10/1/16: The Photo Walk

1. 10/1/16 Saturday
1. Today, wake up really late, work on email and organizational stuff. Send out physcon reporter award application.
2. Can’t figure out how to get to Alan’s house for CaC. But, Alex messages me, saying a friend of hers bailed on something she wants to do. Namely, a photo walk! Some photographers were looking for photogenic swing dancers and posted on the Facebook page.
3. Go play badminton with Xin, good game, and then book it hard back to 2104. I leave the gym at 2:38, and manage to get back, shower, dress myself up, make myself lunch, and make it to the bus stop in WEST CAMPUS by 3:10 to meet Alex. I am very proud of myself.
4. Fun conversation with Alex, goofing around, arrive a bit early near the pacific science center. Play little-elastic-connector-that-supports-a-rear-view-mirror, that is, hold a mirror and have my hand position manually adjusted, while Alex finishes her makeup. Then we meet up with about 7 photographers.
5. I had been iffy about going. I was already glad I went before we met the photographers. But afterwards I was definitely glad. Apparently we were the only people that actually responded to the main photographer’s inquiry. And this was not a ragtag group--half of them did photography for a living, and apparently the main guy had really advertised the photo walk. We start next to the Experience Music Project building, purple light from the metal panels dancing on us, as we danced on top of a set of concrete steps and the photographers snapped away. Then we tried a lot of interesting experiments. There was one where we stood in front of a bunch of blue panels and tried to look like we were underwater. Alex tried to teach me how to do a throw but we both ended up (safely but not super gracefully) on the ground.
6. Went to the fountain and danced there.
7. Then they got some individual shots of me, behind a pillar with a shadow from a sharp flash thingy one of them had bound to their camera over RF. Get into an interesting conversation about the optics of photography. The main dude, Ben, really knows what he’s doing.
8. Then some individual shots of Alex in her awesome yellow macintosh as a downpour begins. And then we all adjourn for dinner.
9. Eat dinner at a pub, very tasty. Hear about Ben’s interesting journey through the university, dealing with the complete faux-art BS that is the UW photography department, etc. Crazy. Then two of the guys get into a hardcore CS discussion (one of them is an Amazon engineer) about the server setup they use to store their super-hi-res video.
10. I am at this point 4 blocks from Henry B.’s apartment, which is part of the reason I’d decided to go. So I bid farewell to Alex and the crew and walk to Henry’s.
11. We have a great time. Henry seems to be getting along with his roommate and having fun as a game tester and at the AIE. We watch crazy youtube videos about rogue guitarists, a really cool 4d game, and more. Have some tea and bread pudding. But all good things come to an end and I’m on a bus back to UW. Meet Zach from last year’s floor on the bus and have a good chat.
12. Bus takes me right back to 2104, a bit of work and crash.