here you'll find my blog.
i'm a photographer and i work in online strategy for entertainment properties.
this summer i'll be spending 2 months on board a ship in the arctic.
drop me a line sometime, i would love to hear from you: laurenfarmer (dot) blog (at) gmail (dot) com
lauren farmer
tumblr meetup a complete success
I’m still a little giddy from the night, so excuse the high word count.
I show up at 9:15. I figure if I organize this thing, I should probably be there when it starts. No one is here yet (obviously, this is New York and all). I sit at the bar, fiddle with my blackberry and try to act like I have friends.
It’s 9:30. Still no sign of anyone. Clearly I have no friends. Everyone hates me. I’m cancelling my tumblr account when I get home.
I see two ladies (Jessie and Kelly) and a guy (Jeff) walk in the bar. Instead of approaching Kelly, who I’ve had an email exchange with, I decide to be a scaredy cat and look up her tumblr on my phone. I try comparing the picture on there to the actual human being five feet away. This is the dorkiest thing I’ve ever done. That’s saying something.
Kelly sees me. Taking the bold move of not comparing me to a picture on her phone, she walks up and introduces everyone. What nice people! As it turns out, we’re neighbors! They all promise to cook me dinner soon (right, guys?).
Seconds later, two dudes who look like David and Marco show up with someone who looks like Tiffany. Holy shit. It is the actual people who run tumblr. These are definitely not impersonators. They didn’t say they were coming!
“This is a user only event,” I tell David and Marco. They silently walk away into the dark of the night, never to be seen again. Ok, I lied. They all stayed. And they’re all great people. So glad they came!
At this point I’ve had a few beers (one and a half) so the night becomes a bit hazy. More people show up! Josh, Lauren and Charlie. We took some photobooth pictures and all of us got our asses kicked by Lauren in skee-ball (it’s in the Aussie DNA, I’m told). Charlie and Josh then regaled us with tales of what it’s like to shoot a comedy sketch in Woodstock… when, of course, hippies on acid keep ruining takes by screaming and doing other unprintable things.
Soon after, Peter (and his two non-tumbling friends) showed up and said hello. Peter lost to Lauren in skee-ball, but took it like a champ. All the while David’s been saying he’s going to leave, but instead he stays and tries to explain the concept of tumblr to one of Peter’s friends. One new user at a time (the tumblr user base is approaching 200k, we learn)!
Thanks to everyone who came out! I know a few people couldn’t make it, so maybe I’ll organize another one of these in a few weeks!
I loved seeing the photos from the Whisk & Ladle meetup floating around yesterday, so thought it’d be fun to re-share Lee’s account of the VERY first Tumblr meetup at Crocodile Lounge. February, 2008.
Met some of my very best friends through Tumblr and it’s been the launching platform for my photography career, as well as a great way to waste endless hours of my life. It’s been great fun. So unless they really do screw it up, I’m not going anywhere.
And honestly, I am still really, really good at skee-ball.
Had a really fun day working with Orlando Jones at the FOX upfronts. Hilarious guy, very kind. Hope to spend more time with him.
He stars in FOX’s new fall drama Sleepy Hollow, which from the preview I saw today looks pretty awesome.
Met the legendary Buzz Aldrin tonight at the Explorer’s Club. He so kindly signed my copy of his book Mission to Mars, which lays out his vision for the future of space exploration. Can’t wait to read it.
Interesting to note that Buzz wears a dazzling collection of gem-based bracelets and I was VERY pleased with his galactic-themed tie.
He also has a great sense of humor, I laughed out loud multiple times. Especially at this:
Jim Clash: So Buzz, if they offered you a one-way ticket to Mars tomorrow, would you take it?
Buzz: I exceed the age limit.
Jim: But if they made an exception, would you do it?
Buzz: *silence*
Jim: So the answer is no?
Buzz: The answer is, that question is absurd.
And then this, his advice for young, budding astronauts:
“It’s a progressive world, and you need patience, perseverance and imagination to find your place in it. Once you pay off your student loans, that is.”
The whole interview was like that. Fantastic guy, full of incredibly interesting stories and intelligent, thoughtful insights. To hear first-hand his experience of landing on the moon was well, thrilling. Feel very honored to have met him.
I really, really need to put together my photography lectures for the Arctic. All I have so far is a title slide with my name on it.
Instead of doing anything productive, I’m finding myself mesmerised by all that is even remotely interesting out my window. Right now it’s these cloud reflections.
Last night I watched an adventure documentary called 180° South on Netflix. It’s the story of climber and surfer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (founder of The North Face) to Patagonia to climb the elusive Corcovado. This photograph was shown early on in the doc and stuck with me, so I looked it up.
Tom Frost, Royal Robbins and Yvon Chouinard in hammocks at a bivy in the Black Cave during the first ascent of the North America Wall, El Capitan, 1964. Photo taken by Chuck Pratt.
