During Northern Voice 2011, much time was spent at [Sanctuary Studios](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sanctuary-Studios/183141518372731), making noise and having fun. I brought my DSLR to the Thursday session, to see if I could capture some of the energy.

It was not a large room – we were in the “stage room”, which, surprisingly, has a stage filling half of the room, and a couch/sitting/standing area taking the rest. Not a lot of room, once everybody got in. It was also *very* dark in there, in line with the B Horror Movie motif for the entire studio (which was awesome). I didn’t bring my tripod, so had to figure out a way to get a decently stable shot. I put on my wide angle lens, and shot at 10mm, wide open (which isn’t very wide, only opening up to f/4) and ISO 1600. Even at that, I was only able to get decent shots with nearly a second of exposure.

IIRC, I grabbed a stool on the stage, plopped the camera on it, pushed down to stabilize it, and started blindly firing off a few shots. I didn’t want to use the flash at all, because that would have been distracting and interfere with the energy in the room. Which meant any shot would have a whack load of motion blur. I’m a big fan of motion blur, because it shows motion and emotion and energy and activity. Technically, it sucks, because with too much motion blur you lose any definition of shapes/edges/faces. Whatever. I love the entire series.

The photo above caught Mikhail Gershovich wailing on the guitar, Brian Lamb on drums, Bryan Jackson on guitar, and Alan Levine on (my!) guitar. I have no idea what the song was. The entire evening was awesome, and made only better by repeating the entire experience on Saturday, with more people.

I think about the time in the Stage Room a lot. It was fun on so many levels, with a room full of insanely smart, funny, creative people who were completely relaxed and having fun making noise together. And so many of them are talented musicians, having fun letting those of us with… less talent… to play along. So much fun, had by all.

Here’s a small clip, from the Saturday session. Brian Lamb on drums. Grant Potter on bass. Bryan Jackson and Mikhail Gershovich on guitar. GNA Davis on vocals. Killer.

7nationarmy.mp3

More recordings are being pulled from the archive. Giggidy.

oh, right. there was also a conference. with a panel discussion about ds106 radio that I participated in. or something. #4life

NV2011 DS106 Panel

**Update:**

archive from the Thursday night session
=====
(warning: nearly 4 hours of audio, 130MB .mp3 file. but worth it.)

Thursday Night

Thursday: Online Community Enthusiasts – put on by BCCampus/SCOPE – an all-day workshop on facilitating/fostering/participating in online communities

Friday: Northern Voice Day 1 – Bryan Alexander’s keynote on Mystery. #altmoosecamp sessions

Saturday: Northern Voice Proper – Chris Messina keynote, edujamsession at Casa del Lamb-McPhee.

Sunday: Mother’s Day. Hanging out with Harry and my Vancouver family before heading home to be with mine.

on the way to the airport, we stopped at Iona Beach to walk out along the jetty.

brian and grant warm up, and a round of Welfare Mothers Make Better Lovers results…

Bryan Alexander giving the opening Friday keynote at Northern Voice

Nancy White leads part of an all-day workshop held at the Roundhouse Community Centre

it’s consistently the most interesting, varied, relevant, and mind-opening conference. go. register. now. even better – there’s still time to submit a proposal for a session.

I’m going. May in Vancouver? What could be better than that?