World Wide Photo Walk 2013

It's time to start thinking about Scott Kelby's World Wide Photo Walk again. This year the walk date is October 5 and will be hosting a walk in the West Palm Beach area. It will be my third year participating and my second hosting a walk.

For those who are not familiar with the annual photo walk, it's a day where people all over the world go out in a particular place in the world in groups of up to 50 people and walk around for about 2 hours taking pictures of whatever they find interesting along the way. It's not so much about the photography but about getting together with others, meeting new people and making friends.

You don't need fancy expensive gear, nor any experience with photography. If you are into taking pictures with your phone, bring that. Do you have a favorite point-and-shoot camera? Use that. Whatever tool makes you happy, use that and come out to meet some really friendly people.

After your walk, if you wish, you can submit your favorite photo the the walk photo contest, where you can win a cool prize. If your picture wins your walk's contest, you will be entered into the world wide contest for a chance to win even cooler prizes. It's all great fun really.

Ok, so how do you get in on this? It's easy. go to the World Wide Photo Walk site and look for a walk in your city - or even a place you would like to visit. If there is a walk there, just sign up. It's that easy. If there is not a walk listed in your city why not apply to host one? That is easy too. You can find instructions on how to do that on the site as well.

My first walk was hosted by a friend and covered the downtown area of West Palm Beach, FL. I went with my step daughter and we had a great time walking around, talking and finding things to shoot. It's all very laid back, you can take pictures of anything you want! If you are the shy type and feel weird breaking out the camera in the middle of the street to shoot a fire hydrant, well there will be a bunch of other weirdos shooting that hydrant with you. So just let yourself go and have a great time. Bring a friend, a spouse, a son, a daughter and spend some quality time together. Afterwards you will both have the pictures to remember the day and will have had a bonding experience that is priceless. You can see more of what that walk was like on this post.

The following year I was actually able to host a walk in the West Palm Beach area. I took my group to the zoo for a little different flavor on the walk idea.

Mine was actually the second walk in the area so my group was pretty small as far as walks go. I can tell you though the number of people involved doesn't really take anything away from the enjoyment of the day. We had a great time, I met some very nice people and we all got some beautiful shots of the animals and scenery of the Palm Beach Zoo.

Most of the people in the group were just casual shooters and one group was actually visiting from out of town wanted to join in. We got lucky with a small crowd at the zoo and some very favorable weather. It did rain for about 5 or 10 minutes, but that is typical for Florida. I was very pleased with the shots I got that day. They were some of my favorite wildlife shots ever.

This year I'm again hosting a photo walk here in the Palm Beach area. I will be going back to a conventional walk exploring the upscale shops at Worth Ave. in Palm Beach. We will start our walk just across the bridge and walk up Worth Ave. If you are not familiar with this area, Worth Ave. is the Palm Beach equivalent of Rodeo Dr. in Beverly Hills. With designer shops as far as the eye can see, beautiful gardens and store fronts, and expensive cars lining the streets we'll go along until we hit the beautiful beach.

From the beach we can head back inland to see the town hall and then walk over to Royal Palm Way which is just lined with giant palm trees on both sides of the street. This will bring us back to the starting point, but the walk will continue across the bridge and along the waters of the intracoastal on Flagler drive up to E.R. Bradley's Saloon, where we will all get together for a drink and to share the stories (and pictures) of the day.

If you would like to join my photo walk in beautiful Palm Beach, just follow this link to sign up. I expect it will be a lot of fun with some beautiful photo opportunities along the way. I can't way for Oct. 5 and then to tell you all about it here on the blog.