World Wide Photowalk Wrap-Up!

Last weekend, Lisa and I participated in the 6th Annual Scott Kelby World Wide Photowalk. This was my second year doing it and it was Lisa’s first time. We had a blast and are excited to do it again.

For those of you who don’t know, a photowalk is an event where photographers meet-up and go on a walk where they take photos. Photowalks often happen in cities and are generally shot in the style of street photography, but they don’t have to be. For example, the walk I did last year was more landscape centric because it happened at a state park.

The walk we did this year happened in Lake Jackson, Texas which was one of 1,238 walks held world wide last Saturday. Nearly 20 people showed up for our walk and the best part was that there were a lot of teenagers. I’m not talking about eighteen or nineteen year olds. I mean young teens that didn’t even have a drivers license so their parents had to come. It gave the whole event a warm family feeling.

Now I know that the walk is advertised as a contest where you can win amazing prizes, but I don’t think that’s the real intention of the event. I think the walk is a way to create a safe social environment where photographers of all skill ranges can come together. And if that’s the case, from what we saw on our walk that’s exactly what happened.

One of my favorite moments was when I saw a fourteen year old boy struggling with his camera. He couldn’t get the settings right and he really wanted to take a photo of an orange bug. I was about to jump in and see if I could help him, but this old retired vet stepped up before I could. They stood talking for a good ten minutes going over what an aperture is and what settings the boy could use to get a creamy depth of field. The whole thing was really sweet.

Because of the friendly environment, Lisa had a great time and it was nice to share the activity with her. Normally when I do my photography-thing, like when visiting a city and trying to get a blue hour shot, she just kind of hangs around and waits. So it was really cool this past weekend to see her walking around and taking her own photos.

Now Lisa doesn’t have a camera, so she carried around my iPhone and most of her time was spent snapping secret photos of me like this one:

As for official photos, this was her favorite:

Since Lake Jackson is a very suburban area I knew going into it that I wasn’t going to get any epic landscapes or artsy architecture shots. So instead I took my macro lens that I primarily use when doing board game photography and focused on textures and details. I didn’t get anything that will win a prize, but as I already suggested the real joy of doing the walk is the socialization and not the contest.

Anyway without further ado here are my selects in no particular order: