Twitter meeting 16 January 2011

A while ago I posted if there would be some interest for a Twitter meeting in our studio in Emmeloord. As it seems there was indeed interest so I decided to plan a date on a short notice to test out what would happen and if in the future we could do something like this but bigger.

On the 16th of January (yesterday) it was that date.
We decided to start at app. 12:00AM to give everyone a change to drive here on the Sunday, there was no set end time.
Because I did not give that much attention to the meeting I did not expect much people joining but to my surprise there were app 20 people who signed up for the meeting, and for a first time I thought that was more than enough so we stopped mentioning the twitter meeting online.

The group was complete at 12:30 and we started with some coffee and an introduction (somehow those introductions always remind me of the AA meetings you see in the movies, “Hi, my real name is …….. and I use twitter under the name off”….. 😀

After the getting to know each other session we voted for a few locations to visit and as expected (or at least by me) Urk won.
Urk is a fisher town very close to Emmeloord and without a doubt for photographers (or just tourists) a great place to visit, to be honest I always test new gear there simply because there is so much to see and I love being there.

For the twitter meeting I asked Alice to be our model, I did not know what to expect with this and asked the group if they wanted to stick with me and the model or if they wanted to be divided into groups and scout around and shoot some nice “Urk” shots, some people might not like model photography, this group liked it because we all stayed together.
For the modelshots we brought the Elinchrom Quadra with the standard reflector and I shot the images for myself with the Canon 5DMKII with the Canon 24-105IS L lens, in a moment you can see some of the images that are my favorites from the day.

First we made a setup with Urk in the back, it was incredibly windy that day so that explains the movement in the hairs and clothing… oh and I have to add that Alice proofed to be a “real” model, it was terribly cold.

After the first setup we just had to change a few meters to get to the next location.
I loved this second location due to the hard backlighting from the sun, and as you can see I decided to include the sun in the frame.

After this we moved the whole group to the lighthouse for some more shots.

Very close to this location one of the “tweeps” found a nice wall that had a wonderful natural light quality and gave a nice view on the sea.

Due to the cold the group decided that it was time to move back to the studio.
Annewiek and Wendy prepared some soup and other nice snacks that were more than welcome and slowly the group warmed up again and the stories started to flow, I don’t have to tell you it was fun and interesting and a lot of new followers were combined 😀

We ended the day with some setups in the studio in which I tried to explain in short what I did with the light and how the photographers could get the most out of the setups. Here are some of those shots, nothing you haven’t seen from me yet but I think it needs to be here to complete the story.

The day ended at app 18:00 (6PM).
I think we can look back on a very successful first twitter meeting, we had loads of fun and the atmosphere was great.

From my side I wish to give two persons some extra attention, first my wife Annewiek that made a lot of the snacks, and guided everything so that I could stay with the group, she even doubled as Lightperson by making sure the lights did not fall down due to the hard wind in Urk.
But also a big thank you to Wendy Appelman, she has been my intern a while ago and somehow she always keep popping up when I need her (maybe we have some interesting news about her soon…. can’t say more yet).
So to those two ladies a BIG THANK YOU….. you guys rock !!!

The big question will probably be…. Will we do it again ?
Yes we will.
But next time it will be bigger, better announced and we will have some more surprises.
As a test this Twitter meeting was a succes for me, so we will without a doubt continue with this idea.
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