Anthrocon and other stuff
First, thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes to me; I really do appreciate it. I'm now 35 years of age, and I still feel as good as I did when I was in my early 20s. I'm still healthy, still employed, and still able to enjoy the furry things in life. No complaints, here!
I survived another year at Anthrocon. Once again, it was insanely fun, and went way too fast. Things were already a little crazy when I arrived on Wednesday, and a little crazier on Thursday. But the whole con shifted into turbo and went nuts on Friday, and it stayed that way for the entire weekend. When it was all over, I was a bit exhausted (chasing fursuiters for photos is hard work, I tell ya'), but that wasn't a bad thing. Anthrocon continues to be my favorite convention, and I'll definitely do what I can to make it there, every year.
leostarr and CamoHusky were my roommates for this year, and everything went smoothly. There were no issues with check-in or check-out, and the sleeping situation worked itself out, too. We were on the 24th floor of the Westin hotel (there are 26 total), and in room 2401... next to the elevators. But even that situation turned out to be much better than it looked. I could definitely hear the hums/buzzes/dings from the elevators, but I had no trouble sleeping through it all, every night. I kinda wish we all could have spent a bit more time with each other, just for the sake of getting to know one another a little better. But I won't complain about that because, well... it's Anthrocon. It's a big convention and it moves fast. If you think you can enjoy it by doing your own things, all the time, then that's what you should do. You certainly don't want to come away from a convention like Anthrocon feeling as though you wasted your time, and you'll want to do as much as possible. We didn't really hang out with each other, but really, that's okay with me, and I certainly won't blame Leostarr or CamoHusky for that. They were great roommates, and I'd room with both again.
Of course, I took a few photos while I was there. Overall, I think I did okay, but I did run into a couple problems.
I thought the skylight lighting in the convention center would be perfect for shooting, but the light was actually very cool (color temperature) and harsh. I lost a few photos because of that. No amount of post-processing will help a photo taken in bad lighting. Thankfully, I did find a few of those fursuiters at another time and got better photos of them, in different locations.
The other, more severe issue I had occurred with one of my lenses, the Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8. I knew that the autofocus was slow (slower than that of my 80-200mm f/2.8, which is much larger), but the tests I ran didn't indicate any focus issues, aside form the speed. So, I used that lens to take shots in the Dealers Den (which had far better and more diffused skylight lighting), and... well, that was a mistake. I didn't have much time to review the shots I took while I was at the convention, and I thought the LCD on the camera showed that everything was okay. But when I arrived home and took a closer look, I saw that a lot of the shots I took with that lens were misfocused. The focus was way off in a lot of shots, and I knew that I didn't intentionally or accidentally do that. That discovery was very disappointing; that type of thing always seems to happen, somehow, with shots I really wanted to keep. But most of my shooting was done with my trusty 35mm lens, and I used the big 80-200mm for the fursuit games. Those shots came out exactly as I had expected them to, with very few misfocused shots between the two lenses.
Despite the shooting problems, I still managed to get about 450 good photos posted. And really, that number exceeded my original expectation of less-than-400 (nearly the same number I posted for Anthrocon 2010). I'm still about 'quality-over-quantity', though, and the days of shooting and posting everything are long gone for me. Nowadays, my stance is that if it survives post-processing (and I post-process everything in one or two stages), then it will likely be posted.
Anthrocon was fun for other things, too. I did a fair amount of fursuiting, and even had a couple brief appearances in one of the local news channel reports on Anthrocon. The convention also managed to get the attention of Reuters, and some other reporters took several photos of us. I think it's safe to say that Anthrocon isn't just a convention anymore; it's a premier event, for furries (and non-furries alike). We get a good amount of press coverage every year, and the reports are (mostly) positive.
You can find other news reports on Anthrocon in this thread, at the Anthrocon site.
Aside from the photography and fursuiting, I went to a couple panels and met some new people, and even got a chance to meet and speak briefly with the owner of the Brown Bag Deli in the hotel. He's a nice guy, and he told me that he loves when the convention comes around because it helps his business a lot (of course), and he thinks we're good people. He calls me "Abraham" - normally, I'd correct anyone who mispronounces my name like that (it's pronounced, AY-brum, like the tank). But in his case, I didn't bother. He's a good guy; he likes us, and we like him.
