera body. The room is entirely black-walled offering minimal lighting, which is challenging photographically, and I term this as 'unavailable light photography' but I find this to be intrinsically less intrusive and a more honest representation of the reality and atmosphere of such an event, and I hope this will be seen in the subsequent gallery of images that I post on the blog. It was very warming to be thanked by Syd Nadim of Clock for taking photos of the evening; I hope he is as pleased, when he sees the results! I was certainly most satisfied by the opportunity that the evening offered in listening to the speakers and chatting afterwards. I don't think I was alone in feeling this was a successful networking event from the animated conversations I spotted through my lens.