The Wheel at dusk
Manchester Central Library
The Scarlet Thoroughbred
Flickr Meet
There's so little to say about Sunday's awesome Flickr Meet. Other than the Mike Franklin iPhone stole the show. Check out the photos from Flickr Meet VIII (or IX).
Flickr Meet - Tomorrow!
Tomorrow sees the eighth Manchester Flickr meet. I'll be there. You should be too.
Another Sunset
HDR: The Lowry
This wasn't my creation, sadly (although 3 of my shots from last night were used for it) - Mike Franklin is the genius behind this, and generously allowed me to Flickr it. Thanks Mike.
Flickr-rs at The Quays
Last night saw the Mancunian Flickr-rs hit Salford Quays. A great evening of drinking and shooting ensued. Head over to Flickr for everyone's shots (two of mine shown here). And stay tuned for a RapidWeaver screencast later this week!
Manchester Flickr Meetup VI
After, like, a while of missing them, I finally made it to a Manchester Flickr Meetup.
And they're really good.
Yes, it was quite an occasion. The images below are copyright their respective owners and used with permission. Lunch at the great Night & Day Café, followed by us swamping the Thomas Chop House (we need to find a bigger venue for city-centre drinks!!).Then we wandered (the image above providing me some dubious segue to this, and yes they're my feet in the shot above!). Eventually, we hit Albert Square for the duel. Yes, a duel. Mark and Jon's grudgematch was settled by a photo-shoot-out. Now you may be asking 'How the HELL do you do one of those?'. Here's how:Especially when police officers, kicking, shootouts, alcohol, weird looks and surreptitious stalking of C-list TV stars are involved!
- Find a wide open public space - Manchester's Albert Square was ideal for this.
- Ideally, you need plenty of Flickr peers to psych you up - and a small crowd of normal, non-Flickring people to think WTF. The small crowd is optional, but highly recommended - the Flickr peers essential to a) judge the shootout and b) capture it all on camera.
- The two combatants stand back to back, with cameras ready to shoot. The crowd, or rather someone in it, then counts one to ten, and the combatants step forward on each count.
- Upon reaching their tenth step, the combatants turn around as fast as possible and photograph their opponent. The best shot wins. Especially if the opposition are photographed still bringing their camera up ;-) but the idea is, on the spur of the moment, to get as good a shot as possible.
It must be noted that this is the largest ever recorded turnout and all Saturday's turnout are in this shot (unlike the last one I attended), not through the joys of remotes, self-timers, or other technological marvels, but infact, the local polizei (crowd of onlookers for the shoot-out in the background below!)Juvenile behaviour broke out, with camera fighting ensuing.When one member of the fighters (Tom) was sent to the ground by a rogue cobble, we all laughed hard. But then a random person who walked nearby gave Tom a kick as he walked past. The shot below was from the immediate aftermath, and with a police van still in the square, not to mention cries, laughs and 'No Fairs!' from a 26-strong mob, the police thankfully caught up with the thug.After much deliberation, we headed off to Font Bar - possible location of an exhibition of our work sometime soon, for some drinks. During the planning for the meet, Flickr decided to christen the day itself '24 Hours of Flickr'. Everyone looking for a shot that summed up the day. After much deliberation, I dropped this one into the pool.We then proceeded to take about 4 hours to walk the mile to Castlefields, where the Flickr-azzi fired up their cameras for the Coronation Street stars drinking at the bar we ended up at. 8 hours after having set off on foot from the flat, I finally returned, rather shattered. Unsuprisingly, there's masses of photos for the meet - if you want to see the entire 359-photo combined pool for the event, check it out here on Flickr! (My Set) All-in, a top day.Thanks to all those who've allowed their photos to be blogged via Flickr.
Machine Tag Me
So what tag should be all agree on? I'm suggesting of:user=(username) - so of:user=nikf for the one above. It'd be great if Flickr built this in, and then linked up photos automagically. Of course, it'd be better for the Flickr system to use your Flickr ID (so, for example 80573242@N00 for me - find out yours here) but I'm sure that, if something such as this were implemented, there'd be some kind of automation to make this a really consumer friendly idea.
Like the idea? Then post on Flickr in the Ideas thread for it!
Sunset over Manchester
After much trial, and plenty of error - a sunset to be proud of! This weekend sees a couple of things going on in Manchester - firstly the City vs United derby ("Am I bovvered?") and shortly after that, Flickr Meet VI is hitting a pub near you. We're gonna be chatting about plans to get an exhibition going of Mancunian Flickr-rs work, and it all kicks off shortly after the footy's final whistle (i.e. 3pm-ish). RSVP or otherwise at Upcoming.org is not essential, but it will give you the details and the opportunity to make sure we don't move on without you! The meet is also signalling the end of the submissions phase for the exhibition - the group pool closes on Monday, so if you've not submitted photos yet, you'd best get to it!
Finally, if there's any other Mancunian bloggers out there who would perhaps be able to help us get exhibition space that perhaps we've not thought of, or otherwise help us get this exhibition rolling, then either post on Flickr, or contact me directly via the contact form found here!