PhotoWalkPro

I would like to thank everyone for the great response so far for the Georgetown photowalk.  After reviewing all of the comments I have to say that the June 1st date appears to be best for the majority of folks so let’s go ahead and make it official.  Depending on weather and other plans, I will try and make a recon trip down to the area this weekend to nail down our route.  I know that there is a huge parking lot along the waterfront on K St. so that might be our best starting point as there is no MetroRail service to the Georgetown area.  I would also like to make this a morning shoot, but I’m not sure how early as of yet.

I still have some logistics to work out, including creating a Flickr Group for the shoot but I hope to have that done by this weekend.  If you haven’t been on a photowalk before, let me suggest viewing my previous photowalk post which describes what a photowalk is and what you can expect.  You can find the post here.  Also, you can find images from my previous DC photowalk over at the Flickr Group.  To see the images, click here.  Stay tuned for more information.

In Other News -

Shawn King is planning another TimeShoot on May 9th at 12:00 Noon.  If you aren’t sure exactly what a TimeShoot is, be sure to check out my previous post which gives a full explanation. Basically you just have your camera handy at the appointed date and time and then click off a few frames where ever you may be and then upload them to the Flickr Group.  It’s like a world-wide photowalk, without the walking.  For all the details on the upcoming TimeShoot and how to upload your images, head on over Shawn’s blog by clicking here.

As the days headed toward the DC Photowalk, the forecast grew quite ominous as forecasters were calling for heavy rains, wind, and cold temperatures. Even as I drove to the airport through light rain to pick up my special guest walkers, I wondered if we might be walking through the streets of Adams Morgan on our own. But as chance would have it, the weather gods were smiling upon us and the faithful that showed up were treated to mild temperatures, overcast to partly sunny skies, and an afternoon of shooting with none other than the Photoshop Guys themselves, Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. For those that had been reading my updates, I had been hinting of a little surprise for the day and having Matt and Scott on hand just really topped off a very fun shoot with some great folks.

Our day started out at the Metro station on Connecticut Ave. where we hooked up with everyone that was brave enough to discount the weather reports and the messed up Metro system (there were closures on the Red and Yellow lines that really added some challenges to getting to the starting point). We had one brief downpour before we headed off to Adams Morgan and it never rained on us again. The group ended up being small but what a great bunch of folks. A special thanks goes out to Ina, our local neighborhood expert, who not only showed us some great shooting spots, but also was a wealth of information on the history of the area.

Near the end of the photowalk we found a great alley and sent everyone in to get some shots. As you can see from the photo above, there was quite an exuberance displayed by all the photowalkers, especially my buddy Mike. I’m not sure if he was shooting or throwing his camera but whatever he was doing, he was certainly having fun doing it. I have been looking at the numerous images uploaded to the Flickr group from all the photowalkers and I am really amazed at the variations that came from so many people standing in the same place. This is one of the great things about a photowalk, the fact that you get to experience something that you photographed through someone elses eyes.

Group Shot courtesy of Lenny “the Lensman” Lind

We finished off the day at Chipotle with some tasty burritos, some good conversation, and a lot of chimping. So even though I started the day fearing the worst, I can honestly say that I couldn’t imaging the day turning out any better than it did. What a great way to kick off the inaugural PhotoWalkPro photowalk series. I can hardly wait for the next one. And for everyone that boldly faced the elements to show up, I hope you enjoyed the experience as much as I enjoyed spending the afternoon shooting and chatting with you. I look forward to seeing all of you at the next event.

I want to give a special shout out to my friend Mike “Inner Circle” Meyer, and my good buddies Scott and Matt for showing up and supporting this effort. Thanks guys, it meant the world to me to have you there.

Be sure to head on over to the DC Photowalk Flickr Group and check out all of the images from the day.

My profound apologies to Lenny  Lind for failing to give credit for the group shot.  Sorry for the over site Lenny and thanks for being a part of our day.

