39° North Photography

As promised, here are a few more images from Friday’s photowalk:

 And now, a few random observations about this experience:

• I really enjoyed being around the other photographers who participated in this photowalk. I’ve vowed in the past to spend more time with other photographers and haven’t really followed through with it. I tend to be easily intimidated by people with better cameras and longer lenses and who toss around photography terms and concepts that I can only pretend to understand. However, these activities can be great learning experiences and it’s definitely some good practice so this time I REALLY MEAN IT when I vow to spend more time with other photographers!
• I was really counting on this photowalk to kickstart my flagging level of creativity and my motivation in general to do photography, and I think it worked. The key is to just get out there and do it. 
• Making pictures when it’s that cold is a challenge. I kept having to take my gloves off to work the buttons and dials on my camera and my fingers got REALLY cold. And my battery, which will generally last all day on warmer days, died after a little over an hour. And I left my extra battery on the charger at home. (It was time to go inside anyway).
• On the other hand, one doesn’t need to let a little bit of adverse weather keep one at home. There were definitely some great photographic opportunities out there and I was glad I didn’t let a little snow and c-c-cold keep me from taking advantage of them as I was actually quite pleased with some of the images I made that day.

That’s all. If you’re interested in viewing the full gallery of my images from this photowalk, you can find them HERE. The gallery for the photowalk group can be found HERE.

I was doing a Google search on the term “photo blogs” yesterday and it seemed to me that “photo blogs” consist mostly of people (who are not necessarily “photographers”) chronicling the events of their lives through photos instead of through words like in a regular blog. Or they might be blogs by photographers showcasing their photographs but that’s all. That’s not exactly what I’m doing here. My blog is photos AND writings… a little bit about me, a little bit about my photography, a little bit about photography in general and a little bit about who knows what else. I thought that there must be a better word, so I came up with the term “photoblogography” to describe what I think this is. But then I Googled “photoblogography” and found that the term is TOTALLY not original with me. Rats. Just when I thought I was so terribly clever. I guess I’ll just call it a blog.

 Now back to the resolutions…

Fire Hose, 2008 Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk, Golden, Colorado

7. Spend time with other photographers
I have a lot to learn about photography and whom better to learn from and learn with than other photographers? As competitive as the field of photography is, I’ve found that photographers in general are an amazingly genial, cooperative, collaborative bunch of people. There are numerous opportunities here in the Denver area to get together on a regular basis with other photographers. In 2008, I attended the first annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk, with my local group meeting in Golden, CO. It’s a wonderful event that I heartily recommend for photographers of all interests and abilities and it’s so cool knowing that there are thousands of photographers all over the world doing the same thing on the same day. I inadvertently missed last year’s walk (MUCH to my dismay), but there’s a group of photographers that evolved out of the first Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk that continues to meet up for photo walks on a fairly regular basis. I have yet to go on one of those photo walks, which is really a shame. I need to do that. There are also a few excellent photography clubs around and a new Smug Mug Users Group in town. I hereby resolve to get together with other photographers as much as possible this year.

8. Develop my post-processing skills
I would guess that most photographers consider Adobe Photoshop to be the industry standard among photo editors (although I’ve been hearing a whole lotta hubbub about Adobe Lightroom lately) and I’m lucky enough to have the latest version of Adobe Creative Suite. But I have to admit that Photoshop intimidates me. A LOT. There’s just sooooo much to it and SOOOOOOOO much I don’t know about it. It would behoove me to take some major steps toward getting comfortable with Photoshop. The local photo walk group will be offering monthly creativity workshops starting this month that I could attend. There’s a local Photoshop user group that I could join. And here are a lot of great books on the subject available. So there’s really no excuse.