So yeah, that's a very general report on my Anthrocon 2011 adventure. I had a blast, and I'll definitely go back in 2012. Maybe I'll see you there!
I survived another year at Anthrocon. Once again, it was insanely fun, and went way too fast. Things were already a little crazy when I arrived on Wednesday, and a little crazier on Thursday. But the whole con shifted into turbo and went nuts on Friday, and it stayed that way for the entire weekend. When it was all over, I was a bit exhausted (chasing fursuiters for photos is hard work, I tell ya'), but that wasn't a bad thing. Anthrocon continues to be my favorite convention, and I'll definitely do what I can to make it there, every year.
leostarr and CamoHusky were my roommates for this year, and everything went smoothly. There were no issues with check-in or check-out, and the sleeping situation worked itself out, too. We were on the 24th floor of the Westin hotel (there are 26 total), and in room 2401... next to the elevators. But even that situation turned out to be much better than it looked. I could definitely hear the hums/buzzes/dings from the elevators, but I had no trouble sleeping through it all, every night. I kinda wish we all could have spent a bit more time with each other, just for the sake of getting to know one another a little better. But I won't complain about that because, well... it's Anthrocon. It's a big convention and it moves fast. If you think you can enjoy it by doing your own things, all the time, then that's what you should do. You certainly don't want to come away from a convention like Anthrocon feeling as though you wasted your time, and you'll want to do as much as possible. We didn't really hang out with each other, but really, that's okay with me, and I certainly won't blame Leostarr or CamoHusky for that. They were great roommates, and I'd room with both again.
Of course, I took a few photos while I was there. Overall, I think I did okay, but I did run into a couple problems.
I thought the skylight lighting in the convention center would be perfect for shooting, but the light was actually very cool (color temperature) and harsh. I lost a few photos because of that. No amount of post-processing will help a photo taken in bad lighting. Thankfully, I did find a few of those fursuiters at another time and got better photos of them, in different locations.
The other, more severe issue I had occurred with one of my lenses, the Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8. I knew that the autofocus was slow (slower than that of my 80-200mm f/2.8, which is much larger), but the tests I ran didn't indicate any focus issues, aside form the speed. So, I used that lens to take shots in the Dealers Den (which had far better and more diffused skylight lighting), and... well, that was a mistake. I didn't have much time to review the shots I took while I was at the convention, and I thought the LCD on the camera showed that everything was okay. But when I arrived home and took a closer look, I saw that a lot of the shots I took with that lens were misfocused. The focus was way off in a lot of shots, and I knew that I didn't intentionally or accidentally do that. That discovery was very disappointing; that type of thing always seems to happen, somehow, with shots I really wanted to keep. But most of my shooting was done with my trusty 35mm lens, and I used the big 80-200mm for the fursuit games. Those shots came out exactly as I had expected them to, with very few misfocused shots between the two lenses.
Despite the shooting problems, I still managed to get about 450 good photos posted. And really, that number exceeded my original expectation of less-than-400 (nearly the same number I posted for Anthrocon 2010). I'm still about 'quality-over-quantity', though, and the days of shooting and posting everything are long gone for me. Nowadays, my stance is that if it survives post-processing (and I post-process everything in one or two stages), then it will likely be posted.
Anthrocon was fun for other things, too. I did a fair amount of fursuiting, and even had a couple brief appearances in one of the local news channel reports on Anthrocon. The convention also managed to get the attention of Reuters, and some other reporters took several photos of us. I think it's safe to say that Anthrocon isn't just a convention anymore; it's a premier event, for furries (and non-furries alike). We get a good amount of press coverage every year, and the reports are (mostly) positive.
You can find other news reports on Anthrocon in this thread, at the Anthrocon site.
Aside from the photography and fursuiting, I went to a couple panels and met some new people, and even got a chance to meet and speak briefly with the owner of the Brown Bag Deli in the hotel. He's a nice guy, and he told me that he loves when the convention comes around because it helps his business a lot (of course), and he thinks we're good people. He calls me "Abraham" - normally, I'd correct anyone who mispronounces my name like that (it's pronounced, AY-brum, like the tank). But in his case, I didn't bother. He's a good guy; he likes us, and we like him.
So yeah, that's a very general report on my Anthrocon 2011 adventure. I had a blast, and I'll definitely go back in 2012. Maybe I'll see you there!