 

In the past few weeks, I have received quite a few emails with questions about my upcoming photowalk but also about photowalking in general. I thought it would be a good idea to examine all aspects of a photowalk from what it is to what to carry to how to organize one. So let’s jump right in.

Q. – What exactly is a Photowalk ?

A. – A photowalk is the act of walking around with your camera and photographing your surroundings. Recently the term has become synonymous with a group of photographers, walking in predetermined locations and then sharing their imagery. Alone or with a group, the purpose is still the same and that is to go out and shoot.

Q. What is the difference between a Photo Safari and a Photowalk?

The best way I can figure it is that photo safaris are usually associated with a class or workshop environment. A photo safari may just be to a specific location and is usually a little more of a learning atmosphere. That’s not to say that you can’t do a little learning during a photowalk, in fact I would be disappointed if I didn’t learn something on a photowalk. Photowalks also seem to be a little bit more on the social side.

Q. – So what am I supposed to take pictures of?

A. – What ever you find interesting. Try to look beyond the obvious and see what the casual pedestrian doesn’t, than capture it in your camera. There’s color and shapes, and patterns. Light and shadow. Of course these are just my thoughts but you get the idea. Maybe you are a people watcher so you could try and capture the diversity of the people you see along the way. Perhaps you could shoot the entire time with the intent of making all black & white images. The sky is the limit.

 

Q. – What do I need to bring with me?

A. – There is of course the obvious answer, your camera. But you should put some thought into how much gear you want to haul around with you. Try to think in terms of being a minimalist when it comes to your gear. My best advice is to stick with two to three lenses. Two would probably be best, a wide to medium zoom and a medium to telephoto zoom would probably cover most scenarios. If your walk is during the daylight hours, which most are, you can probably leave that flash at home. Tripods are a personal choice but they will add to your load and you may run into some issues when trying to use them. They seem to make some folks nervous, especially the Police. Maybe you could try a monopod instead. Make sure that you have adequate storage cards or film (does anyone still shoot film?). A well charged camera battery is something to add to your checklist. My best advice is to travel light. A camera bag or photo-backpack will feel twice as heavy after you have walked a mile. Some other notables are comfortable shoes and clothes that suit the weather (think layers).

Q. – I don’t own a dslr or slr, can I just use my point-and-shoot?

A. – Of course you can. Don’t be intimidated by all those big cameras and long lenses. I have seen some spectacular images created with a 4MP digital point-n-shoot. Just check out some of the work being posted in this Flickr group.

 

Q. – How long does a photowalk last, how far do you walk?

A. – Unlike a marathon, there are no predetermined distances associated with a photowalk. It could be around a block or a few miles. In the case of my upcoming walk, I have selected a route that is slightly less than two miles. The amount of time is really dependent upon how fast you cover the route. Another factor would be the number of people who attend. A large group will tend to move a little slower.

 

Q. – Do I have to stick with the group?

A. – This isn’t a paid tour and no one will be taking attendance at the end so if you get tired or sidetracked during the walk then you should, by all means, do your own thing. Remember though that one of the purposes of doing this with a group is the interaction with other photographers. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to chat it up with others on the walk. There will probably be photographers of differing skill levels and you might be able to learn something, teach something, or just make some new friends.

Q. – So what do we do when it’s over?

A. – Let the chimping begin (chimping is a term used for reviewing your shots on your lcd screen on the back of your camera, usually accompanied by lots of ooh, oohs and aah, aahs) One of the great benefits of the photowalk is seeing how others photographed the scenery and what their creative interpretations were. It can be amazing how everyone can walk the same path and yet come up with such different photographs. One very popular thing to do after a photowalk is for everyone to post their images on a Flickr group page. This is truly the best way for everyone to share their images and experience.

 

Q. – How do I go about finding a photowalk where I live?

A. – There are a few resources for locating local photowalks. There is actually a site dedicated to posting upcoming events called Photowalking.Org. A good Google search can also be very effective. Just type in photowalk and the location that you are interested in. Here’s a little hint, start with a larger metropolitan area, e.g. Washington DC, or Philadelphia, or Sacramento. This will probably give you better results. There are also many local camera clubs that sponsor such events. Try finding one or two in your area and go from there.

