BarCamp Charleston!

Calvin and Jared have started working towards setting up a BarCamp in Charleston.

What’s a BarCamp?

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.

BarCamp is all about the participants. It’s the participants that give talks and presentations on stuff they know about. It’s about sharing the stuff you know with others who have similar interests or want to find out about what you’re talking about. If you’ve ever watched a large group of people, you’ll inevitably see small groups of people form together. Typically those in the groups are connected by a common factor (friends, interests, etc). Others are just joining in on the conversation. That’s more or less what a BarCamp is, only with a little more (but not much) structure and organization. It can be organized around a theme or particular topic, or just one big free-for-all. Most importantly,

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. When you come, be prepared to share with barcampers. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

There’s a meeting tomorrow (July 22) at the Muddy Waters West Ashley for the initial planning meeting. Come along if you’re intersted in helping to organize Charleston’s first Barcamp! You can also keep up with what’s happening with the BarCamp on Twitter and Facebook.

Worldwide Photowalking

Organizing a photowalk can be a lot of work. Yesterday was the Worldwide Photowalk, with photowalks organized in 900 locations. I helped put together the Charleston, SC photowalk which turned out to be a resounding success. Had about 45 people show up for the photowalk, and I think we even picked up a few people along the way. Had a great time wandering around the peninsula taking pictures and meeting fellow photography enthusiasts.

Group photo of a bunch of photographers

The day started off pretty nice, but started to get pretty warm towards the end of the walk. I finished off the day with close to 150 photos that I eventually culled down to 111 which I posted in my photo gallery.

This one turned out to be one of my favourites. At Elliot St and Bedon’s Alley, there’s a shell of an old building that now serves as a parking lot. I was in there looking around and saw this through one of the windows.

A photograph of a window in a brick wall.  A planter with some vines growing is sitting on the window sill.  Through the window is part of a door and window of a building across the alley.

The top of the Cumberland parkade offered some pretty good views as well.

A photo of St Michael's Church in downtown Charleston taken from the roof of a nearby parkade
A photo of Circular Congregation Church in downtown Charleston taken from the roof of a nearby parkade

Quite happy with the way the photowalk turned out. I’ll have to try to find some time to organize more of them.

Charleston Worldwide Photowalk Flickr group