Searching for meaning
I've been interested in photography since I was a teenager. I began shooting with a Canon AL-1 and Canon T70 - both 35mm film cameras. I moved on to Nikon film cameras before settling into various digitals such as the Olympus E-500. I've since settled on a Canon T2i and a Panasonic LX-5 - a formidable combination.
But talking about cameras is like asking a chef what brand of oven he uses. It's not about the camera, it's about the photographs.
My current interests in photography are primarily around urban and nature landscapes, but I'm not one to be pinned down.
I've been a musician most of my life, learning to play the drums when I was seven or eight years old. In addition to playing drums, I also played double bass in the junior high orchestra and electric bass in the high school jazz band. It's all about the rhythm with me.
I studied music at Duquesne University while playing timpani with the Abbey Brass. In addition, I've played in various bands around the Pittsburgh area, and I've done studio work with Nashville Trax.
I'm currently the drummer with Uptown Rhythm & Brass. We're a Pittsburgh-based band playing covers of classic motown, R&B, and rock & roll.
The website you are reading was constructed by me using small pieces, loosely joined. This website runs on heroku, creating a thin facade around various content delivery networks, enabling the site to function without providing content management facilities. Instead, the ideas, sights, sounds, and software sections are hosted remotely by gist, flickr, youtube, and github, respectively. This allows me to focus on the work that I enjoy most - design, writing, connecting dots. To learn more, see the new blog software.
As a Dev Ops professional, I enjoy collaborating with interdisciplinary teams at the intersection of art, science, business, and technology. As a generalist, I'm comfortable across desktop, mobile, and the web. As a libertarian, I'm happiest working with open source software enablers such as github. As an agnostic, I'm comfortable working on Linux, Mac, or Windows. As an idealist, I enjoy pursuing nascent technology when it's better, faster, cheaper, like heroku. As a pragmatist, I balance my idealism by realizing that the only artifact that really matters is shipping maintainable, reliable, usable software, mostly in python. As a creative, I believe in imbuing the work with a sense of whimsy. As a designer, I have an enormous need for symmetry. As a minimalist, I begin by asking a single question: what's the simplest thing that could possibly work? As an obsessive, I prefer a work style that is agile and iterative. As a completionist, I see the big picture and think in terms of complete product solutions. Finally, as a perfectionist, I'm never satisfied until my work is asymptotically approaching perfection.
My name is David Watson. I'm a creative person from a small town in Western Pennsylvania called Fallston. I went to school in the Beaver and New Brighton school districts before graduating from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
I met my wife, Wendy teaching at Mars High School where I taught the drum line and she taught the color guard. After graduation, we lived in Boston and Seattle before returning to the Pittsburgh area, where I earn my living making software.
This site chronicles my ideas, photographs, music, and technology. I hope you find something of value here. If you'd like to collaborate, please contact me on Linked In or at the email address above. Thanks for visiting!