So this is it. Whiskerino 2009, and Whiskerino in general in its present form, is over. I participated every day, met some great people, honed my photography skills a bit (and learned to sit REALLY STILL), and had a total blast.
Just in case you need a review (as if you cared), check out my archives.
This weekend was the Whiskerino 2009 Throwdown. We had home-made beer. There was a little break dancing. Bowling. Tacos. A gigantic party/concert/party to wrap it all up. And of course, there was meeting a host of guys that turned out to be as quirky, interesting, and fun as their photos implied. It helped, of course, that we all started from the same baseline of nerdiness for having jointly participated in this Internet beard growing event. None of it would have worked had there not been a pile of decent human beings willing to push awkwardness aside and go hang out with a bunch of near-strangers for a weekend. But Sunday morning, there were a lot fewer near-strangers and a lot more new friends.
There’s only a week left until the whole Whiskerino is over, but this weekend will go down as one of the best I’ve ever experienced.
Today, on Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that my wife’s late father was into photography.
When I started dating the woman that is now my wife her father was already inaccessible, in the late stages of a rare disorder that would take him during our last year in college. I never really got to meet the man who would have been my father-in-law.
He did, however, leave behind a wealth of well-kept camera gear largely from the 1960s. My wife used his old 1967 Nikon F in college, and eventually gave it to me as my wedding present in 2004. She knew I was taking an interest in photography and taught me to use her father’s camera.
Today, while digging around my mother-in-law’s garage for a prop to use in tomorrow’s photo, I stumbled upon a gold mine. An early 60’s Mamiya C3 TLR medium format camera. It’s in almost perfect shape, and included a pistol grip, mirror finder, hood, yellow filter, and UV filter. For this shot I put the mirror finder on in place of the waist-level finder and attached the hood and grip. Everything seems to work just fine, and I plan to run a test roll through when I get home on Sunday.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Dress-up day for Whiskerino.
Just doing my civic duty.
It’s so nice to see the sun again here in the River City.
Not my lucky day…
A double-overdose of me.
I really need to get some new subject matter for my blog posts…this is turning into a dull Daniel show. But I can’t help but post my Whiskerino progress here.
Soft focus on a softening beard.