Photo meetup with Chris Marquardt

Yesterday I found out that photographer Chris Marquardt was in town holding a photo workshop, and was having an open meetup beforehand at a San Francisco restaurant. I attended, had great conversations with fellow photographers, and took some informal photos.

I learned of this meetup through Randal Schwartz, who programming geeks such as myself (in my previous career, anyway) know as the guy who wrote The Books on Perl. I've been watching Randal's podcasts and following him on various social networks for a few years, but this was the first time we'd met in person since the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in the year 2000.

The meetup was at Annabelle's Bar and Bistro, South of Market, near the Metreon. I love living in such a convenient area of the city that I can walk to places like this.

There wasn't much vegan-friendly food on the menu, as I expected, but the mixed greens salad (hold the goat cheese) was tasty, as were the sweet potato fries.

I ended up sitting across the table from Chris, and he had good advice and feedback on my photography. He also grabbed my camera and turned it on me, saying that photographers never get good photos of themselves. Thanks Chris!

I shot a few other attendees:

And a parting shot of Chris; he said this was his favorite:

Thanks for a great meetup! Hope you all have a fun photo workshop.