 

Q. – How do I go about planning one of these events on my own?

A. – The Internet will probably be your best bet for organizing and advertising an event.

1.) The first thing you should do is find the location that you believe would be appropriate. Do a little scouting to find areas that will offer a variety of subject matter that a variety of photographers might find interesting. Try to think beyond what you like and focus on what would have the widest appeal to a wide variety of shooters.

2.) Make sure the area is pedestrian-friendly. It is a photowalk after all.

3.) Public access areas are usually the best since there are less restrictions on photography in general.

4.) Once you have a location, pick a date that will work for you and make sure it is far enough out to raise interest. It’s nice to be flexible but let’s face it, there will never be a date that will work for everyone so go ahead and pick one and stick to it. There will be opportunities later on for those that can’t make it.

5.) Advertise in a as many on-line locations as possible. There are multiple web sites that are dedicated to either local photography or photowalking. One site that is dedicated to posting information on photowalking is www.photowalking.org. They would be happy to post your information and help get the word out. If you don’t have a blog, pop on over to WordPress or Blogger and set one up that is dedicated to your photowalk. It will get picked up by search engines and it will serve as a nice focal point for posting your information (and they are free, it doesn’t get any better than that).

6.) Another great resource for getting the word out is to invite your local camera clubs. Most of them have web sites and are happy to pass the word out amongst their members. I was actually very surprised at how many camera clubs there were in my area. The great thing is that once you start getting the word out to them, they usually start spreading it quickly amongst themselves. I was amazed at how many people I have been able to attract to my photowalk by reaching out to the clubs.

7.) Set up a Flickr group and post information about your walk on there. This can be the focal point for everyone to discuss the event, gather information, and post photos at the end of the walk. I have one set up here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/dcphotowalk/

8.) Keep your photowalk manageable in terms of time and distance. From what I have been told, the longer the walk, the more your walkers will lose interest. Two hours seems to be just about right. Make sure your distance will be adequate but not too long. This is a hard one but I am guessing that somewhere between 1 and 2 miles would be just about right. There is a great free website that will allow you to map a route and save it for others to reference. Here is the link to the site: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ Here is the map that I set up for my walk: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1633130

9.) On the day of the walk, have a short introduction period at the beginning so that people know who you are and a little about each other. This will hopefully get a little more interaction between the participants. Try writing down the names of everyone participating and get their homepage or Flickr address so that you can link back to them after the walk. Everyone loves a little link-love.

So there you go. That’s a lot of information about something that really isn’t too complicated, especially if you are just a participant. So now that you are armed with all of this photowalking knowledge, rev up your search engines and find yourself a photowalk to call your own.

 

 

One of the great mysteries in digital imaging is that of resolution and how it differs for printing and your monitor. I have had more than one person ask me to print a poster from a PowerPoint slide where the end result is great text and highly pixelated images. Their big question is always, “why does it look so good projected on an 80″ screen but so bad when I make a 30″ print?” This is usually the point where I try to explain the difference between screen and print resolutions. I don’t even bother with the whole raster vs. vector issue.

The same issue is found in reverse on many photoblogs that I have run across. Many times a photographer will take an image with their multi-megapixel camera and just upload it to their server without thought to actual screen resolutions and optimal sizing. The average 5-MP camera has a resolution of about 1600×1200 pixels. From looking at my user stats, I can tell you that the most common screen resolution is still 1024×768 pixels. In other words, why upload more image than the average user can fit on their screen? Not only are the images too large for standard monitors, but they are using up more server storage than is really needed. So here is another consideration, if you are writing a blog, the actual space the blog text occupies is somewhere between 500 and 750 pixels depending on the blog software and theme you are using. If you are uploading images to live in your blog post, you probably don’t need anything larger than that pixel width for any of your images.

