Photowalking.org

Wow! What a turn out!

We were supposed to meet on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, at 6pm on a Friday. I wanted some of the walk to be at dusk, and the rest after it became dark. Unfortunately, I chose a meeting place that placed it smack dab in the between any convenient Metro stops. Mistake on my part. I knew that Washington DC is a “walking city”, much like New York City. Well, I could have picked a better meeting place.

The wife and I took the Metro to the Smithsonian Metro stop with 15 minutes to spare. That’s pretty much on the opposite side of the Washington Monument, from the Lincoln Memorial, 1.2 miles away. Not smart.

When I walked up, I expected to see a small group gathering to the side. Generally, a photowalking group is easy to spot; just look for the dSLRs and tripods. As I approached the steps, I saw this large group of people milling around. I initially thought, “I hope I can find our photowalkers, through all those other people.” Then, I realized, “That’s our group!”

You have no idea how excited I was to realize that so many people showed up for a photowalk, especially with Scott Kelby’s large network of photowalks the following day. From my group photo, I counted about 50 people. I know there were a few who opted out of the group photo, and several arrived after we got started. So, I’m thinking that around 60 people attended this photowalk. Sweet!

We got started right away, with a quick briefing by me and then we sat down for that group photo. The next spot we wandered to was the Korean Conflict Memorial. It was pretty cool to watch our large group slowly and quietly ebb and flow around that memorial, as we all sought our perfect shot.

Our next stop was back in front of the Lincoln Memorial, for a quick stop in front of the Reflecting Pool, then off to the Vietnam Memorial. I think we started to thin out by now, and then we spread out on the walk to the World War II Memorial. Several of us stopped for a cool sunset shot, halfway to the WWII Memorial.

Once at the WWII Memorial, most of us gathered up again to shoot the sunset sky and then the subsquent darkness with the lit fountains of the Memorial. It was here that I got my personal favorite shot of the Lincoln Memorial. I used my new Sigma 70-300mm, and captured a few varied exposure shots, for a later HDR. At home I created a very unique, but cool shot from those frames.

Our group was quickly thinning, as we crossed the street up to the Washington Monument. This was the first spot we were approached by security, informing us that we could not use our tripods on the walkways or anything that wasn’t grass. One of us, who will go unnamed, made a valient effort to discuss the validity of this policy. However, in the end we were relegated to the grassy areas for our mounted work.

Our next wandering took us to my end. As we headed down the open Mall, towards the Capitol building, I saw my end-all-be-all shot. That one shot I’ve always wanted. I stopped, captured it, and was quickly instructed by my none-photowalking-yet-patient wife that we were done. Our 1.75 mile adventure had exhausted her attention for photowalking, and it was now time to call it a “day”.

No problem, I was getting tired myself. At this point there was only a handful of the faithful left. We parted and headed back to our hotel. Honestly, I’m not sure how many photowalked to the end. Hopefully we’ll be enlightened in the comments. I want to thank Kendrick Hang, for all his work in organizing a great number of local photographers, who came out for the photowalk.

I will end with my own opinion that this was one of the most fun, and exciting photowalks! I was able to photograph some of the most beautiful and popular locations, in some great light. Satisfied, I am.

Below are a few of my favorites, so far, from the photowalk. I have this feeling that many of the photowalkers are not regular users of Flickr, so we may have a hard time organizing their work. For the few who remembered, and tagged their photos properly, I was able to view thier work. Everyone who attended is listed below as well. If you attended, and don’t use Flickr, please leave me the link in the comments. I’ll add it to the list below. Here’s the list of all the correctly tagged photos too.

• Trevor Carpenter
• Shawn Duffy
• Andy Roth
• Kendrick Hang
• Michael Wenthold
• Mark Anderson
• Marcellina