2020 1st DigiCluster Meeting – West Herts College

 

 

On this occasion, I travelled without company, and the journey was slow with heavy traffic, which was further exacerbated by a Breakdown Vehicle in attendance on the Exit Slip Road from the M1 Motorway, but I still managed to arrive reasonably early at the venue, the West Hertfordshire College Campus. Those already present were in several groups engaged in animated conversation.

Even as I assembled my camera and checked settings the room was filling and among several faces I knew I was greeted warmly and it was not long before I was capturing the growing numbers of attendees, and groups were forming with genuine interest in involvement, and there were obviously some newcomers. Whilst it was less than full, I took the opportunity to capture some images involving the majority of those attending so that there was a good chance that all were captured to individual advantage in lively conversation.

Many of those attending were gesticulating with great energy, and that is always something that attracts my attention, just as much as those to whom the actions were reinforcing either their individual descriptions or the underlying humour of situations they were retelling. Not being a movie taker, but a moment capturer, I have tried to record the varying emphasis being made by some of the moments I followed.

It was quite a time spent socialising before formality was brought to the occasion as speakers Jeremy Freeman of SmartGiving and Loiuse Towler of Indigotree took the floor to give their ninety second pitches, both of which were received intently by the audience.

There followed the Fireside chat, with Syd Nadeem introducing Lucy Mann of Gunpowder Consulting to the audience, and gently providing questions to maintain the momentum, and ending by inviting questions from the audience.

During these talks, I observed the audience activities as well as the speakers to give a balance to the atmosphere and later, the attendee interactions and further conversations both amongst themselves and with the speakers. I thoroughly enjoyed how much non-verbal communication in terms of gesticulations and facial and body language plays such a part in these human interactions. And, this camera I was using for the very first time gave me the opportunity to often distance myself further from my subjects because of the range of its zoom. For those interested in the technicalities: it was the Lumix FZ1000 MkII with its extended longer focal length reach zoom.

However, despite spending several hours beforehand attempting to familiarise myself with this camera, I came unstuck a few times, and so missed shots, despite taking a total of 640 and only putting out a mere 245, so the Cutting Room Floor, read ‘Bin’ was reasonably full! I hope those attending enjoy reliving the moments I captured.

Digi-Cluster January 2019, West Herts College, Watford

The weather for the evening’s meeting of the Digital-Cluster group of Creatives was wet and windy, with a threat of snow for the return trip, but the spirit of those already gathered by my arrival was both warm and positive.

On this occasion I drove down alone, and two designers I would normally have met were not going to be there, which was a shame, as they had prior engagements. This engagement was going to be the first occasion that I would be using the new mirrorless full-frame camera body from Canon, the EOS R, and it was now that I put all that I had learned from my earlier outings to the real test.

I was nervous, and the first few shots I was very aware that my hands were shaky,  and when using the screen to select where I wanted to focus, I found it difficult to find the square cursor to move it into place for the subject I wanted to focus on, before realising I had to remember to keep my fingers away from the eyepiece, as this pulled it off-screen. I had to keep reminding myself to keep all my other fingers well away. The nerves abated once I started to be careful about coming to wards the screen from below, and avoid other fingers from getting close to the eyepiece.

I was very aware that I was working far less smoothly, with less confidence than normal, and ‘chimping’, far more to check focus and framing. However, what I soon realised was that the image within the eyepiece was so much brighter than the scene I was shooting, which had not been apparent from all the outdoor testing I had been doing in the preceding week.

Occasionally I did show a couple the people the images I had taken to give them an idea of the improvement in quality over what I had been able to achieve with my earlier DSLRs using the same lens.

The evening began by Syd Nadim apologising that one scheduled speaker had not been able to make it for personal reasons, but had recorded a message which Syd duly played on screen, he also explained that there were some 90-Second pitches, and a ‘fireside chat’ covering a range of topics, and questions from the audience.

