What I Learned From Co-Hosting A Photo Walk By Kevin McNeal

 

I recently got the chance to co-host a Photo Walk in Vancouver, BC, Canada with 500px. We also had the luck to have Fuji as a sponsor for the event and to have a representative from Fuji join us. About 80 people participated in the Photo Walk. There were lots of Fuji giveaways and everybody walked away with some goodies including a lucky participant that won an underwater camera.

For those that were wondering what exactly a Photo Walk is. Here is the short answer; it’s an organized photo event that brings photographers together from all walks of life with a common interest in taking pictures.

There are many benefits to joining a Photo Walk in your local area. It gets photographers together with like-minded goals. It introduces you to the events and organizations that are in your area that have to do with photography. Also, it gives you the chance to meet all kinds of people with diverse backgrounds that, when together, share ideas and thoughts. The Photo Walks often take place in an area of the city that really highlight the area’s beauty. It’s a great way to see your city as well learn new things.

For this Photo Walk I chose the Vancouver Seawall in Stanley Park as the place to meet the group of photographers and really showcase Vancouver’s stunning city skyline views. Vancouver is well known around the world for its tall buildings and gorgeous harbor views of the city. The Vancouver Seawall is just a short walk from the main downtown area, yet allows one to feel like you are far enough away from the city to really enjoy it without the crowds.

The group started at the historic Vancouver Rowing Club and worked its way around the seawall shooting all different perspectives of the city skyline. Right away we encountered a great spot for photographing fall colors. Some people got adventurous and laid on the grass and took turns photographing the fall leaves. The photo below is an example.

 

The shooting of the fall colors gave the group a great chance talk about the potential of an important concept in nature photography called High Dynamic Range or HDR. High Dynamic Photography is the process of taking multiple exposures of the same scene with different exposures and combining them into one exposure. The final exposure is made up of all the exposures and thus has a wider dynamic range of exposure in a single image. Some had done it before and others were learning about it for the first time. People also shared some of their tricks when shooting, as for example, when shooting into the sun at an aperture of f/22 to make a sun star. After finishing shooting the fall colors and trees along the seawall the group moved on to shoot the inner harbor and city skyline. Everyone was eager to learn all about the different ways to shoot the city as well as learn about their camera settings to take advantage of the light. We choose a time to photograph near sunset to show of the late light of twilight on the cityscape as shown in the examples below.

 

 

 

We were also fortunate enough to get a near full moon that gave the group more opportunities to shoot late into the night. The group made its way along the seawall noting some of the local wildlife such as the harbor seals. People also took time to talk about photo equipment and what cameras and lenses to use and in what situations to use them. With a wide diversity of cameras and tripods the group tried out several different pieces of equipment including some newer lenses by Fuji. The Vancouver Seawall is also in my opinion one of the best places to shoot panoramas of the city with reflections. So the group got together and did some panoramas that worked out great with the light and the location. The scenes below show examples of panoramas.

 

 

 

The sun began to set in the west and the last of the day’s light hit the Vancouver landscape city skyline. This gave the group an opportunity to shoot a group photo of some of the participants, which people can share. We managed to all squeeze close enough with the backdrop of Vancouver.

 

 

Eventually we made our way back to the start of the Photo Walk continuing to photograph the city at night with all its glorious reflections in the water. The group even found a way to shoot at night without a tripod by placing the camera on the seawall ledge, which made for a great impromptu tripod.

 

 

During the few hours together we got to know each other and made new friends. We also learnt lots of new things about Vancouver and photography.

The night ended with people exchanging contact information and well as the promise to post their images on their Facebook page.

Co-hosting the event with 500px gave me a great opportunity to learn some new things as well as meet a great bunch of new people. It was amazing to see how many people showed up from different experiences yet shared a common goal of taking great photos. So thank you everyone who showed up and hope to see everyone again in the near future. And thanks to our sponsor, Fuji and 500px for co-hosting the event.