Focus Determines Reality
Hacker Event Photography.
Published:

Table of Contents

Intro

This month, August 2025, I attened WHY2025. I also volunteered for the Press Team. It was my first hacker camp, and it was the first time I was able to contribute to the hacker community as a photogrpaher.

Goals

  1. Provide free portrait photography for WHY speakers, and other presenters, such as workshop organizers and DJs.

  2. Maximize privacy and consent: take no shot that has any part of any non-consenting person. Require explicit permission to take photos of the subject, and clearly define the when, where, and how.

Why? (not WHY)

When I spoke at DEF CON 26, I did not have my own professional photographer to capture the critical moment of my public speech and life-long memory in high-quality still media. Worse, I had asked some friends to take shots of me, and there were not many, and the photos taken were not high quality.

Lessons Leaarned from WHY

  1. Take HIF (HEIF) files by default. taking 10 - 30 FPS of compressed raw (ARW) leads to way too large of datasets to manage. Perhaps offer ARW if they want to work with compressed raw.

  2. Use appropriate gear, such as high-speed USB, for quick file management - which I did not have.

  3. Use multiple SD/CFexpress cards for easier compartmentalization - which i did not have.

  4. Create scripts for moving the data more quickly between devices/website.

  5. Create a public blog post or advertisement to be clear about the voluntary mission and privacy upfront so there is less ambiguity.

  6. Establish a website that allows easier photo sharing, not just ssh'ing zip files to my blog.

Proposal

Having learned a lot from this experieince, and from being a photojournalist at the NATO Summit in The Hague ealier this year, I now want to envolve this idea into an organization for the hacker community. Later this year, I plan to attend CCC in Germany again. This is where I would like to launch this new effort.

  1. Establish as a non-heirarchical community of photojournalists from within the hacker community.

  2. Agree on a not-for-profit mission, vission, and principles.

  3. Attend hacker events around the world, coordinate with event organizers, and advertise to speakers.

  4. Organize at said hacker events to share responsibilities of advertising, communication, scheduling, photojournalism, and data management.

  5. Offer suggestions for subjects to donate money to other not-for-profit community efforts.

DRAFT Mission, Vission, and Principles

Mission

To provide free, high-quality, consent-based photography for speakers, organizers, and performers at hacker events, while protecting individual privacy and empowering the community through visual storytelling.

Vision

To build a global, volunteer-driven photojournalist collective that documents hacker culture with integrity.

Principles

  • Consent before capture.

  • Transparency in purpose and process.

  • Privacy by default. Data is not shared with anyone but the subject. By default, data is deleted after given to the subject, and subjects may opt-in to organization-managed data retention for organizaiton publicity.

  • Ownership of media is waived and given absolutely to the subject.

Feedback

Please provide feedback and let me know if you have interest in this effort.



yawnbox