New Orleans Photowalk
We had a great time on our photowalk. There were a little over 20 people that made it; almost 50 had signed up, and the rest missed a great morning.
A few of us started on the Canal street ferry about 6am for sunrise photos. While the sunrise wasn’t spectacular, we did get some nice shots of ships on the river and the skyline of New Orleans.
I carried my PhotoTrackr with me, and I was able to geotag all my images for the day. This map shows our route and where I took photos (pretty much the entire way.
After we got off the ferry, we had about an hour before the photowalk officially began in the Garden District, so Julie and I walked around the mall for a little while (taking photos of the mirrors, lighted elevators, escalator blurs, and the colorful displays), then made our way down to St. Charles to catch the street car.
After we met up with the group, we wandered the Garden District for a couple of hours, spending about half of that in Lafayette Cemetery Number 1. The houses, architecture and gardens (it’s the Garden District!) were gorgeous, and I’m sure many people were surprised to see an army of photographers aiming expensive lenses at their house.
After that, we caught the street car again towards the French Quarter. We wandered around there for a couple of hours, until we were just too hot and tired to walk anymore. We had lunch at the Courtyard Marriott, where we talked about some of the things we saw and photographed, and shared some of our images with a projector.
It was a very fun day; I’m glad we went.
Our group is uploading our best images to a Flickr group: nolaphotowalk. Once I finally go through all of mine, I’ll also be creating my own set on my Flickr page.
If you ever get a chance to go on a photowalk (or organize your own!), it’s great fun. So get out and photograph something!
The Worldwide Photowalk
Tomorrow, Julie and I are going on our first (official) photowalk. This event, sponsored by NAPP and Scott Kelby is being held in 236 cities in 45 countries. Over 7500 hundred photographers have signed up, and there are over $5000 in great prizes for the best photographs.
What is a photowalk? It’s nothing more than a group of photographers talking a walk and taking photos. At the end of the walk, you get together and share your different visions and images of what you saw. It’s a great chance to get together and socialize with other photographers and just have some fun. After all, isn’t this why we all got into photography? Because we like to take photos?
Julie and I try to go on photowalks (by ourselves) as often as we can, and almost always do it in every new place we visit. We’ve also gone on photo "field trips" with our local club. But this is our first chance to spend some time with people we’ve never met, and have some fun taking photos. We can’t wait!
A turtle, an iPhone, and PhotoSwap
I stepped out of the house this morning and found this turtle eating a mushroom in my front yard. I’m used to possums, racoons, frogs and squirrels, but this was the first turtle I’ve seen in my yard. So I decided to snap a photo with my iPhone (it was still a bit dark, so it’s kind of blurry) and send it to some random person.
Yesterday, I installed Photoswap, a new iPhone app that lets you take a photo, send it to a random user, and get a random photo in return. It’s like browsing newly uploaded images on Flickr, but more fun! You can even reply with an image, and carry on a photo conversation.
The last image I got was a street image in Germany. Fun!
(posted via iPhone)
Photography is not a crime
You’d think we’d be used to this by now. But it still amazes me every time I hear about something like this.
Read this very interesting story here: Thomas Hawk at the SF MOMA
No photography allowed!
Fox 5 TV station in Washington DC interviewed Joel Lawson yesterday about harassment of photographers at Union Station. While an Amtrak spokesperson was explaining that photography is allowed in Union Station, a security guard interrupted to tell the journalist to stop filming the interview!
(via Photo Attorney)
PicLens
I’ve installed PicLens on my Moments in Time photoblog.
PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.
To install it, go to the PicLens site and download a small add-on. It works with most modern browsers.
Give it a whirl, and let me know what you think.
Online Communities
One very good way to get inspiration and feedback is to participate in an online photographic community. There are zillions to choose from, but I’m only going to mention a few that I’m involved with.
- Photo Friday: Each week, a new photo assignment is posted. Your mission is the creative interpretation of that assignment. Votes are also collected for the previous weeks assignment for a "Noteworthy" award. Competition is tough; I’ve only gotten one noteworthy image.
- Thursday Challenge: Another weekly themed assignment.
