Where a little old lady puts me to shame

I love taking the train to melbourne,  its relaxing, drops me right in town, I can read and most of all I don’t have to worry about falling asleep driving or finding a park.

So last Sunday I impulsively decided to go to the Digital Show in Melbourne,  treat my inner Geek to a day of photography. I didn’t want to drag anyone not so Geeky along and also felt it would be better off to go by myself so I could wander and stop where ever I wanted.  There was a talk I really wanted to see and a few others that sounded ok.

I had no idea what to expect, the only thing I had to base it on was my previous life as an Assistant to the Coffee Fairy at amazing Food Fairs.. some how I  thought this may be a little different!

I made this impulse decision Saturday afternoon, after making sure I had a lunch date incase the show was a fizzer. This impulse decision was made from the couch where I had crashed after my first attempt at playing soccer, hence no research was done till I made it to bed at 11pm.

First things first, I rechecked the timetable for the talks… 11am was the first one, but we were reminded to get there early as It was first in first dressed for seats.  There were little updates about how the show had gone on the Saturday and apparently the line was around the building, which was pretty impressive seeing it was at the Exhibition centre or Jeff’s Shed as its known.  

I pre-registered to get my free ticket and beat the ticket lines. I was feeling very organised.

Checking the train timetable damn Sunday trains, its 12.30am by this stage and I had two choices of trains 8.05 or 9.20.  Decided on the 8.05 as I didn’t want to make the effort to get up there and miss out.  So much for me catching up on sleep this weekend! Oh well ill sleep on the train.

I get to the station, parks everywhere, no-one catches the train on a Sunday morning obviously.  As Im walking behind an older couple towards the ticket booth, I overhear them comment on the  Vline bus at the front of the station.  As I over take them I say ‘It better not be for us.’ 

Now im not sure why this upsets me so much, I don’t have that much against buses. Especially on a Sunday morning as there is no traffic so it wont take that much longer.  I understand that track works need to be done and Im not one of those people who gets angry when public transport gets delayed or doesn’t work, these things happen.  I just think that on this particular morning I had been so set on catching the train the bus threw me and well I cant read on buses.  Motion sickness you see. Buses are also cramped.  So for some reason I was grouchy about this bus.

It also didn’t help that we went to each station in Geelong, and picked no-one up.

But by the time we got to Werribee I had fallen asleep.  We got into Melbourne and I grabbed breakfast and a coffee.

I arrived at the Exhibition Centre in plenty of time, finished my coffee looking at last years AIPP award winning photos and then enquired about picking up my ticket.

Now this was the second time in two days that having a fancy phone had come in handy, I never wanted to get one but im quiet glad I did. I could show the email confirming my soccer registration to the Ref so I could take the field and well this time I could show the fellow my confirmation booking email, cause at 12.30am the night before I missed the whole print out and bring to confirm part of the instructions.

This didn’t really help though as my registration from 12.30am hadn’t gone through the system yet… or maybe never was going to being such a late entry.

I was sent to the registration centre, which was a caravan in the foyer of the centre.  There they also didn’t have me on file.. so while the lady was looking for my registration, the gay guy was flirting outragesly with me. Being half asleep it all felt very surreal.  I also had registered as a company, and was feeling very very unprofessional having people running around finding my late entry, flirting with the staff and feeling like id dressed more like a young TV reporter than a professional business person.

I joined the queue that had already formed and waited for the doors to open. Now lately I am never on time for anything, let alone early so this was quiet a shock to the system. Also I was lining up to get into a show, usually I had a staff pass and could walk right in. Being a normal pleb was going to be an experience.

I spent my time checking out the types of people who were turning up, and wondering at the many that had gone to the trouble of properly labelling their camera gear to the standards required to take it into the show. Why would you need your camera gear at all was the question I had to ask myself?

And I was in… as soon as I walked in the door, I was handed a Nikon promotion bag. Now if you understand the MAC vs PC, IPOD vs Andriod, M&M’s vs Smarties arguments, you understand the Nikon vs Cannon argument. This was a very good ploy on Nikon’s behalf… by the way I still haven’t forgiven Jamie Oliver for advertising Nikon.

My problem was I just didn’t seem to be able to wake up, There was stuff everywhere, I was having trouble taking it all in. You don’t understand how big this show was. Nikon, Cannon, Fuji and many others seemed to have moved their entire shops in, walls counters and all.  The rest were the small marque type set ups I was used to.

I got the lay out of the place, checked out a few of the smaller booths and then found the lecture hall… no-one around at all. I asked information and they said I wouldn’t need to be there till 5 min before hand… great the early train was seeming more and more like a bad choice. I did get an updated list of speakers and a chance to look at the press award nominees. I was so tired a few of them made me a little teary.

The first speaker was an amazing old school photojournalist. Apparently an Australian legend. Micheal Coyne. Spending most of his time in Iran his photos were very hard hitting and emotional. His stories also inspirational. 

The next speaker was on not long after Michael so I just sat and waited. This was the one I had come up for. Making the Shift from Amateur to Pro. A panel discussion.

Wow this talk made me feel like an imposter,  making all the mistakes they were talking about. It was very hard to hear them for a digital show you think they would have got the acoustics correct!

I didn’t feel that I learnt much from these guys but I did get the American fellows business card. An American contact not sure when this may help but who knows..now where did I put that card.

I originally wasn’t too interested in the next speaker but I hadn’t heard from my friends about lunch and I was so disappointed in the last one I thought I would give this one a go to see if I could learn something for the day.

It was worth it.  He was a great teacher and his message was one I had heard a lot but still you can never hear it too much. Shoot Less – take better photos . Less is More. Experience the moment as well.  I left feeling slightly more inspired.

I wanted to look around but I was feeling very information overloaded and felt I needed a break.

Lunch with good friends, I was going to just hang out with them for the afternoon but there was a talk at 4 that I wanted to see, I couldn’t believe I had originally missed seeing it on the program and I still hadn’t seen the rest of the show.

Well turned out the talk was a misprint on the days timetable and was shooting better portraits not better travel photography.  Not my thing, didn’t stick around and was not impressed id waited around for that talk. Rest of the show seemed to be all about getting photo books printed, different sorts of printing papers, and weddings.

I checked out the Australian Professional Institute of photography photo entries and they also while amazing seemed to all be weddings. Feeling in a daze and quiet jaded I headed home.

I queued for coffee, and waited and waited, one fellow working on a Sunday evening not the best idea.  Finally the elderly lady in front of me and myself got served, then he takes 5 more orders before making our coffee’s. I check the time I now only had  7 min instead of 15min to get to the coach station.

The elderly lady asks If I want him to make mine first and I say im ok. We get talking, I was feeling jaded, annoyed at what currently felt like a waste of a day and annoyed at the bus, this lady put me back in my place.

She had travelled to colac and back to see a friend in an aged care facility. This included my bus and then another train, the bus took some time from her 2 hour visit. She does this every couple of weeks. I thought that was a big day for her, she then informs me she is just waiting for her train to warragul and from there she had an other hours drive. Making the entire trip 4.5 hours each direction not including layover times. Every couple of weeks she does this, it would knock me for six, it must take her days to recover.

I felt humbled after listening to her and hopeful that in the future I would be such a good friend and so ready to travel and take things in my stride.

She was still happy and relaxed and ready for her next part of her journey with her giant hot chocolate, making my small chai look insignificant when I rushed off to catch my 1.25 hour bus home.