Looking back and looking forward

Wow! What a day! Rodney deserves some serious kudos for doing such a great job sharing his perspective and showing us all around Adams Morgan!! Did anybody NOT learn something from him today?! Thanks a million, man!

Here is what we talked about (administrative stuff really) prior to shooting:

If you haven't done so yet, create an account for our message board. By default, you will receive one email with all the activity on the message board for that day. You can change your mail settings if you wish. Everybody is free to post stuff on the message board, and I hope you do; that's what it's there for. Parties, announcements, ideas, inspiration, you name it.

Online Calendar: I'm not sure if this is something we would use much, but if you guys know of any good ones, let me know. I'll check out planzo.com. It might be more trouble than it's worth, but it's an idea.

We will be meeting as normal next week since it appears most of us will not be attending the Inward Bound retreat.

"Weekly" Exercises: we didn't talk about this much, but check the "Exercises" link on the right. I've got another idea or two up my sleeve, but please let me know if you have any suggested exercises.

Thanks to Rodney, I have decided that we will do a Black and White photo shoot in a couple weeks. It's good to force yourself to think about things in B&W and why/how it's different from color photography. It'll be good times!

Mocha Hut and Ebenezers: I am going to be meeting with the owner of Mocha Hut cafe on U Street this week (likely Monday). There is a possible opportunity for us to display/sell our photos at the coffee shop. I'm also going to talk to Christina Borja about the possibility of doing something like that at Ebenezers

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Flickr: As you know, we will be using Flickr to share, review, critique, and discuss photos this semester. It's a bit more involved than the Yahoo group we used last time, but this affords much more control and I think we'll all be happier in the long run. It will take some time and knowledge of photo optimization before we find a workflow that suits us well, but that's part of the fun of it. Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions. I'm going to volunteer Marie Claire's Flickr expertise since she knows her way around there pretty well. =) If you don't already have a Flickr account, sign up for free. There are some limits that we'll need to work around, but I'm willing and able to show you how to optimize and organize your photos to help you get the most out of it. I think this will be yet another great opportunity for us! Check back here for more specific guidelines about our Flickr setup.

Thanks to all who came out today, especially the new peeps!! I hope you all had as much fun as I did! Peace.