At the end of all this formal section there were a range of pizzas and drinks kindly provided, and later for those interested a trip to the bodega. The gallery of pictures I took of the informal networking and the talks, hopefully captures the spirit of the evening, and certainly proved to me that the EOS R definitely provides high quality images.

Digi-Cluster Meeting - West Herts College

Having spent time at Brogborough Lake photographing Windsurfers facing the challenge of a fitful wind with at least the direction of light in my favour I headed back briefly to offload those images, clearing the cards and selecting a very different choice of lenses to drive down first to Harpenden where I would be picking up Product Designer Peter Carr, then almost immediately jump back in the car with the briefest of polite greetings to Sue so she could return to watching a favourite TV programme, and with Peter using his mobile phone to aid his navigation for us to head south through the increasing traffic.

It was my fault that we had no time to drink a cup of tea as I had left it rather late in leaving Brogborough Lake and I needed to download those images to ensure they were safely uploaded and the cards readied for the images I was to be capturing once we had arrived at the College for our Networking event. We timed our arrival with perfect precision, because towards the end of the journey there was only slight drizzle, just before we got to the College Car Park, the heavens opened and it was a deluge! Peter asked whether I had an umbrella and replying positively I got out of the car forgetting that the key was still in the ignition, so the boot was firmly locked, so that mean returning to the front of the car, removing the key from the steering column and then getting the brolly out and giving it to Peter who had just left the protection of the vehicle, I still had to retrieve my camera case and briefcase, and lock up, so really, there was not much point in me sheltering under the brolly, but nevertheless I did so, but I was completely soaked through.

Fortunately it was warm rain and I have a sense of humour, so my spirits were still buoyant, but my shirt was like a flannel and a shade darker than it had been when dry, but there was considerable concern for my wellbeing from staff from I believe Clock and I was soon provided with a towel which went a small way towards soaking up some of the surplus water, and several options were suggested as to how the shirt could be passed through a hand dryer in the toilets, but in fact my body heat and the dry atmosphere sorted things fairly efficiently – so quite an entrance bearing in mind our arrival was later than most! Ultimate irony  – two minutes after our entry, the rain stopped!

I put down all the gear and soon grabbed the camera and set to trying to capture the warm atmosphere in the voluble throng and occasional nobbles of crisps and sips of a drink with which someone kindly plied me; memory defeats me as to whom I owe thanks for that, but if you know who you are, my grateful thanks, it was appreciated. We soon moved from this entrance area into the long room where tables were arranged for us to sit for the presentations and I took the opportunity to get some shots of that informality and was then in a position to capture the introduction and the later presentations which were preceded by a couple of 90-second pitches. The most impressive of the main ones was undoubtedly the ongoing story of SwipeStation, and the participation of Seedrs and an explanation of how that worked. My apologies for a severe lack of information on the various speakers, as at the end of the evening the neckstraps were returned and I did not manage to glean all the names of Sponsors and Speakers from the inserted ticket.

Later food and drink arrived and less formal and often animated conversations ensued and my shooting came to an end. Thanks for a well-organised and really interesting evening, I was hoping that my lawn would have welcomed the rain, but it seemed to have given my home area a complete miss, my shirt earlier had received more than my garden!

Aftermath of Freezing Fog, and the Sun Shines

Peter Carr, a Harpenden Product Designer, and were due to meet up with Mike Benjamin at his studio in Watford, where he was going to give three of us an introduction to using Freeway for a day. For that reason we were up early and so was the sun for a change, and the temptation to stop and capture images of the frost-rimed trees was irresistible.

I phoned Peter as I was leaving and from his suggestion not to hurry, I realised that even before meeting him there was time to stop and capture some of the scenery. After we had met up Peter was hoping that I might get some shots of his Bamville Cricket team’s pavillion by the Harpenden Golf Course, so a few more opportunities arose! Fortunately the traffic to Watford was light, so not much time was lost.