[Deep Breath]

I’m 40 this year; in a few week’s time in fact.

And, until now, I wasn’t sure ‘getting to 40′ was something to celebrate — or how to do it; but just today I got an idea as to how I can record it that will reflect brilliantly where I am now; and my passions.

I’d like to commission a photograph from everyone I know.

I’d like you to take/make a single photographic image — of whatever you think I’d like to have an image of and send it to me.

The image can be of anything — write me a note, sketch or doodle, photograph yourself or something (anything) you think will excite, intrigue or amuse me. I don’t mind if your skills aren;‘t great or if it’s on a camera phone (or whatever), I care that you thought a little about it, and that you created this work just for me.

I will then take all the submitted images and collate them into a book (just for me) that will be my momento of my 40th. If you include a message with the image I’ll make sure that, and your name, goes in the book.

You can add it to the facebook page, email it —  or post it (please ask for my postal address in a private message!)

I will be celebrating my birthday (28th March) with family around the ‘big day’ and then having a more proper party a little later in the year (my March is already busy enough!)

Please do this — it will mean a lot to me

Thanks!

I’m now safely into the day following my last big thing (last as in previous, don’t worry — there will be many more…) – and it felt to go ok. It never fails to surprise me how great it is when you get a bunch of like minded people together in a room with an instruction to be open, sharing and friendly and — dagnabbit — they generally obey.

Yesterday was WePublish — a new event aimed at getting to people to talk about and share experiences around the act of publishing in the digital age. With newbies, seasoned bloggers, more seasoned hacks (sorry, guys — just kidding) and a mix of those with more general tech|culture interests gathered at the amazing ‘OBH’ — we set off on what turned out to be a revealing and though provoking day of discussion.

It was the ultimate in unconferencing:

• There were NO SLIDES. That really was none at all in the end – pedantry alert – as the one projected graphic (see above) was a jpg.
• There were no talks or presentations — even the few of us who drafted a couple of notes largely ignored them and went with the flow.
• And flow it did — everyone who attended the event contributed!

We sat around in comfy seats, chewed the fat, drank coffee and ate a fairly fantastic lunch (thanks to the support of NTI Leeds)

I’m not going to comment on specifics — or on outcomes; I’ll document those later over on the site. But I have reached some conclusions:

1. There is an active interest in blogging and other forms of digital publishing in the area.
2. The debate around it is intelligent and those involved are seeking direction in producing better content.
3. The Culture Vulture is very well loved — and respected — in these parts.
4. There was a fair share of Hodge-love in the room.

So, those amazing insights into the day aside I have to admit my own fallability and cough-up to not doing ‘thank yous’ at the end. So…

• To the lovely person who created the great open source font from which our logo was created
• Everyone who sent apologies
• Everyone who turned up and contributed
• John Baron for offering to talk despite tonsilitis
• Phil Kirby and Imran for stepping up to the mark
• To all those who through their hat in on the day and delivered a session
• To Louise, the lovely student from LeedsMet, who checked everyone in
• Northern Bloggers, @GdnLeeds, @TheHodge, @Imran, @culturevultures, @ntileeds, @lukeb3000, LVAF, @foodiesarah and everyone else who helped spread the marketing message.
• To everyone at NTI Leeds (and the caterers) who ensured it was such a simple event to deliver
• For their ongoing support and ridiculous faith — Linda, Imran and the other LSx-ers
• And finally — I guess I have to thank those people who (completely) ignored my (many) requests to get permission to use their event franchise. Without your incredibly poor communication and rudeness WePublish would most likely never have been born. So — cheers! (my apologies for the mini rant there).

THANKS — all of you.

So that’s it — WePublish is. It will now take it’s place as part of the LSx family (more on THAT soon!)

*By the way, I think we decided the answer was ‘Yes, sort of’

I work for a firm that produces magazines largely for the employees of larger companies — my role is to appropriately deliver them digitally but I also publish a lot in my own right. As a photographer my images appear on flickr, facebook and my own website and my writings are starting to be posted on blogs and other sites around the net.

