Day 115/365 - Support Group

Today was the January weekend meet-up of the DC Social group on Flickr. As an aperitif, a dozen or so of us braved the cold to go on a photowalk around the Dupont Circle section of Washington, DC led by the inestimable Mr. T in DC, who proved to be an excellent guide. Then we joined the rest of the crew at Buffalo Billiards to eat, drink, and be merry (and get warmed up).

I often wonder just what people think when we get together like this and start photographing every thing in sight. We're like a support group for camera geeks, although it's not an addiction we're looking to kick.

"Hi, my name is Kevin and I'm a photography junkie."

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 51/365 - A Productive Day at the Office

If you have to be at work, the day after Thanksgiving is one of the most relaxing days of the year to be working -- hardly anyone is at the office and the few people who are generally don't feel like being bothered or bothersome. As a result, I spent today at work BS'ing with my friend and co-worker Chris (one of the two other people in my office who came to work today) and uploading, organizing, titling, describing, tagging, and geotagging the photos I took of the Thanksgiving Day parade and of New York City itself over the past two days.

The T1 connection we have at the office is much faster for uploading than the DSL connection I have at home, and that fact came in particularly handy given that I had just over 200 photos to upload. It took me most of the day to get my Flickr 'business' done, although I did have to waste thirty minutes at a meeting going over something I'd already explained. Seriously, who the hell schedules a meeting for the day after Thanksgiving? Communists.

It's silly for an office to even be open that day. It probably costs far more in utilities and security to keep buildings open on the Friday after Thanksgiving than any resulting productivity gain, especially given that most of the people who are at work aren't doing much that day. Or maybe that's just me.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 25/365 - Shady Characters

Today I went to my first meet-up for the DC Social Flickr group. I've been posting photos to the DCist website's photo pool on Flickr for a few months now, and I'd noticed there was a group of photographers who contributed to that pool who all seemed to know each other and commented on each other's work. Then I discovered they were also members of another photo pool called DC Social.

At first I didn't quite understand the purpose or rules of that group, and I was a bit worried they would be an uber-cool, hipper-than-thou, exclusive clique that would frown on dilettante outsiders like me. Then I took a closer look at some of the pictures from the group's prior meet-ups and realized that 'Hey, they're mostly just a bunch of camera geeks same as me!' So I decided to go to this month's group meet-up at Rocket Bar in the Gallery Place section of Washington, DC.

I'm glad I went. They turned out to be a really laid back, welcoming, fun group of people who live, breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and dream photography. Now I'm already looking forward to next month's meet up.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)