Adobe Photo Walk

For those of you who haven’t participated in a photo walk, I’d say you’re missing out on a great experience. Photo walks, as the name implies, is an activity participated by a number of photography enthusiasts. It’s usually led by someone who knows a particular area or district. The group can vary from a handful to a huge number. This was the case on the morning of August 28, 2010 when more than a hundred of us descended in the streets of San Francisco to participate in Adobe’s 2nd Photo Walk.

We started our day with brief introductions at Adobe’s offices along Townsend Street close to the China Basin district of San Francisco. The weather channel called for a forecast of a mild cloudy day. The day was far from cloudy. It was perfect! With sunny skies and a wonderful industrial district around us, all 100+ participants started photographing railroad tracks, fire hydrants, kayakers, and even the occasional wildlife along China Basin. I often wondered what the other people thought as our group, en masse, crossed streets and walked the pathways. It must have been a weird experience for them seeing all of these photographers with our cameras in tow. The event also allowed me to see a couple of good friends that I haven’t seen in a long time. It was also a great chance to bring my wife, Melissa, to her very first photo walk. A couple of our other friends also joined the walk. Altogether, there were six of us in our mini-group that ended up breaking off with the main pack.

For some people, the idea of a photo walk is more of a social event. Here, you can get to expand your network of photographers and learn from their trade. It’s a great chance to start new connections with people who specialize in the same areas of phot ography that you do. Others on the other hand see it as a chance to gawk at other photographer’s equipment – to see the new gear that people are using. There are also some who simply enjoy the “safety and security” of being able to photograph people and places while with a big group.

No matter what your intentions are to participate in a photo walk, try to set goals for yourself. While some of my friends tried only using one type of lens (i.e. a 50mm f1.4), others tried to capture the urban feel of one of the City’s industrial districts. My goal during the walk was to expand on my architectural stock image portfolio. The China Basin district boasts numerous brand new high-rise condominiums and apartments. I walked away from the event with about 150+ stock images. Not bad.

After an hour of shooting and walking, we all met up back at Adobe’s offices for a demonstration and open discussion on Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 led by Adobe’s topnotch evangelists – Tom Hogarty (Adobe Lightroom Product Manager) and Brian O’Neil Hughes (Adobe Photoshop Senior Product Manager). Both Tom and Brian were amazed by the depth of the questions raised by the group. We were, after all, avid users of their product. It was a great discussion over pizza,salad and beer which were all provided by Adobe. Oh did I mention the entire event was FREE? It was wonderful and well presented that even I, an old dog in the realms of Photoshop and Lightroom, got excited on the possibilities that’s out there.

With everything said and done, everyone left Adobe’s offices with smiles from ear to ear. It was a perfect day. Everyone seemed happy and the folks at Adobe made sure everyone had a grand time. My hats off to Adobe for hosting this wonderful event. I wish many more of these would come around. Maybe there might be an interest within our group of a hundred to do an ad hoc event. Who knows. I bet many of us are looking forward to another walk around the city by the bay. So what do you think? Shall we?

Ciao!

P.S. Try to bring a couple of different lenses just to be on the safe side if you’re unsure on what to bring. I packed a couple of lenses during the shoot. I had my 24-70mm f2.8L and the 70-200mm f2.8L. They both came in handy.

P.P.S. I love dimsum. Shu shi bao rules!