What interests me is how many people are publishing without a clear understanding of the impact of what they do, of the potential they have at their hands and the possibility the Law may get involved in what they’re up to.

It’s for these reasons that I got together with Linda and Jeff at NTI Leeds to create a new event — WePublish. This is an unconference — an open, friendly and sharing meeting of minds and networking opportunity for everyone involved in content creation in Leeds and the region around it. The event is aimed at everyone negotiating the new digital publishing landscape — writers, journalists, publishers, producers (video and radio), webmasters and everyone else who supports them.

What’s more it’s a snip at a fiver — so why not sign up?

• Website
• Culture Vulture article

But I’m so bloody happy right now! I’ve just come back from Sixpiece — a one day only exhibition of images submitted from the mass photo shoot at Kirkstall Festival. 33 photographers submitted images to what will probably become the start of an amazing archive images recording the festival and it was amazingly curated by  Rachel Barker and Lauren Pissochet and supported by Ken Stratford (along with both East Street Arts and Kirkstall Valley Community Association).

Some days (well most of them) I’m too busy dealing with the future to enjoy what’s happened — and the last 18 months have been an absolute blast. Exposure Leeds has been amazing and the fact that we’re now moving this to a structure that will hopefully allow it to flourish but what has been amazing is how this little social enterprise has allowed me to flourish.

This probably isn’t such a deal to others but tonight I walked up to an MP and introduced myself; and he turned around and congratulated me on all I had achieved. I doubt he really knows anything much about Exposure Leeds — and he probably says the same to loads of people he meets. But, I introduced myself to an MP!

My little bit of world has changed shape so much lately and I can’t help but be proud of all that the group of amazing individuals that is Exposure Leeds has managed to do. As the group moves from loose form into a properly constituted entity and starts to set in place elements that will ensure future stability and continuity I hope to review the first year and a half — but one thing is for sure; when I look back at what we’ve achieved I’m always amazed at how we’ve done so much, made so many good links and given a wonderful energy to so many people.

And for those of you out there who are part of it — every last one of Exposure Leeds’ members is a true star in my eyes!

I plan to write up my thoughts on being a benevolent dictator a little more soon. But, for now, here’s the slides (as pdf): BettaKulcha Presentation

UPDATE

Here’s me on Youtube…

For more see http://bettakultcha.blogspot.com/

Yesterday I attended Photocamp Edinburgh 1 — not only the first in the city, but the first to be borne from the events we’ve run in West Yorkshire. A sibling, as it were.

Whilst there were differences – it was certainly more intimate – there were lots of similarities. The engaged, responsive audience and wonderful speakers made the event great to attend. And the buzz in the bar when we all went to lunch was obvious. Photocamps do get the audience excited an animated and friendships (if only fleeting) rapidly made.

I bit the bullet and decided to run an impromptu session. Having no access to WiFi (my only real grumble at hosts – The University of Edinburgh) I got on and came up with a quick creative session. I was very surprised to see everyone’s readiness in this single strand format to take part in my craziness and, whilst I’ve not seen the photographic responses), the visible response was quite exciting.

Edinburgh was brought together incredibly quickly – in August organiser Darren (JudyCabbages) met past photocampers John and Louise at the Edinburgh Festival. A few weeks later Darren attended Photocamp Bradord {2009}. I’m not sure if this is the case, but rumour goes that the Edinburgh venue was booked whilst he was in Bradford. The website and booking went live a couple of days later. All this means the event, including marketing, was brought together in less than 30 days.

I’m not going to review the event itself – as that is for the organisers and the attendees but here are my thoughts on the differences; and how this might impact on future events;

• The size (capacity: 45) was perfect for a first event. In retrospect eighty for the first Leeds event set expectations very high and didn’t allow us to experience how amazing a smaller-scale event could be.

