My Motley Meanderings

This weekend I was at ConRunner, the first in a series of biannual UK conventions for convention organisers. ( Read more... )

Before I went to Interaction, I decided I was fed up with my ancient Kodak digicam and spent what was for me quite a lot of money on a lovely new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX8 and a 2GB SD memory card to go with it. Despite this, I only took one photo in a panel. In hindsight I don't really know why I did this, as there were always plenty of other people taking pictures of the panels. Some of them were quite rude about it, going right up to the front and spending several minutes taking a long series of close-up shots of each panel member using a telephoto lens and a large external flash gun with anti-redeye pre-flash enabled. I think the reason I only took one photo in a panel (and that was at the second one I went to) might have because I was feeling a vague sort of second-hand embarrassment about not wanting to be associated with the rude photographers with their powerful flashguns. Which is of course ridiculous. I was planning to take plenty of photos of the masquerade entrants and the Hugo winners. My camera has a cool active anti-shake feature which uses an accelerometer and a servo driven lens so you can take sharp pictures in low light conditions without using a flash. I had my camera out ready and had triple checked that the flash really was disabled. But then Sue Mason started going on about how if even one person in the auditorium used a flash, the costumers would all fall off the stage in confusion and we'd all be forcibly ejected, and I started to feel an irrational paranoia - what if my camera had a bug which made it flash even though the flash was turned off? I would die of embarrassment. So I put my camera away and didn't take any photos in the masquerade. I didn't even bother getting it out for the Hugos. Which is of course ridiculous.

But anyway, I did take quite a few photos outside, some of which turned out pretty well. You can take a look at them here.

Interaction wasn't merely my first Worldcon, it was in fact my first con of any kind. When I first heard about it, I mainly wanted to go so that I would have a chance to meet some of my favourite authors in person (who knows, maybe some of the talent would rub off ;). I didn't know anyone before I went, I don't drink, I don't generally go to parties because I find that I don't fit in, and I'm not very good at socialising with strangers. Since for many people the main point of conventions seems to be to meet up with old friends, socialise in the bar, and go to late night parties, you might think that I must have hated it. Well, no. Actually I enjoyed it a lot. I'm already considering going to next year's Eastercon and trying to work out if I could afford to travel to next year's Worldcon. Read on to find out what I got up to at Interaction.

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