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Articles Tagged with: Scott Kelby

Photo Walking In Historic Charleston

Worldwide Photowalk 2014 - Charleston SC

Welcome to the 300th post on my blog! I’ve had some posts here that have been pretty popular, a lot that have been virtually ignored, and hopefully some that have struck a chord with my readers.

But this isn’t about that, this is about Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk 2014. Just take a look at this crew of local photographers who ventured out on the historic streets of the lower Charleston peninsula:

Weather-wise, it may have been the most perfect day ever conceived. It was like San Francisco perfect. I brought my daughter again this year, and she invited 4 of her art-school friends who all took to the streets in true teenage fashion.

I was sporting my trusty Fuji X-T1 camera, and my approach this year was a little different than the past. Possibly because I was herding 5 teenage girls around, or maybe because I was carrying a smaller camera, but I just let the pictures come to me instead of seeking them out. Plus, I was able to get the girls involved to make a memorable and creative experience with them.

Using the environment to influence a photo, I was able to setup a shot with the girls, but then this woman walked into the frame walking this massive dog, making for a cool street photo:

It’s pretty common this time of year to see another photographer earning their living by shooting a beautiful couple. When I stumbled upon this scene, I thought to myself, “What better street photo in the French Quarter than one of a wedding photographer at work?”

Cooler still, the entourage had a limousine complete with a silver-haired driver in a tuxedo. I asked the driver if I could make a portrait of him, and asked him to stand naturally just like he was before I approached him:

My favorite shot of the walk came by the harbor in the reeds. I saw this cool lone purple flower in the reeds and decided to get low and shoot it. One of the girls came walking into frame and this photo came together – I asked her to turn around and look back in my direction to capture this:

Strange thing about this photo – It became one of the most viewed photos of all of the photos in my Flickr stream overnight. Sometimes the less you try to create something special, the more likely something special will present itself to you. You just need to have the eyes to see it when it happens and enough skill to capture it in a concise fashion that lets the photo do the talking. As Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

World Wide Photo Walk Charleston 2013

Today was the 6th annual World Wide Photo Walk organized annually by Scott Kelby. I’ve been walking in these for a few years now, check out this and this. Last year my daughter joined me and she had a blast, so she signed up once again for this year’s event.

Last year we did the evening walk at Shem Creek, so this year we went on the morning walk in historic downtown Charleston. We started out in Waterfront park and made are way through the streets of the lower peninsula.

To shake things up this year, I decided to stick with one fixed length lens. My choice? A 50mm f/1.4.

Only having one lens to choose from at one focal length is quite freeing. I had to pick my shots carefully and instead of working it and solving problems like I do on a daily basis, I either had a shot, or I didn’t. My feet are my zoom, and there are no ultra wide angles either. Just one normal focal range. It’s kind of like drawing with just one pencil. The limitations free you up to keep it simple. And that’s what most of the shots I took reflect.

My first lesson for my daughter was to isolate the subject. “How?” she asked. Composition. Move around until you can see just the subject of the photo with the least amount of distractions.

Lesson two was to look for contrasts. Big and small, light and dark, and also contrasting colors. Reds and blues are one of my favorite. Add some green, and I’m excited!

I did look for some people to shoot as well. A mother and daughter were sitting in a pastry shop that we had stopped in to grab a drink in. I was taking a shot of my coffee cup and the mom said, “Why don’t you take a picture of us? We’re more interesting than an inanimate object!” I couldn’t agree more. She then said I should Instagram it. Unfortunately Nikon hasn’t figured out how to post to Instagram from their DSLR’s directly, but that didn’t stop me from giving her some instant gratification. iPhone to the rescue!

@skyfran 's mom told me to post this. I don't know these ladies! #wwpw #wwph2013 #CHS #strangers #streetphotography

I saw this guy power-washing a building and loved how the spray was glowing in the sun:

We took a detour looking for some graveyards because my daughter wanted to shoot an angel statue. She said it was because of the “Weeping Angels” from Doctor Who. Who am I to say no? Unfortunately, all of the cemeteries that we went to were chained up. As we were leaving the walk, we came up this awesome little magic shop, and guess what was outside?

I guess it was magic? Whatever you believe, I had a great time shooting with my kid. You can see all of the shots I took in this Flickr set.

2012 Worldwide Photowalk Decisions

Kayaks at Shem Creek

Paddleboardering Under The Bridge

This past weekend was the 5th annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk all around the globe. We had a couple of groups participating here in Charleston, and I opted to walk with the evening group in Mount Pleasant.

Above are my two favorite shots that I made from the walk. I got a bunch of stuff I thought turned out well for a photowalk, as these walks are more about hanging out with other photographers and helping each other out than making a world-class photograph. I had the pleasure of hanging out with my daughter Mackenzie who was shooting with my Nikon P7000:

Mackenzie scopes out the graffiti under the Shem Creek bridge

She also volunteered to take the group shot, but I wanted her to be in it, so I grabbed my tripod and set the timer on my D800 to take this shot of the walkers:

Backlit sunlight, shade, and incandescent lights? The D800 fared pretty well at dealing with this mixed bag of lighting in the shot!