 

Maximum Image Width for my blog is 720 pixels

 

There are exceptions to this rule. If you want to provide a higher resolution image for the reader to view, either using Lightbox or having the image open in a separate window, then you will probably want something larger than 600 pixels. Even so, you should still consider not exceeding the limits of the average reader’s screen. So how do you go about making sure your images are of optimal size? There are a couple of easy solutions.

First off, don’t just dump your images straight into your website (this includes Flickr). First of all, it will take a long time to upload but it will take even longer for someone with a dial-up connection to download. I know as a cable user I sometimes get spoiled by my fast connection and forget that there are those who still connect at 56K and are just as valuable a reader as someone using FIOS. Don’t make them suffer waiting for images to load. Sooner or later, they will just stop visiting your page because they get tired of waiting. Those big images are also resource hogs taking up space on your server. I know that lots of people actually have their blog images hosted on a public storage site like Flickr or Picasa but hey, storage is storage. Why use it if you don’t need to (I actually have other reasons why I don’t host my images via Flickr or Picasa but that’s a subject for a different post.)

Resize the image prior to uploading. This makes sense for a few reasons, not to mention the ones that I just listed above. As with anything having to do with your images, if there is a way to control what happens to them, you should. Why let an automated process resize your images when it is easily done by yourself prior to uploading. The tool I use for resizing is Photoshop. This is a fairly easy process but usually renders really nice results for me.

To resize in Photoshop, it’s just a matter of clicking the Image menu and then on Image Size (you can also use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + Opt + I) The nice thing about the Photoshop resize is that you get to choose which method is used for interpolating your data from large to small. That’s the trouble with downsizing your images, you are effectively throwing out information so you should be careful which information is being tossed.

I typically choose the Bicubic Sharper which, as you can see above, is also recommended by Adobe for reductions. I also use this one for enlargements but once again, more info for a future post. You also have the ability to input which resolution you would like your image to be and, as long as the dimensions are linked, it will maintain your aspect ratio for you by changing the dimension of the other axis (change height and width is automatically changed for you).

There are other methods that will allow you to resize for web in Photoshop, another one to consider is the Save for Web & Devices option found under the Image menu.

This option will allow you to resize and choose your JPEG, PNG, or GIF file options while comparing several different options at once. Above you can see the 4-Up option (no, there is no 7-Up option). This box will also let you deal with slices for making those larger web graphics load even faster. I have to admit that I don’t use this dialog very often but sometimes it is nice to see some comparisons, especially when you want to see how different JPEG compressions will effect your image.

Finally, this brings us to JPEG. If you are running any sort of photoblog, then you want your images to look good. That immediately rules out GIF for your images. Save that for your graphics files. The PNG format isn’t bad and will allow you transparent areas but you can’t set the compression level so there is diminished control over the final image size. That leaves us with JPEG. JPEG, which isn’t actually a file format, it’s a compression algorithm, has been around for years and still works as well today as it did 10 years ago, if you use it right. I’m not going to explain how it works (I really ought to wrie down all these ideas for future posts) but I can tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing.

Here’s a BIG DON’T for you. Don’t just compress your images to a very small size without resizing them first. They will look like crap when they re-open in a browser. I am always surprised by the number of files that people email to me that are less the 300K in size but open to 20MB in Photoshop. Here are some definite DO’s:

Do use as little compression as possible for your image. There is usually no need to go less than Medium on the quality scale.

Do keep the Preview checked on. This will give you a real-time view of how destructive the compression is being to your image.

Do keep an eye on the file size of your image which appears below the Preview Checkbox (see image below). This will tell you how large (or small) your image will be with the current jpeg settings. I try and keep all of my web images under 300K if at all possible. The majority end up around 200K or slightly larger.

So to summarize:

• Don’t use more image then you need on your site. It will load faster and your readers will be happier.
• Know what your optimum sizes are and resize using your favorite image editor (control the destiny of your images).
• Choose the appropriate file size and compression for your images.

