My Hidden Room

CC licensed image via alancleaver on flickr.

Today I went to breakfast at Voula’s Offshore Cafe in the University District.  I had the steak and eggs with rye toast for breakfast.  It was quite tasty.  But this isn’t about my breakfast so much as it’s about the interesting example of information leakage.

I use foursquare because it’s fun, and to find where my friends are going for food, activities, and other things.  I don’t link my foursquare to any other accounts, but other people do.   This morning at Voula’s, I checked in, and saw one other person there.  I’m curious, and so I look at the foursquare profile. Turns out there’s a facebook link on the foursquare login, so I follow it.  Turns out she was sitting at the table next to mine.   I said hello and made a comment about foursquare.  Then I returned to my meal.

Her facebook profile said a lot of things: that we have quite a few friends in common, who she’s seeking, and her full name.   Now, I didn’t say anything to her about any of this, nor attempt to engage in a conversation at this time.  It would have been weird and creepy.  I didn’t want to be That Guy, or a weirdo.  But it was very much an interesting lesson in how we chose to interact online can affect us in the offline world.

When we all got out to the car, I had a conversation with the teenagers about information that you share online, and used this very real example from just now to illustraite that what you do online can have real results in the rest of your life.   Pay attention to what you post, to what you link, to all those things.  It’s very easy to draw connections between people via the social graphs.

There are many wonderful things that I get out of connecting my social graphs.   I get to point people whom I want to connect with me to where they can find me, and how they can do so.  But it bears consideration before you blithely do so.  Everything connected means there aren’t any secrets.

Click for the whole set.

So this past First Thursday Art Walk, I had my studio space in 619 Western open.  Per usual, I put some work up on the walls for people to look at, and had the artist statement up.  All the usual things.  But this time, I did something different.  Since my studio space is a working studio space, not a gallery, I decided to hold a portrait special for walk-ins during Art Walk.  What I did was I had set up the lights and had a pre-designed lighting plan for the evening.  I asked people who seemed like they might be interested (which basically meant most people) if they were interested in having their picture taken.  Sign here, give me your email and five dollars.  Thanks.  Okay, stand on the X.  Click.  click.  Click click click.  Lots of images taken.  Some people paid more to get more photos because they had a great time and wanted more than just one image.

It worked really well.   All told, I had plenty of participants, and shot many frames.  A few times, I even had a line.  That was awesome.

So what gets me about this is that this project is in line with how I like to do the photography thing: showing people themselves in the moment.  I had some of those occur.  Much fun.  I’m thinking that I’ll likely do this again next month.   Also, more work will be up on the walls.  Good times.

So if you participated in this, what do you think?  Did you have fun?

-Gabriel