Please tell us about yourself.
I started a commercial photography business in 1975 with my wife as my partner. We specialized in catalog, product, editorial illustration, food, annual report, advertising and architectural photography. As the years went on we expanded, my wife decided to go into interior design when I moved the studio and hired my first assistant. In the early 90’s I started to look to the future of digital photography. In 1993 I sold my studio to a pre-press house, which gave us the necessary capital to invest in our first digital system.
That was a Leaf System. We referred to it as the “brick”. It was the size and weight of a brick because of the built in cooling system to keep noise of the chip down. It produced a color image by exposing through a red, green and blue filter, which was then combined in the Leaf software. This gave us a 12.6mb color file with a dynamic range of 11 f-stops. It operated on the back of a Sinar p2 4×5 system. This first system cost $200,000 (this included the necessary computers, added lights and the Sinar system).
I made a decision to leave that scenario when the studio stood at approximately 5,000 Square Feet and had six shooters working for me.
I joined my two sons in a new venture called Hedge New Media. Today we produce multi-media products, produce and direct medical educational seminars and I still do digital photography using a Nikon D2x system.
How did you first hear about photowalking?
I first came across the concept of photowalking as I was doing some general web surfing. The concept sounded interesting and I had been looking for a way to get involved in some way to give something back to the photographic community were I lived (Akron, OH). I found that there were no walks going on in our area.
As I generally do with a new idea I gave it time to percolate and develop in my mind. I then found a listing for Scott Kelby’s second international walk day. Unfortunately it was too late to register to run one in our area. However, I did find one that was taking place in the flats of Cleveland, a wonderful place to do photography so a friend and I signed up. We had a great time and met some great people.
As we gathered together afterwards to have dinner and share the experience I found out that a number of the people present were actually from the Akron area and would be interested in taking part in one locally.
How many photowalks did you attend before hosting your own?
With that in mind my friend and I decided to put one together. However things got busy for the summer and time was slipping away. We finally decided to hold our first walk in October. The problem was we only had 2.5 weeks to get the word out.
I put together a flier, we put together a quick website and I started to do research on the various ways to get the word out quickly. I found a number of online resources in the area that listed ongoing events. I also was able to have our main library distribute the flier to all the branches in our county. The other thing I did was hand out as many fliers as possible in area businesses that I thought would be a good place; i.e local coffee houses, camera stores, etc. I also made an effort to find online resources and discovered a number of “Meetup” groups in our area that were for photographers, they gladly listed our walk as an event.
By the day of the walk we had 34 people sign up. As the day started out is was cold and looked like rain but I sent out emails to all you signed up to let them know we were going ahead. By the start of the walk 24 people showed up, a few that had just found out about it that morning and decided to come.
All had a great time.
About how many photowalks have you hosted since then?
Right now just the one listed above but we have just announced our second walk that will take place on April 24th. As of this write-up the listing has been live for 3 days and already we have 24 people signed up. We also plan on doing a walk on the day that Scott Kelby has his day and are working on plans for at least one more in the fall.
What tips do you have for someone looking to host a photowalk?
Know first off that it is going to take a fair amount of time to organize and manage. Because I have a full time business to run I made a conscious decision that all Photowalk work had to be done in the evening so it wouldn’t interfere with me day job.
Be open to the ideas of others. While I knew were I wanted to hold our first walk, I also asked the people who signed up to come up with ideas for future walks and when they’d like to hold them. This makes it more of a community event and not one that I am running and directing. I strongly believe in groups running with as little central control as possible. Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge and look to others to share there’s!
Think beyond the norm. If you really want to make the walks events that people will want to take part in several times how can you hold their interest. Here’s one example. After our walk we met at a local restaurant to share the experience and get to know each other better. I noticed on the walls an art exhibit going on so a few days after our walk I approached the owner with the idea of hosting an exhibit of photographs from our walk. It took sometime to work out the details but they agreed to take a chance on us. It was also a chance I was taking since I had only seen some of the work on our Flickr page. I knew there was some good work but also knew that pretty much none of the walkers had ever shown their work in public before. Eleven shooters decided to take place and we now have 66 prints displayed. Again, I wanted each person to have the freedom and control over their images and how they displayed them. A few asked for advice on how best to mount them and what they should charge for them (yep, all prints were going to be for sale!). We had a show opening on January 30th and had over 60 people attend! Two prints sold on opening night and the show will be going on for six weeks. What the show has done is create a level of excitement and interest beyond what I ever thought would happen.
What tips do you have for someone looking to join a photowalk?
There are some great resources fir finding walks, such as this great list, and others. Do some web surfing and keep an eye open for the next Scott Kelby walk day, I’m guessing it will take place but haven’t heard anything yet.
Don’t be afraid to join up. There is no required level of experience and certainly any camera will work. Most of the images I took that day were with my wife’s Nikon Coolpix and not my D2X!
The only goal I believe one should have on a Photowalk is to have a great time! Beyond the photography, I have already made several new friends that never would have come into my life if I didn’t take part in a Photowalk or put one on!
Please share links to your photowalk group, your flickr page, photography portfolio, etc…
Website: http://www.photowalkakron.com/
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/lv7tx7
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AkronPhotoWalk
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/photowalkakron/
Blog: http://photowalkakron.com/blog/
Unfortunately my personal and business site are currently offline.
