On Saturday, I participated in Scott Kelby’s Second Annual Worldwide Photo Walk in Rochester, Michigan. What the heck is that, you ask? Well, a photo walk is supposed to be a social photography get together where people walk around a specific locale, take pictures, and talk about photography. This one is different because it’s happening in 900 cities around the world on the same day. At last count, over 30,000 people signed up for this photo walk. Oh, and this one has prizes!
Hood ornament on old fire truck.If you read last weeks Weekend Roundup, you could probably tell that I was apprehensive about going. I mean, I only have a Nikon point and shoot, not a fancy DSLR. So I felt a bit inadequate from the beginning. And there’s going to be people! People who want to talk about photography. I have always had an interest in photography but I’ve never had a fancy camera or taken a class.
Truth be told, I was trying to find any way to get out of this event. Or, if I couldn’t get out of it, maybe take someone with me to hold my hand. But I made a commitment. So off I went.
Or, I should say off we went. It was never my intention for my husband to come along. It just kind of happened that way. He doesn’t care about photography; he wasn’t going to enjoy himself. We drove out to Rochester and he was going to amuse himself somehow, somewhere else for the 2+ hours.
Our photo walk leader, Tim White, was giving us the low down, including not to play in traffic, and said we weren’t going to stick together. Tim was great and one of the few people I got a chance to talk to. And that’s how it happened, if the group wasn’t going to stick together, I said to my husband, does he want to walk around with me? He was fine with that.
The plan was for everyone to take pictures at the fire station first and then we would split up. Eventually we would all meet in the park and then go to the Rochester Mills Beer Company for drinks and dinner.
The husband and I had a good time walking around downtown Rochester; he was even in some shots I took. Then the rain started. To make a long story short, we never made it to the park or the brewery.
I did it wrong.
This was, as I said at the beginning, supposed to be a social gathering, a chance to meet other people and perhaps learn from them. I ventured out of my comfort zone enough to go but I could have gotten a lot more out of this. And it wasn’t my husband’s fault. I blame the rain.
I will go on other photo walks in the future. And when that happens, I’ll do it right, I’ll be social.
If you're interested in seeing some of the photo's taken by other participants check out this Flickr group. I'm still editing my pictures but I'll post some soon. The pictures in this post are a few of my pictures from the day and they haven't been edited yet. They aren't my favorites.