Flickr’s Community Manager Heather Champ is in town partly because she’s speaking at a conference up north and Flickr is also a sponsor for Toronto’s annual CONTACT Photography Festival taking place all of May. She invited us to have “a drink and chat” at the tequila bar called Reposado on Ossington between Dundas and Queen, which of course is like a cattle call to… cattle. Free drinks on Flickr? See you there! It’s beginning to look like a running theme, here. The lure of “free” is too great for us mere mortals.

The event officially finished at 8:30, and I got in just under the wire (read: last call) in the crush at Reposado. As it is with any Flickr event, flashes were going off left, right, and centre. While I was waiting for my drink at the bar, the girl beside me said, “Hey, you’re one of my contacts on Flickr!”

For someone who’s been on Flickr for nearly four years, I don’t have that many contacts, and the last time I attended a Flickr meetup in Toronto was AUGUST 2006!

The other big surprise was within a minute of that, the guy next to her said, “Hey, another Pentax user!” In a digital world of Canons and Nikons, the Pentax people are quite rare. I don’t know what the market share is, but it’s probably even less than being a Mac user in a Windows world (Mac is about 10%, I think?). And being a Pentax shooter who is exclusively on Mac? What, such people exist?

Needless to say, when I talked to the K10D guy it was exciting, like living abroad for a while and randomly meeting someone from Winnipeg (which happened in New Zealand once, and we talked so much all the hostel beds in Queenstown filled up and suddenly I had nowhere to sleep and — oh wait, save that story for another time). Of course, there was plenty of equipment talk and he gave me some of his MOO cards. (I’m gathering quite a collection.) I’ve been thinking for a while about making a card I can hand out to people, maybe I should finally get some MOO cards done.

When the free drinks event at Reposado was officially over, the crowd, being photography-minded, headed directly to MoCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art), which is a main venue for the photography festival. The theme for 2008 is: Between Memory and History.

MoCCA was a jam of people near the door, but at the far end of the gallery there was enough space for the Flickr folk hopped up on free libations to pose like provocateurs:

Of course, there were cameras to capture such moments for posterity. I had completely the wrong lens for this, but I snapped, anyway.

Once Garry arrived all I could think about was food, so I suggested we hit up “The Jug” — an ultra-cheap Chinese restaurant on Spadina that he took me to once before. I had a craving for green beans (it’s one of my favourite vegetables), and we split his veggies and noodles, too.

And the fortune for the evening is…

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With each gathering I meet a few more people, recognise a few more from the forum, and some from the previous meetup. I’m also — little by little — getting my bearings, after consulting maps of where each meetup is located and the best routes to get there. I know there are many benefits to going to such events, but yet I find a part of myself unwilling to go. The part of myself that’s practical and a good sport has to persuade the unwilling side of me to get out of the apartment, and this time the unwilling side nearly won. It’s not that people aren’t friendly, or the locations are far away, or times inconvenient. Not at all. In the two previous meetups, I’ve come away with positive feelings. I always have a good time, I talk to people. I seem to recall feeling this way before the other two meets, but once I got there everything was OK.

But this time I was so reluctant to go, I phoned China upstairs and convinced her to leave her work behind and join me. I was feeling so indecisive I was hedging all the way through the scheduled photowalk at 6:45 (which I said I’d go on) and watched the clock tick past 7 o’clock before I rang her up. By then, she’d already completely settled in for an evening of work, but I said “Let’s go for an hour” and she finally said yes. I wasn’t sure if I’d have gone if China had stayed home. I haven’t been feeling very social lately, but these meetups only take place once a month. It was also the warmest evening in the city so far this year and the best time for us to be out and about.

The Green Room (upstairs) is a better setup for large groups versus the Red Room, with more tables than Gypsy Co-op, which has ample floor space but mostly standing room. It’s accessed from an alley off Brunswick Street and parallel to Bloor, in a bustling part of the neighbourhood called The Annex. The area was Bustle Central, especially with the long weekend underway.

Not surprisingly, we stayed much longer than an hour. Electing to squeeze in at the tables full of Flickr folk rather than at tables on the periphery made all the difference — even with the music, we could converse with other people without resorting to shouting in their faces. We were introduced to quite a few people and I was able to actually continue conversations with people I’d met before instead of starting all over again. What a relief! I only suggested leaving when the place started to get jammed with revellers and the music was cranked too loud to talk over.