So anyway, the worst part of these photowalks is deciding which photo to submit as your favorite shot that you took on the walk. I’m torn between the two shots at the top of the post. The kayak shot is definitely more striking and grabs you first, and it has some excellent lighting as it was taken just as the sun was setting. The paddleboat shot is a bit more dynamic in my opinion. The subject is just plain awesome, I love the kid looking up at her dad while he’s paddling. I love the sidelight of the bridge trestle and the pattern that it creates. I love that the subject is framed within it. Ugggh!

While the sunset itself wasn’t spectacular at all (no clouds = boring sunset), I did get a descent photo of it here:

But, I’m not gonna submit that one because it doesn’t speak to me the way the other two do. So which one do you prefer? The Kayaks or the Paddlboarder?

CS6 For Photographers Seminar in Charlotte

I drove up to Charlotte, NC on Monday night and found myself in a Howard Johnson’s just outside of town. Sometime after 3:00 AM after watching 3 consecutive episodes of Breaking Bad on my iPad, I finally got to bed. I haven’t suffered from insomnia since I was a teenager, and boy was I unable to sleep. I knew I shouldn’t have taken a B12 supplement after dinner, but I didn’t want to get noddy during my drive after a long day of work. I can’t imagine having to suffer like that on a regular basis – its an absolute nightmare to me. Even more frightening was my alarm that went off seemingly instantly after I finally closed my eyes.

If you have ever seen the opening scene to Office Space, that was how my 20 minute drive that lasted almost an hour was as I headed to Charlotte’s convention center from my hotel. Regardless, I made it to the seminar in good time and got a great seat right up front behind the projector. The day long class, which was created by Scott Kelby, was being taught by none other than RC Conception.

RC did a fantastic job, teaching not only the material that Scott had put together, but also elaborating on it with his own insights and tricks. He’s an extremely approachable guy and it’s no wonder he is beloved by the photography community. He’s got a great sense of humor that never makes him look smarmy – he comes off as a guy you’d like to hang out with, which makes a day-long class on a piece of software much more manageable.

The photo at the top of the post is one I snapped of the classroom seconds before the start – RC is in the back of the class standing and waiting to be formally introduced by the Kelby Training tour manager. The shot directly above is of yours truly with RC. I handed my camera to one of the attendees (wasn’t hard finding a willing photographer there).

After the seminar, I walked around the downtown area looking for a bite to eat and enjoying the architecture.

There was this one mirrored sculture on a corner that this exchange student was getting her photo taken of in front of by her host family. A couple of us photogs were patiently waiting for them to be done, when I realized they were never going to be done! I walked away and came back 15 minutes later and they were still there! Well, now she became my subject!

I asked her permission first, and then explained to her hosts that the shot I envision involving this interesting art piece is of the reflections themselves. I snapped a couple of shots like this:

It was a nice little release of creativity after absorbing so much photographic knowledge all day! If you’re able to make it to one of the Kelby Training Live events, please do so. They’re not expensive at all and are a great experience.

4th Annual Worldwide Photo Walk

Scott Kelby has organized the 4th global photowalk this weekend, and this year Charleston had two groups of walkers. After sweating my way in the daytime during last year’s photowalk, I opted for the evening walk led by Eugene Mah.

The group met at the fountain by Charleston’s waterfront park. I swear, I never made it out of the park! While we were setting up to take our group photo, I noticed some dancers practicing in the grass. As soon as the walk started, I walked up to the dancers and asked them if I could take some pictures of them. They were no strangers to the lens, so they were more than helpful models! Taz started out by doing leaps over me as I laid down in the grass:

Natalya was up next. I decided to mount my SB-600 on my tripod to try and illuminate her face as she was jumping. It was not easy trying to time the leaps – I’ve got about a dozen shots of her just before or just after the precipice of her jump. I did get this one though, which is all I needed 😉

While I was rolling around in the grass with a camera to my eye, a familiar face popped up – It was my local photog buddy Marty! He got some great shots of the girls as well.

As Natalya was resting, I made a casual portrait:

The sun was setting, so we moved over to the barrier wall to take advantage of the beautiful sky. Unfortunately there were no clouds, but I think the clear sky definitely influenced my compositions.

The light was quickly fading, I focused on shooting Natalya, while Marty was shooting Taz. We were both using off-camera flashes to light out subjects. I shot most of my shots with a Tokina 11-16mm ultra wide angle lens wide open at f/2.8. Natalya was doing splits (pictured at the top of this post) and stretches on top of the wall that would make a parent squeamish. She was awesome at this!

At this point, Marty and I realized that we spent almost the whole walk in one spot! More like a photo shoot than a walk – so we headed over to the fountain to get some long exposure night-shots of the water.

After that we went to the rendezvous point, a cool bar/grill called The Griffon. While waiting, we decided to shoot the old Chevy parked in front of the gelato place next to the bar.

I do love to take long exposures of people walking. This group of sailors made this shot:

We met up with some other walkers and went inside the Griffon to tell our war stories and watch the last half of Clemson’s trouncing of Virginia Tech. I shot the table next to us just because I had the shooting bug in me and found it hard to stop.

Marty, Eugene, & I went up on the roof of the parking garage where we were parked and tried to get some last minute shots. I had nothin’. It was late, surprisingly cold, and I was tired. My tiny little travel tripod was not having the wind up on the roof, and the shots I took up there are proof! Instead of making excuses, I made my way home 🙂

You can check out the full set of shots I made on my Flickr set. Also check out Marty’s set while you’re over there! Chuck Boyd was also on hand as were many members of his 21st Century Photography Group.