I have taken photos in an official capacity of three events during my Drupal volunteering efforts. I landed this role purely by coincidence based on my past history with photography, knowing the right people, and having an interest in helping out and getting to events. As part of this effort, I’m driving a couple of changes and initiatives, both personally and strategically, for the way our region handles photography in general.
First, I expected we would have a healthy pool of available people interested in the position, but my expectations have been tempered. Sometimes, there is minimal availability, or people who want to help out can’t make it to the event at the last minute. This does put the organisers in an awkward position when trying to make sure all the responsibilities are delegated appropriately.
My efforts in this space are likely more important from the perspective of the DrupalSouth and DrupalCon Asia steering committees than I may have anticipated previously.
This blog will share my history and strategy for involving and guiding innovation in this area. It will also contribute to a future talk about collaboration and volunteering, but I haven’t determined when that will happen yet.
Background in photography
To begin, let’s take a look at my experience with photography.
I started as a hobbyist photographer at motorsports events in Australia. For what it’s worth, I never have or wanted photography to become my career - if I were to win the lottery, but it was strictly a side-project of mine. The motivations behind this hobby were as follows:
- I wanted to provide myself with the reason and opportunity to travel and engage with this enthusiast community.
- I wanted to get better at photography.
- I wanted to play with cool technology, as a family history exists.
- I wanted to provide legitimate value in an industry I couldn’t otherwise afford to be involved with outside of attendance.
- I want to build and maintain a website to market and host this material.
Over time, I invested heavily in software, gear and technology that allowed me to deliver on these goals. The focus of the technical aspects of this job requires technical proficiency in the outdoor sun.
I loved taking photos that highlighted unique angles, bright colours, and the people who attended these events. I am almost ashamed to say that I put my own personal safety at risk a number of times to get those photos. I was even the person who started the trend of walking around the raceways and taking pictures of crowds and people at these events—another company stepped in towards the end of this hobby and took over that responsibility.
Bringing the human element to my photography was where I innovated among my photography peers at these events.
Photograph of me with my first DSLR at the 2007 Revfest in Sydney
When I stopped, I had a few great contacts from the industry with whom I still have some contact to this day. At some point, though, I lost all of my data—all of my hard work and the many thousands of photos—and this was the trigger for a 12-year hiatus from photography, which brought me much joy.
I could have had a better redundancy backup system, but I sadly did not. It took a huge piece of my passion out of the picture as I moved on with life.
This story is like ancient history for me. Few people know about this part of my life today, but it is so relevant to my current path.
Fast-forward to DrupalSouth
Coming into a career in Drupal, it wasn’t until 2018 that I could attend my first DrupalSouth event because it was in an accessible location to my workplace. Government spending is inflexible in this kind of thing. I fell in love with the people, the community, the experience and everything else.
In those days, I connected with the community on Twitter, and it was an incredible platform at the time—I can’t say the same about it today.
I began collecting photos after the 2019 event in Hobart. I met people there who I now consider very good friends and who have continued to inspire me to do more and to be more. DrupalSouth Hobart was my first real exposure to the broader community, and unfortunately, this happened right before COVID-19.
I continued the path of life, got sick in the meantime and even lost my ability to walk overnight - but I got it back after a few months. Still, when the event returned post-COVID to Wellington in 2022, it was my victory march for beating the significant part of my health issues at the time.
Since I was now in a position to attend DrupalSouth conferences each year, I focused on my energy on becoming a competent speaker. I have achieved that - speaking is a roller coaster, and being in the position of a speaker is unnatural and uncomfortable, making me a better person. For this reason, I now take a more proactive role in seeking out the position of not being in control.
While I had no complaints about the photography of the events to this day, I have quietly observed from a short distance. I took a bunch of my own and continued the trend until 2024, simply building the collection and my relationships with the community. I actively engage and do all I can to support this community because it has done so much for me.
My own contributing journey
Thanks to more recent events, I am now connected to the right people in the Asia Pacific community and even more broadly. I had a meaningful talk with one of the committee members at an after-party at the 2024 DrupalSouth conference.
We discussed the importance of people contributing and how sometimes they don’t get enough people to support their fantastic work outside of speaking, attending, etc. My goal was to understand the process and to provide support, so that was my angle at the time.
To start my journey, I offered to come along to the committee meetings available to attend on request. Attending these meetings was a great way to learn how things worked to dip my toes into the event organisers’ sphere before engaging to help out. Since starting this, I have continued to attend these meetings and have built some valuable relationships simply by offering my willingness to participate. Just showing up and wanting to help and support the committee has opened up many opportunities that are not discussed in this blog.