• Edinburgh managed to pull off ’unconference’ a lot more effectively than we have in West Yorkshire. Whilst some attendees proposed sessions ahead of time the actual running order was pulled together on the day. I strongly believed this changed the attitudes of those attending. You felt more forgiving of speakers, over-runs seemed less invasive and all-ways round it seemed more barcamp-y; but also it felt like more people became involved in the conference – taking ownership of the day.

• Interestingly the organisers did the same thing I had; trying to deliver more ‘add-ons’ than they had time/capacity to prepare for. I’m coming to the conclusions that initiatives should be limited to one before and one during an event.

• The main ‘on the day’ initiative was similar to the one we ran at the first Leeds event – with delegates photographing another based on name badges; this seemed again to go down well.

Anyway the long and short of this is Edinburgh Photocamp 1 was, in my eyes and reflecting on others’ reactions, an absolute success – and I wish Darren and his team every best with planning future events.

The main event, at Old Broadcasting House within Leeds Metropolitan University was a roaring success — attended by over seventy delegates from as far afield as Glasgow, Rotterdam and Oviedo in Spain.

Between them the delegates delivered 24 sessions on subjects such as off camera flash, night time photography, pinhole, composition, studio lighting and unusual ways of using light in photography. In addition we had renowned flickrebrities, Cybergabi and Tootdude talking about their 365 self portrait sets.

Delegates at Photocamp Leeds {2008}

photo by Cybergabi

I will be posting more evaluating the event and how Photocamps could be delivered elsewhere — something I’m more than happy to discuss with others. But for now I am happy to say that this one was a wonderful success and to thank all those that helped make it so!

For those of you free on Wednesday there is GeekUp Leeds at The Lounge on Merrion Street — everyone being talked out I believe it’ll be a wii-athon.

I want to start by thanking all those involved in bringing all the events together; it’s been a resounding success. I enjoyed Barcamp Leeds — at least as much as the last one. This was a bit of a surprise — but then again my unusual role as ‘official photographer’ means I saw a small part of every presentation! I’ll post all the photos in the coming days; I’m surrently editing down from 600+

I think at this stage I got most from meeting new people and spending a bit more time with people I’ve met previously. For me it’s great to meet a bunch of people interested in tech but who aren’t necessarily working in my area of ‘expertise’ (previously corporate recruitment, now corporate communications).

So, my thanks to Ross Brown, Chris Garrett, Debs Bassett, Linda Broughton, The Hodge and of course — Imran Ali for bringing together what has been, for me, a great collection of events.

Well, the first of those is the great first networking evening for PhotoNN; held on Thurs 16th at the Design Innovation Centre in Leeds. I think this group has the potential to go far and hope to become involved myself, once the fun of Photocamp Leeds {2008} has died down.

The second of my great nights was earlier on — when I enjoyed a great evening with a bunch of bloggers at WordPress UK North. As I keep saying to anyone who bothers to listen; there’s a lack of networking opportunities for those with a commercial eye to working in micro organisations for the ‘digital’ sector. This is another group I hope to get involved with in the future.

Because of these two events I’m going to press on and try to establish ‘Under Construction’. The concept is that this becomes a virtual network with occasional real world outings for companies working primarily in consulting roles in the digital and creative industries having less than four employees. The premise: to share ideas on how to best do business. If you are interested in this type of thing, head over to the web space.

Well, following other challenges I’ve undertaken for my hobby I’ve recently launched  my biggest yet… Photocamp Leeds {2008} — which is planned to be a free one day (and then some) event in Leeds city centre for all serious photographers to get together and share ideas, expereiences, techniques and calling cards.

It is hoped the day itself will generate new work — but also that relationships created on the day will lead to other projects — including a whole series of commissions from local charities and not-for-profit organisations.

The event itself can only happen through the support of NTI Leeds and LeedsMet University — a big thanks to Linda Broughton there for allowing this to happen.

For the rest — why not see what’s happening over at photocamp.org.uk