CupCate.com

Paparazzi Paranoia

Why do photographers make people so nervous?

How many PR events happen every single day, filled with bloggers and journalists with their camera phones or their crappy entry level SLRs or point-and-shoot digicams, who will take photos of the products on display, TwitPic them, or post them somewhere on the web?

How can you deny access for a photographer - who will take photos that actually look good - but then allow people to take photos on whatever device they happen to bring with them?

Why are people so weird about photographs, when pretty much every single person walking around has a 2mpx camera or higher in their pocket? 

Is the the big lens? Does it look more official and therefore more intrusive and then people start freaking out about lawsuits and model release forms and identity theft and privacy laws and NDAs and embargoes?! 

What's the deal?

How many people show up to events, and then just bring their camera anyway?

 Is that what I'm meant to do? I always thought I was doing the right thing by always asking permission before I bring round a dude with a massive lens - but maybe I need to make like the rest of the world and be a dick about it? Just assume that it's OK and waltz in?

 Aside from quality and lens size, what's the difference between me bringing along someone who actually knows how to take photos, or a journo showing up with their Canon 5D slung around their neck?

Boggles the mind. You'd think - unless it was a super secret launch that was embargoed until the end of time - that people would gladly accept the presence of a photographer. To make their event look fun. To make their products look fab. To give the impression that their launch was the most exciting thing ever. Look at those smiling face! Look how much people are loving your silly little canapés!

Can someone explain this to me? Because I'm starting to find it really frustrating. 

Image via Kevin Dooley's Flickr

Vanity, Thy Name is Video

The weird thing about the Internet is that if you do any videos and upload them to YouTube - years later, unless you delete them, they'll still be around.

You can watch yourself age! Gain and lose weight! Grow and lose hair!

You can also watch how you've grown more and more comfortable/uncomfortable in front of the camera.

While bored on Facebook and YouTube today, I found these old gems.

Here's @MyChemToilet, Stuart Waterman, and I back when we still both worked for Shiny Media.

Aren't our acting skills superb?! CALL ITV! QUICK!

I actually think this video is pretty funny. Too bad we never got that TV chat show, eh?

I also found this 3 minute tour of London I did back in March 2007. Yes, I'm wearing a pink VOX shirt. Yes, I recite lyrics from Fergie's "London Bridge". 

OH and here's me be interviewed at LeWeb08 when I was dying of the flu, had at horrible fever, and the lovely guy who interviewed me actually caught me just as I was running to the pharmacy because I actually thought I was going to die.

(Really, I'm not posting these out of vanity. Or maybe I am. Either way, you don't have to watch these if you don't want to. )

OH! And here we are a year ago at the London Bloggers Meetup with @LitmanLive and @MSeasons:

Oh, videos. Either one day I will love this stuff, or go OH MY GOD I cannot believe I used to be so brunette and huge! (You know, just in case 20 years from now I transform into a size 4 blonde... or something.)

And, just in case you missed it, here's my most recent offering to the YouTube gods - BitchBuzz at the Bust London Summer Craftacular!

Working My Ass Off AW09

Oh hello, CupCate.com. Long time no see. 

The past month has been absolutely mental. 

I stupidly mentioned over a year ago that I wanted to know what it was like to be tired. What it was like to run myself ragged and work so hard I could barely see straight. 

Between London Fashion Week, Covent Garden Fashion Fete & Fashion Fringe, TechCrunch London, Xbox Reverb, and a few other projects I'm working on, the last 10 days have really tested me. 

In fact, the last 30 days have really tested me. 

I've learned what I do and don't have time for, whether it be people playing me for stupid and taking the piss, or just things that I would usually panic or get upset about. 

I'm slowly figuring out what is and what is not (and who is not) worthy of my time.

I've had the privilege of meeting and speaking to a lot of really cool women this month, who have put things in perspective for me. 

I don't often ask for advice. 

I usually just pick up parallels or lessons in causal conversation, and I feel like I've learned quite a bit from just opening my horizons a bit, and perhaps from asking the right questions.

I've learned that going to castles and tours by yourself is actually quite fun. 

I've learned that I'm actually a bit of a tea snob.

I've learned that smiling in silence is sometimes the best and only thing I can do.

That drinking free champagne is really overrated. (Unless it's Prosecco and served in a vintage teacup.)

FAQs & FFUs (Frequent Fuck Ups)

It's come to my attention that I spend a lot of time correcting people on various things, and answering the same questions over and over again.

I thought that it might make things a little easier if I just wrote  all of this down, so that if you really wanted to know, you could simply read it. 

This is, of course, assuming that people aren't inherently lazy and will go off to find out something for themselves instead of just asking again (or that anyone actually cares enough about these things to go off and research them prior to a brief encounter with me) . 

So. Here we go. 

Frequently Asked Questions & Frequent Fuck Ups:

1. "CupCate?!"

CupCate is the name I used to blog on VOX. I picked it because hey, I like cupcakes, and I once had a customer when I was working at Starbucks who could only ever remember my name because it sounded like "cake" - "Whenever I think Cake, I'll think Cate." 

So there you go. CupCate.

2. Cup Cate/ Cupkate / cupCate/ CupCake

The correct spelling of CupCate is like I just spelled it. Like it is on my Twitter account and everywhere else I am known as "CupCate". 

3. "My name is CATE SEVILLA..." 

"CupCate" is just a fun nickname and handle online. My name is Cate Sevilla, and while I hate to go all Barbra Boxer on you, I would appreciate it if you introduced me as such. Or, when sending out a press release with my name, "Cup Cate" doesn't cut it. If you really wanna throw in the CupCate, you may call me "Cate 'CupCate' Sevilla". Or, if we're drunk and you want to call me CupCate, that's fine, too. 

4. "...from BITCHBUZZ.COM" 

I do not attend events to promote my CupCate.com blog, or my old VOX blog, which you should note is just a back-up blog. CupCate.com is my personal blog. My day job, and the website I promote when attending events, is BitchBuzz.com. I only ever write reviews of anything on BitchBuzz.com. 

Please do not put on my name tag that I am from "CupCate".  I am from BitchBuzz.com or BitchBuzz. I am a web editor, and professional writer. There is nothing professional about this blog, and therefore I would never promote it as such. Even at just a lowly "blogger" event. 

Bust London Summer Craftacular Video

I recently had the pleasure of covering the Bust London Summer Craftacular for BitchBuzz. We've put together this fabulous video that features interviews with Claire from Tatty Devine, the ladies from the Pop-Up Tea Shoppe & Lady Luck Rules OK,  Kandy from Knit & Destroy, Megan from Mr PS & the girls from Gaggle. 

It's pretty awesome. Please do give it a gander.