In the last blog entry I dropped one single tantalizing mention of the words "Yearbook Photography". At Youmacon at this same hotel (that's the anime convention that provides Penguicon's anime room), I noticed a backdrop that was set up to photograph the costume contest entrants. I'll be we can get such a backdrop from the same place we get our pipe and drape. Then if a good digital photographer will volunteer, we can set up several times for attendees to come by and give their name and get their picture taken if they want. Or at least give their name for a listing without a photo, if they're shy. (We won't use the registration database for names. We only want those who attended.) After Penguicon, I'll put the photos in desktop publishing software and turn them into a yearbook.

You don't have to pay to have your photo taken-- just to get the yearbook. Those who want to pay some trifling amount of money when they get their photo taken could give their address to which to mail the finished product on CD or DVD, depending on the photo resolution quality they want. It would just be enough money to cover the cost of the burnable media, label, and shipping. Or they could pay a certain amount to get their copy run off in black and white and saddle-stitched like a magazine. It breaks even before a penny has been spent on it, and involves no work during the runup to the convention.

The month immediately after Penguicon is always the time of year when I'm the most enthusiastic about it anyway, so I may as well put that to use, because I can't do most things at that time, because most of the others who worked on the con want to take a vacation from the work for at least a few weeks, because we're such a new convention with a small team that everybody was a little crispy around the edges by the time they reach that final transcendent weekend of acrobatic, sparkling, fizzing, white-hot fun, all in one incredible run-on sentence kind of like this one. So this is an opportunity to have something for me to do that doesn't depend on waiting for somebody else. Oh wait-- except the photographer has to give me the digital pictures!

Do you have a fine quality digital camera? Are you good at using it? Would you have fun doing this? Can I rely on you to get me the pictures before the end of April? Apply within!