Isaac Online

I didn’t plan on attending Scott Kelby’s 2nd Annual World Wide Photo Walk.  I knew it took place on a weekend and I knew I worked weekends.  I didn’t even bother to check the website at www.worldwidephotowalk.com until the night before.  It was then, just before bed, that I discovered that the Portland area actually had 4 diffent walks (might have been more, I didn’t even look to see if there was anything in Vancouver, WA).  Sadly I discovered that a photographer I almost idolize was leading a walk first thing in the morning.  That walk, lead by Scott Borne, was out of the question.

I hemmed and hawed it the rest of the day.  There was one evening walk in the Pearl District of Portland.  I’m in that area VERY often as my wife works there.  Just blocks away is one of Portland’s largest photography shops, Pro Photo Supply.  I practically know the area inside and out. I didn’t plan on attending. “Been there, done that” thoughts in my head…

As I got home, Saturday, I found a new responce on Twitter.  A former coworker, that I hadn’t seen (aside from TV) in about 7 years was attending the walk, now just a couple hours from starting.  Cool, I told myself, I guess I’ll go.  I formatted my memory card, charged up my battery, made sure the rest of my gear was set, made that my LowePro Fastpack 250 wasn’t going to abuse my fresh sunburn to badly, kissed my wife good-bye and headed out.

There was a variety of people at the photowalk.  Amateurs to pros. Old Sony point & shoots and brand new Canon 5d-mkII’s and Nikon D3s.  Some people shooting handheld and others packing expensive Gitzo carbonfiber tripods.  I fell somewhere in the middle with my old trusty Canon 20D and the excellent TrekTech Trek-Pod.

After the walk leader introduced himself and the plan for the very short, 2 hour walk, I found my friend Joe and his fiance.  None of us were quite willing to join the rest of the 30+ person mob from scene-to-scene-to-bar, so we took our own little detour.  We strayed only 2 blocks from everyone else, which allowed me to take them to the (Willamette) rivers edge for a few shots, and we caught a train leaving Union Station (photo below).

We did catch up with the rest of the group before long and continued on to the pre-determined ending point.  I did have a lot of fun.  My friend Joe was shooting a Nikon D300 so we were taking shots at each other in good fun.  I got to see some of the cool features of the Canon T1i – such and the incredible live view zoom feature. Ideal for checking your focus!  Saw that in action with a Tokina 11-22mm and it was impressive.  Of course, most cameras seem to impress me.

I had a great time on the photo walk.  It seemed different than some of the other photography meet ups i’ve attended before.  We actually took pictures!  I was surprised, too, that I was the ONLY person that brought along some prints.  Sure, there were a few laptops with people showing off images, but nothing tangible.  I’ll stop here, before I start going off about making prints again…

I’m now looking forward to next years World Wide Photo Walk.  I will plan ahead of time, take time from work, and see if I can’t get myself into more than one walk.