Back from being on the down low... I participated in Scott Kelby's Photowalk again this year. I was part of it the first year in Santa Monica, CA, and had a great experience. I couldn't go last year because of a previous commitment, so I'm glad that I was able to cruise around with my camera this year. I made up for last year and did two photo walks this year: 1) Venice Beach, CA with leader Ken Shelton and 2) Travel Town, Los Angeles -- at the entrance of famous Griffith Park-- with leader Mike Kubeisy (see his guest blog on Scott Kelby's site here).
What is a photo walk, might you ask? It's basically a group of photographers that walk around a specific area to take photos, as you might imagine. The special thing about this one is that the photographer/Photoshop master known as Scott Kelby organizes a worldwide event each year. It's a great way to meet other photographers, and non-photographers can focus on a large group of people with cameras instead of just you by yourself. Today one woman told me that she saw the large group of us and thought we were paparazzi! Hey, it's L.A.
Anyhow, I got some pretty cool photos and met some really nice people. The day started out cloudy with the marine layer and all, but finally the sun came out for us and threw out some beautiful light in the Venice Canals/Beach. The day ended with some really nice light in Travel Town.
Something that photographers like to do is challenge themselves, and a photo walk is the perfect time to do so. The challenge I created for myself was to not take flower photos. For those of you that know me and my photography, that's a really difficult challenge. And I failed miserably.
Had I gone to Travel Town first, I would have had some hope. But in the canals one and then two bushes of morning glories came up and that was the end of my challenge. I give in to the plants.
Here is the photo that led to my downfall:
And then of course I couldn't stop:
I enjoy these photo walks because they are not like a workshop, where you are taught by a person how to get a shot. We are allowed to roam freely, finding our own shots, making our mistakes and learning from them.
The only drawback to photo walking is not paying attention to where you're stepping. I happened to be so focused on making photos in the pooch-friendly canals, that I didn't realize I had stepped in a canine gift. I'm thanking my lucky stars that I was wearing tennis shoes instead of sandals.
Please check out the rest of my Venice Flickr set here (Travel Town will be uploaded shortly).
A few of my favorites:
This is the photo I uploaded for the photo walk contest...I love it because it's a different perspective, due to the 15mm fish eye lens. I imagine that is is the view a fish would have out of the water.
**UPDATE This photo won the location photo walk contest! Now onto the big world wide contest! Thank you to all of those who have been supporting me.**
I also love this photo (which happens to be the other side of the above image):
I love the colors in the reflection and the pop of color provided by the boats. I went into taking photos here with a vision of capturing something that said "Venice Canals", and I believe that the above image did exactly that.
Thanks for stopping by!