There are also a fair amount of commercial photographers and “serious photophiles” in the local Flickr mix, so there’s guaranteed to be a wide range of equipment on hand, especially at the higher end of the scale. I was talking to one guy about how much it cost to purchase his Canon 5D plus necessary accessories, and it’s in the ballpark of buying a small car. One major difference, however, is that with skilled use the equipment can pay for itself many times over… oh, and you also can put it into a bag and take it to Europe.

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I was starting to exhibit recluse behaviour this past week, so I made a point of attending the March meetup for the local Flickr group last night.

My inclination to socialise has waxed and waned, with no real predictability. The day after I arrived in Toronto I bowed out from both my friend’s cocktail party and cosmic bowling later that night with another group of people. Rather unlike me, but “putting myself out there” usually means fielding questions that I still find awkward to answer. It’ll get easier with time.

Anyway, I took this opportunity to drive the car and get myself oriented to the grid of the city. Vancouver doesn’t have much of a grid, owing to its waterways, so in this way getting around Toronto is easier.

When I arrived at Gypsy Co-op I didn’t recognise a single face. The first person to approach me was Tracer99, then Mawz (also from BC), and later basslinegfx, dzgnboy, and b-real. Conversation flowed, with only a few pauses from me (“Why am I here? Umm… long story…”), and I did get to check out other people’s equipment. (That sounded salacious, didn’t it?) The lighting was a challenge, but I managed to get a couple of photos from the few available light sources:

I figure one or two more Flickr meetups, and I’ll be able to deflect the questions with ease. Or, we’ll be in a venue with better lighting and I’ll just take more photos…

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Perchance, I was reading the Toronto forum on Flickr to see if they’d had a meetup in February yet, and noticed that it was scheduled for the 16th! I decided to go.

This is the first Flickr-based event I’ve attended since Vandigicam: Code Blue on August 4th, the day before David phoned me from the hospital. I flew East, and didn’t attend any Philadelphia or New York Flickr meetups. I went to one Northeast Photography Club meeting, the first week of December.

I wasn’t 100% sure I felt like mingling with strangers (which can make for awkward questions), but I talked myself into going, and asked China if she wanted to come along (which reinforced my commitment to going).

Yes, there were awkward questions and awkward moments. I didn’t have any canned answers prepared to field the inevitable questions (“Why are you moving to Toronto?”), but I kept the emotions mostly in check. I told China I figured I would recognise only one person there, but she spotted a bowler hat, so I went to see if it was Striatic. It was! I met him at the BBQ that Vandigicam threw for him back in July. It seems like several lifetimes ago.

I also introduced myself to Taku/Smaku (and bought his second edition of U&I Magazine), and Rannie/photojunkie. Also spent a lot of time talking to Himy, who was handing out flyers for the Toronto Area Photobloggers event at the Apple Store in Yorkdale. (I told him I’d plug the event here, too.)

I even signed a U&I Magazine that was passed around as a going-away souvenir for JoelF, who’s moving back to Victoria after two years in Toronto. I met him after I signed his book “Best wishes from one British Columbian to another…”

Out of everyone I spoke to, only one person knew about my situation, and I was on the brink of crying when I spoke to her, but I managed to hold it in. I don’t like to cry in public, so there’s always a dilemma for me between staying in because I don’t wish to make a public display of emotion or making myself go out because it means I strengthen my resolve not to cry in public. (I am determined not to fall apart during job interviews.) Then there’s the other dilemma of wishing to be with strangers because they know nothing about me, and wishing to be with friends because they know what’s going on and I don’t have to explain anything. I suppose it’s part of widowhood, this strange dichotomy of feelings. I’d better get used to it.

All things considered, it was a fruitful venture, meeting people whose technique I’d admired and making an effort to socialise. Besides, I told myself, social networking is important when arriving in a new city. Tonight I learned of photography-themed activities I can participate in, other photo groups to join, and everyone was very friendly.

China and I split another pitcher of sangria, too, so I see a pattern forming here… we’ll have to start our own sangria brewery and perfect the recipe, now that we’re officially neighbours. My lease application was finally accepted today!

[Addition: Sunday, Feb 19 - Look! Striatic shot us!]

Uploaded by striatic on 17 Feb ’06, 5.30am EST

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