Photowalking.org

Ever wanted to photograph the beautiful rocky coastline of the Central Coast of California? Early next year, 2009, a small group will be gathering in the California State Park, Montana del Oro. That’s near Los Osos, Morro Bay, and San Luis Obispo.

If you’re from Southern California, you MUST find a way to hit this photowalk! Maybe get together with a group and camp for the weekend, or just get a cheap motel. Same goes for Northern Californians!

In fact, I don’t care where you’re from, you should make it out for this photowalk.

When?     January 11th, 2009 @ 2pm
Where?     Montana del Oro State Park

Here’s the Upcoming Link.

Hey! Short notice, but if you can make it, you need to hit this photowalk.

This Sunday, November 2, 2008 there will be a 2.5 mile photowalk in and around the Portland, Oregon bridges. You may not know it, but Portland has a bunch of awesome bridges, and they’re great for shooting.

Check the Upcoming link for all the details.

A few of us will be hanging out and photowalking around Venice Beach (West Los Angeles) at 3pm tomorrow, October 25th, 2008. You can leave whenever you want, but we’ll probably disperse after sunset[1].

So far, I’ll be there with Brian Auer, Nathaniel Perales, Michael Kang[2] and Arnold.

Don’t be shy - it doesn’t matter what camera you have!

P.S. Sorry for the late notice.

View the associated Flickr post at the Los Angeles Group

Upcoming event page

1. Estimated to be around 6:06pm PDT.
2. Although he’ll be hanging out more than photowalking.

Hey ya’ll northern California photowalkers! Don’t forget about the evening photowalk in downtown Sacramento on October 3rd, 2008.

We’re meeting in front of the state Capitol building, at 7pm. This should make it easy to find, after you get off work. Check out the original post for more information!

True story: I saw a guy in the Salt Lake Library parking garage making a photo. “What do you see?” I asked him. “Just over there, it’s for a class,” he replied. “Cool,” I said, and then, “What the h*#(, let me tell you about PhotowalkingUtah.” Poor Ben, had no idea what hit him. But I hope he joins us on Saturday 20 September 2008 at 3:00 pm in Orem for our next Photowalk.

First we will tour InStudio, Kenneth Linge’s new 8,500+ square foot photography studio. Kenneth will do some demos for us, and who knows. I’ll bet the cameras come out long before the second part of the ‘walk. But before that is dinner. I heard there was dinner in Utah County. We’ll go find it somewhere.

Then we’ll reconvene at 6:30 for a participatory Photowalk through historic Provo. We went there last October and hardly tapped the possibilities. And now we have 250 more members in our Flickr group. Who knows what will be seen and photographed? That’s why you actually have to attend a Photowalk–you can’t ever guess what will happen.

Come to part I or part II or I+II. All are welcome, first timers with a crummy cellphone camera to photogs saddled with enough gear on their backs to make any self-respecting orthopedist cringe. Trust me, you won’t be alone, like poor Ben today in the parking garage with an evangelical Photowalker.

Find all the details here and make plans to join us on 20 September

Come join us in beautiful downtown Ann Arbor. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to shoot interesting architecture and other scenery in this college-town.

I’ve built a Google Map to give you an idea of the happenings.

If you can make it, please sign up here.

We’re going to start at 4pm and wrap up at 8.

We’re also going to try and get some cool PhotoSynth shots.

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Photo credit: Dane Hillard

Wow! What a turn out!

We were supposed to meet on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, at 6pm on a Friday. I wanted some of the walk to be at dusk, and the rest after it became dark. Unfortunately, I chose a meeting place that placed it smack dab in the between any convenient Metro stops. Mistake on my part. I knew that Washington DC is a “walking city”, much like New York City. Well, I could have picked a better meeting place.

The wife and I took the Metro to the Smithsonian Metro stop with 15 minutes to spare. That’s pretty much on the opposite side of the Washington Monument, from the Lincoln Memorial, 1.2 miles away. Not smart.

When I walked up, I expected to see a small group gathering to the side. Generally, a photowalking group is easy to spot; just look for the dSLRs and tripods. As I approached the steps, I saw this large group of people milling around. I initially thought, “I hope I can find our photowalkers, through all those other people.” Then, I realized, “That’s our group!”

You have no idea how excited I was to realize that so many people showed up for a photowalk, especially with Scott Kelby’s large network of photowalks the following day. From my group photo, I counted about 50 people. I know there were a few who opted out of the group photo, and several arrived after we got started. So, I’m thinking that around 60 people attended this photowalk. Sweet!

We got started right away, with a quick briefing by me and then we sat down for that group photo. The next spot we wandered to was the Korean Conflict Memorial. It was pretty cool to watch our large group slowly and quietly ebb and flow around that memorial, as we all sought our perfect shot.

Our next stop was back in front of the Lincoln Memorial, for a quick stop in front of the Reflecting Pool, then off to the Vietnam Memorial. I think we started to thin out by now, and then we spread out on the walk to the World War II Memorial. Several of us stopped for a cool sunset shot, halfway to the WWII Memorial.

Once at the WWII Memorial, most of us gathered up again to shoot the sunset sky and then the subsquent darkness with the lit fountains of the Memorial. It was here that I got my personal favorite shot of the Lincoln Memorial. I used my new Sigma 70-300mm, and captured a few varied exposure shots, for a later HDR. At home I created a very unique, but cool shot from those frames.

Our group was quickly thinning, as we crossed the street up to the Washington Monument. This was the first spot we were approached by security, informing us that we could not use our tripods on the walkways or anything that wasn’t grass. One of us, who will go unnamed, made a valient effort to discuss the validity of this policy. However, in the end we were relegated to the grassy areas for our mounted work.

Our next wandering took us to my end. As we headed down the open Mall, towards the Capitol building, I saw my end-all-be-all shot. That one shot I’ve always wanted. I stopped, captured it, and was quickly instructed by my none-photowalking-yet-patient wife that we were done. Our 1.75 mile adventure had exhausted her attention for photowalking, and it was now time to call it a “day”.

No problem, I was getting tired myself. At this point there was only a handful of the faithful left. We parted and headed back to our hotel. Honestly, I’m not sure how many photowalked to the end. Hopefully we’ll be enlightened in the comments. I want to thank Kendrick Hang, for all his work in organizing a great number of local photographers, who came out for the photowalk.

I will end with my own opinion that this was one of the most fun, and exciting photowalks! I was able to photograph some of the most beautiful and popular locations, in some great light. Satisfied, I am.

Below are a few of my favorites, so far, from the photowalk. I have this feeling that many of the photowalkers are not regular users of Flickr, so we may have a hard time organizing their work. For the few who remembered, and tagged their photos properly, I was able to view thier work. Everyone who attended is listed below as well. If you attended, and don’t use Flickr, please leave me the link in the comments. I’ll add it to the list below. Here’s the list of all the correctly tagged photos too.

• Trevor Carpenter
• Shawn Duffy
• Andy Roth
• Kendrick Hang
• Michael Wenthold
• Mark Anderson
• Marcellina

When - July 27th - 4:00 till 6:00~
Where - University of Mary Washington.

View Larger Map

Meet in front of George Washington Hall in front of the new tower (see picture below). Here’s a map of the campus.

The route should take us through most of the campus. We’ll pass by most of the major buildings and fountains. If you want to explore some of the side areas that’s fine too. Obviously, schools out for the summer so we’ll have the campus to ourselves. There are summer classes but normally not much foot traffic. The route is a little under two miles but that’s just a rough estimate. Cross your fingers for good (and not too hot) weather.

I mad the time later in the day for (relatively) cooler weather and better light. If this conflicts with dinner/other plans, let me know and we can adjust.

Hope you can make it.

Upcoming.org

Come one, come all, to the first Neon Photowalk.

On October 3rd, 2008, we’ll be meeting up in downtown Sacramento, CA to shoot some sweet neon. This one will be better with more people, as we’ll be shooting after sundown.

Upcoming event

We’ll meet at 7pm, and the location will be updated shortly. For now, put it on your calendar and plan on attending.

**Edit**
I needed to add a little bit of information. First, I think we’re going to meet in front of the California State Capitol Building. This should make it easy for everyone to find us. Second, I took some good suggestions from Thomas Hawk’s blog and fabricated a basic map of some possible locations we’ll want to photograph. They’re on the map below. (Notice the green tag, that’s where we’ll be meeting.

View Larger Map

PhotowalkingUtah at the Great Salt Lake (photo by calanan)

Metrics on PhotowalkingUtah outing #10: 40 photographers, 2 dresses, Heidi in the water for 2 hours, 293 images in our Flickr pool, 10 billion brine shrimp, and at least $1,000 in waterlogged gear.

Behind the scenes (photo by jeremyhall)

The Great Salt Lake, 60 miles long, 30 miles wide, far saltier than the ocean, produces brine shrimp (sea monkeys) and brine flies in abundance. Birds stop to refuel on the beasties during migration. Morton Salt has evaporation ponds. A few people sail and scull. But mostly, beyond the water’s edge, it is expansively serene.

Rich keeps camera dry, but soaks the Blackberry in his pocket (photo by PureLancelot)

Forty photographers make a certain amount of noise, but occasionally on a photowalk, it becomes disconcertingly quiet. Deep concentration of photowalkers leave room for no conversation, only the clicking of shutters.

Charles Uibel, our guide (photo by rustlingleafdesign)

Charles photographs out here all the time, and set us up in a location devoid of other photo sessions (the GSL is popular for bridal photos - we saw a shoot going on down the shore but otherwise we were alone).

That dress is officially trashed (photo by schwabacher)

Heidi, our model, got the dress from her sister, made by mom and grandmom. Best not to mention it to mom until it comes back from the dry cleaner.

Thoroughly wrapped-up on several blogs:
Mike Calanan - Calanan Photography
Jeremy Hall - What’s Gotta Stay
Rich Legg - LeggNet’s Digital Capture
Scott Smith - Scott [o] Smith’s Digital World
David Terry - David Terry Photography
Ann Torrence - the Annalog

The next PhotowalkingUtah outing will be on July 4, to the Freedom Festival Balloon Launch. It’s a dawn launch for participating photographers. Watch www.photowalkingutah.com for updates.