Pecha Kucha

Last week Thursday I participated in Kingston's first showing of Pecha Kucka. When I got the invitation my instinctual reaction was to say "no", but I really had no reason to say no, so I went with it. Im not fond of presentations, especially to a crowd of strangers, and the other presenters that I knew who were also presenting were all lecturers/teachers, so theyre used to this sort of thing. So that had me a bit intimidated but I tried not to let that affect me too much.

So what is Pecha Kucha? Taken from their website:

"PechaKucha Nights are informal and fun gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, works, thoughts, holiday snaps - just about anything really, in the PechaKucha 20x20 format. PechaKucha 20x20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images."

I didnt know that Pecha Kucha was a worldwide event until I got there. Its been held in 370 cities so far. So of course you know, once I realized this I immediately got even more nervous lol. However, despite a rocky start I think it ended up ok. One or two of the photos got a reaction from the audience, which had me feeling pretty good about the selections I made. A part of me wishes I knew about Pecha Kucha before, I probably  would have done my presentation differently, but then again had I known how big it was I probably wouldnt have done it at all! There's a reason for everything I guess.

What was also pretty cool was that the next presenter plays in the same steel band I do, his presentation was on our band "UWI Panoridim" and some of the photos he used was mine. So got some double exposure there.

All in all it was a good experience, I like the idea and I encourage any creative individual (poets, visual artists, graphic designers, djs, photographers, illustrators, actors, floral artists, architects, landscape designers, sculptors, chefs, furniture designer, fashion designers) to come and share their work and thoughts, and network a little bit. The event will be staged every couple months. Keep up to date on the facebook group for Pecha Kucha Kingston.

Below are the photos I presented, in order: