Quick Hit Monday: Photo Walk Recap

Good Morning Everybody,

Over 33,000 photo amateurs, pros, enthusiasts walked the earth on Saturday just having fun taking photographs and enjoying each other's company during Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk 2010. Old friends re-united and new friendships were made. But most of all, a good time was had by all.

That was especially true for our photo walk group in Cincinnati, Ohio. Our group may have been the only group in the country to cover two states, Ohio and Kentucky, and we walked across two different bridges!

We may also be the only photo walk group to have been video taped by the Life In A Day video cameras. Interestingly enough, July 24, 2010 was also the day 1,000s of video cameras around the world were rolling to capture life as it occurs worldwide. Its amazing to me that both the Scott Kelby Photo Walk and Life In A Day should fall on the same day. News flash to world, we've got you covered!

Clearly, the weather was different for all walkers. Even though we were in the mid- 90's for most of our walk, we were fortunate to have no rain, blue skies, and a nice gentle breeze our entire walk.

Oh, and a warning for anyone who joins my Cincinnati Photo Walk in the future, I'm mostly a "one way" walk leader. That means we walked our 2.5 miles through the glass and steel of downtown Cincinnati and over the Ohio River into the historic Mainstrasse Village area of Covington, Kentucky to our final destination.

Yes, we then had to make the return trip too after lunch but we did take a more direct route back to our starting point. Some took public transportation back to Cincy, but those who walked certainly didn't seem to mind the the sights were exciting.

In fact we walked back over the historic Roebling Suspension Bridge. The bridge is going through extensive renovation and repainting and is closed to motor traffic, but still opened to foot traffic making it quite a fascinating experience.

Sigma told me I could hang onto their 8-16mm wide angle lens a little longer so that became my lens of choice for most of the walk. And, I took most of my shots at the 8mm widest setting. It was just plain fun visually to play with that lens during our photo walk.

Refreshed, we headed back to downtown Cincy arriving about 2:30 p.m. - about a 5 hour day, but worth every minute.

Of course the next thing you want to do is load up the images in Lightroom and play some more. I'll admit, give me steel and glass, a super wide angle lens, and Lightroom 3 and I'm a happy camper for a few hours running.

As I was working the images, I found myself leaning towards the abstract side for my visual interpretations. You know what I mean, working the tonal ranges, juicing the colors, and just plain having fun. I'm pleased with my results but I know some of the images will not be everyone's cup of tea. Regardless, I still like them - hey, maybe even an upcoming Technique Tuesday in the mix ;~)

You can check out our groups images, mine included, right here.

So, that's how I spent my weekend and it was a blast, even tweaking the images in Lightroom 3. What's really cool about Scott's Worldwide Photo Walk is the fact that even if you didn't participate, you can still head over to Flickr and do a quick search and view images around around the world on Saturday, July 24th.

It really gives you a peak at not just a lot of photographs, but more importantly where folks live and how they live throughout the world. It is about the best and most fun geography lessons you will ever experience. Just do a search on "Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk 2010" and begin enjoying the show!

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Hey gang, that's the weekend wrap up for today. We are wrapping the last details of our upcoming "Captured By The Light 2010" tour today and tomorrow. If all goes as planned, we should be live with the website by mid-week. At that point I'll be able to fill you in on all the details.

On that note, I'm out of here. Plan to stop back tomorrow for a brand new Technique Tuesday. I hope to see you then.

Adios, David