- Photosig: A photography display and critique site. You can upload your photos for critiques, and critique other people’s photos. You can learn a lot by critiquing photos other than your own, and be inspired by some of the wonderful photography on this site.
- Vazaar: A very high quality theme and critique site. Only 20 per cent of the submitted photos are featured on this site, and competition is fierce. Users can also request critiques of their photos, and the system encourages active participation in the process.
- Onexposure: An arts project and photographic community. Only the very highest quality images are displayed here, and all photos are screened by editors before being published. Browsing the published images is an excellent source of inspiration.
- Naturescapes.net: A site for monthly articles, discussion forums, critiques and shopping for photographic supplies. Many professional nature photographers frequent this site, and are very helpful in the forums.
There are many, many, many more sites to choose from, and some may suck more time out of you than you would like. So choose wisely, join a community, and create art!
It's just a blur
When I first started taking photos, I strived for the sharpest images possible. I wanted the widest depth of field and the crispest details. Once I started expanding my art, though, I began to experiment with blurring.
One example we’ve all seen before is light trails from cars. It’s easy to do; set your camera on a tripod or brace it with something, set a low ISO and long shutter speed, and click away. This particular example was taken on a busy New York city street for 10 seconds, braced against a traffic signal pole.
The street scene was nice (and one of my favorites), but it’s not really abstract. I tried a slow shutter speed again with some grasses waving in the wind, and came up with this image. This is something I would have hated in my earlier days, but now it’s a wonderfully abstract image, showing colors and motion.
Now that I’d taken photos of objects that blurred themselves during a period of time, I wanted more. I started experimenting with zoom blurs, where you zoom the lens during the exposure.
My first tries were during a night-time Mardi Gras parade.
Both of these were taken at a 1/2 second shutter speed, and zoomed during the exposure. It took quite a few tries to get the hang of zooming at just the right time.
The trick is to start zooming and then click the shutter. You’ll have many, many images you’ll trash, but you might come up with several keepers. Don’t be afraid to try; digital images are cheap.
Next I tried moving the camera as I took an image. I found a field of pretty flowers, set a long shutter speed (this is 1/25; I really could have used an ND filter), and moving the camera straight up as I took the image. This works really well with vertical objects such as flowers and trees, but almost anything will give you a nice abstract image.
I’m a big fan of flower images, and this is a wonderful way to create new images.
And finally, two of my favorite zoom blurs.
The red flower in the middle of the zoom really makes the left image, I think, and I’m really happy I found these blue and yellow flowers together. It’s like an explosion of bright colors.
Just Say Click
Sometimes, you just don’t have time to spend with a personal creative project. Sometimes, your weekend consists of 13 hour days at work, and you’re too tired to pull out the camera.
So try taking photographs without one.
Composition is a visual exercise; no camera is needed. You can do it anywhere: driving your car, sitting at your desk, or almost anywhere.
Take a look around you and pretend you have your camera with you. What would you take a picture of? How would you frame it? How do the compositional elements come together? Picture all of this in your mind and say "click".
You’ve just taken a mental photograph.
Sure, you say, that’s all well and good, but how do I show it to people?
That’s not the point. The point is to learn, to practice, to grow in your own personal creativity.
There’s a story that’s been going around for a few years about a basketball experiment. I have no idea if it’s true or not, but it doesn’t really matter.
Three groups of people were taken to a gym, the story goes, and asked to shoot a series of free throws. They were then divided up into three groups.
The first group did nothing. The second came to the gym every day for a month and practiced free throws for 30 minutes.
The third group was told to think about free throws. Visualize it in their minds. See themselves step up to the line, see the ball leave their hands, see if fall effortlessly through the hoop. Nothin’ but net.
After 30 days, they were tested again. The first group showed zero improvement, which was expected. The second, the group that practiced for 30 minutes each day, improved by 95%.
The third, the visualization group, improved by 90%.
This can easily be applied to photography. How many times have you heard "it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer"? How much effort goes into creating a photograph before you even pick up the camera?
Give it a try. It’s important to say "click" (you can say it to yourself, if you’re self-conscious) so that you have that feeling of completion and accomplishment. "Click" means that you’re happy with your composition and ready to take the image.
Visualize it. Practice it. Create art.