Ok, so standing outside taking photographs is not one of them. Actually I am pretty excited because my new Photoshop Layers book written by Matt Kloskowski should be here just in time for me to get stranded in the house. Nothing to do but crank up the fireplace and settle in for some good Photoshop mojo. I’ll be sure to post a review here after I have read it but knowing Matt, it will be nothing short of excellent. So here are the rest of today’s happenings.

- I received an email from a nice guy named Christoph who asked me if I had used the new Aperture 2.0. He has been using Lightroom but still goes back to iPhoto to upload web galleries to his .mac account. He also asked if I think that Photoshop would be worth the investment for a newbie. To answer the questions in order, I have not tried the new Aperture as of yet. I used the previous version but abandoned it a while back for several reasons. Reason 1 was the opposite of Christoph’s problem and that is that I don’t have a .mac account. I have my site hosted by GoDaddy and Aperture didn’t like playing nice with anything that wasn’t a .mac account. The same can be said for iPhoto. If someone at Apple wants to send me a copy, I would be glad to install it and give it a thorough workout and review (read that as, “Reason 2, I’m not spending $200 to find that it doesn’t work the way I want it to, again.”) I am glad to see that Apple came off their cloud and priced the new version at a more reasonable price, unlike the $500 price tag from version 1.0. I noticed that there is a trial that can be downloaded so perhaps I will play with that this weekend. As for whether or not a newbie should buy Photoshop CS3, I would say no. There is just too much going on in there to discourage you in the early goings. What I would recommend is Adobe Photoshop Elements. This program packs many of the features of Photoshop, especially the ones for photographers, into a much easier interface. Once you have mastered Elements, then maybe you would want to make the investment for CS3. By then the learning curve won’t be as steep and you will feel much more comfortable in Photoshop.

- This has been a little under the radar but I just found out that Vincent Versace has been blogging. Vinnie has a new company called Acme Educational (see my post from from Feb. 15) where he is producing some outstanding training materials with some of the best digital artists around. Anyway, I was over at the Acme site and noticed a link to the Acme blog. I clicked in and lo and behold if there weren’t a bunch of posts authored by one VinnieV. Now who else could that be. He has some in depth posts on such things as the new Nik software, new Nikon lenses, and other assorted goodies. So if you want to be informed by one of the industry greats, head on over and see what my buddy Vinnie is up to. You can read his blog here.

- Bargain Shopper Alert Epson is offering rebates on the P-3000 and P-5000 storage units. If you always wanted one of these sleek boxes, now is the time. The 40 GB P-3000 has two separate rebates going on, a $50 rebate that expires on June 30th and a $100 rebate that expires on March 31st. The 80GB P-5000 has a current rebate offer of $100 that expires on February 29th. There is also a free Travel Pack offer if you purchase before April 30th (I have no idea what a travel pack is, maybe power adapters). With deals like these, it will be extremely hard to pass this by. If you have ever seen one of the P-300 or 5000s, you already know what I am talking about. For more information, head on over to Epson (click here).

- DC Photowalk Update Dateline Washington DC – I have now nailed down the final piece for my upcoming Photowalk in Adams-Morgan, the starting time. So here is the scoop for everyone that is planning on coming out. The photowalk will begin at 12:00 Noon at the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan metro stop and proceed East on Calvert St. across the Rock Creek Parkway to 18th St. We will then head south down 18th through the heart of Adams-Morgan. We will then turn West on Kalorama over to Columbia Rd, Then right on Columbia back up to 18th and Calvert, back to the Metro Station. I have created a route map that you can download here. Many thanks to everyone that has emailed me or jumped in over at the Flick Group. As time draws closer I will post some information about how to prepare for your photowalk experience; what to bring, what to expect, that sort of thing. And of course, if there are any changes I will certainly let you know.

- And finally, because we are expecting a winter storm today with snow and freezing rain, I leave you with this shot of spring buds on the trees. Something to look forward to here in the East. Have a great weekend everyone.