Switching gears - I worked with one of the now active committee members over a decade ago, and we have been good friends ever since. We have an excellent rapport, and we’ve both been through thick and thin in our personal lives. We’ve both been able to use each other as a vent for verbally relieving stress as needed at various times.
I decided to buy a new camera in 2024. It was time, and I found a compelling camera model that excited me for a great price. There are a few different reasons I decided to purchase a new camera:
- My family gradually over time pressured me to get back into this hobby.
- I grew weary of being dissatisfied with the camera phones I had used.
- I was planning to go to Singapore for work and wanted to make the most of my time there.
- I hadn’t been into cameras in over 12 years - it was time.
This person I mentioned knew that I used to be into photography fairly seriously and had only recently purchased a new camera.
So, the fire was lit once more. Armed with this information, a small request to cover a local event came to me out of requirement, and I embraced it. It was one of the opportunities I was looking for for myself and to provide something of tangible value to the community.
Covering Drupal events
I was asked to cover the DrupalSouth Community Day in 2024 because we eventually decided that somebody needed to take the position. I rose to the occasion and embraced this opportunity, taking the position more seriously than I should have. Finally, I had a real opportunity to use my new camera ahead of the planned trip to Singapore.
It was a privilege to serve the community from the perspective of a now somewhat experienced speaker. When I spoke at events, I understood what I wanted from a photographer as somebody who valued their contributions.
This responsibility wasn’t just about getting photos or providing some rudimentary marketing material. It was about showcasing the people in our community, the community itself, and the careers, work, and achievements of the people involved. As someone passionate about this speciality, I am exploring all the options, investing my own time, money, and strategic thinking—a real level of personal investment in the success of this responsibility.
Given some patterns I have noticed over time, and I am currently working through some interesting areas of improvement:
- Finding photos from previous events was difficult, but I want to make this easier.
- Now that we have a media partner interested in Drupal events in Australia and New Zealand, it would be beneficial to help them get access to what they need more easily and transparently.
- The committee/event organisers so far are not doing the same thing as what the Drupal Association was doing for official event photography. In some regards, we are the anti-pattern.
- Actively finding and engaging ways to improve the technical quality of photos. I am building my own vocational photography skills to address the technical requirements of my volunteering efforts.
Now, I’m challenging myself to improve the quality of my work. This challenge is more of a personal journey. I’ve made tremendous progress. Every time I’ve covered a Drupal event so far, I’ve had personal dissatisfaction with some aspects of my work, and each time, I work to address these problems through practice, skill, training, or financials.
You see, indoor photography differs greatly from the outdoor motorsports photography I was so good at. I’ve had to adjust to the difficult lighting requirements and buy gear that would give me more opportunities to get better photos.
I’ve also had to learn the art of making the most of taking photos in RAW. Often returning to previous events and making adjustments has transformed my work significantly retrospectively, and it has also highlighted certain failings, which I have been able to learn from. I now have the ability from experience to make my already very good photos from Melbourne so much better and this is an exciting prospect for the future given that was only last month.
Future progress
The first challenge I have set for myself is to bring us more in line with the Drupal Association. Dries and much of the Drupal Association visited us in Sydney in 2024. It would be a shame for us to work together as little as we have in the past - so this is one way I am trying to bring us together.
I have sought approval to upload photos from conferences I have covered to Flickr, just like photos from the Drupal Association from past events. And finally, I plan on having permission to upload the rest of our photo collection to this standard.
Photos from the three diverse events I have now participated in officially have been successfully published there. The only drawback to this decision is that I can’t re-upload the photos after making additional adjustments.
In addition to the quality of my own photos, my dedication to serving the community, consistency, alignment, etc., I am committing myself to driving success at DrupalCon Asia events while the opportunity is open, as I want these events to continue long-term and I want to do my part to try and achieve this goal.
If these events cannot continue past 2026, I will seek to attend European events annually. Although I am very interested in attending European Drupal conferences, I would much rather go somewhere closer to home when there is an opportunity.
As a side effect of this responsibility, I also have the opportunity to help my employer with some marketing material, and I am all in favour of helping them while they help me get to these events.
I have received positive feedback recently, which further concretes my decisions. One of my former bosses recently praised my efforts in servicing the community in this way because of both my passion and the volunteering nature of the responsibility. He shared a story about a community member who tried and failed in a bad way to achieve what I have been working towards - and while this is not an excellent thing for the community, it is good that I am helping to contribute to preventing such things from happening again.
I may have a mix of personal and communal reasons for taking on this responsibility. But the community benefits, and we get to re-align with the Drupal community abroad. I will also get to attend more events and become more connected to the community.
Photography is one way I can make a long-term difference in the community. I am always open to feedback, and even though I am criticising my work, I hope you can also help me improve.