Gotta shoot out the door for a meeting at Adobe UK this morning; lots of exciting stuff to discuss and put in place which I’ll let you know more about asap

In the mean time though here’s a date for your diary: Saturday 14th July 2012

I’ll post more details including the who, where, why, what and when in the near future and in the next Newsletter, but just just for now dig out your bucket and spade, put your fish and chip order in and I’ll catch you soon,

Enjoy

• • •

The largest Photographic and Social Event of it’s kind (come to think of it…of any kind) this Record Breaking Event brings together thousands of like-minded people in Cities across the World for a weekend full of Photography, Friendship and Community Spirit and in the process helps to raise much needed Charitable funds.

The fact that there is actually a Competition running with incredible prizes on offer seems almost secondary to what the World Wide Photo Walk brings, but when all is said and done there is a Competition…and Competitions need Winners.

Aside from organising and co-ordinating a Walk, the role of each City Leader is to choose a winning photograph from those who took part; not an easy task when you see the quality of some of the photographs submitted believe me.

However, the winning photograph from the Oxford, UK Scott Kelby Wide Photo Walk 2011 is this great image below taken by Photo Walker Steve Graham…

HUGE Congratulations to Steve who for winning the Oxford, UK walk not only receives a copy of Scott Kelby’s new Best Selling Book Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It [Link], but is also now entered into the Overall World Wide Competition with the chance of winning some incredible Photography related gifts; way to go Steve!!!

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In addition to the main World Wide Photo Walk Competition, we also held some extra Competition categories with prizes on offer too, for the Oxford crowd:

• Best Mobile Phone Photograph of the day
• Perfect Timing
• Best Bicycle Photograph; which for those of you who’ve been to Oxford will know is quite appropriate

And what an incredible weekend it was!!! I had the absolute pleasure of organising and leading one of the UK legs, in the beautiful City of Oxford and was joined by a great bunch of folks who’d travelled far and wide…some as far as Florida and Texas in the USA; admittedly they were here visiting family and friends but how cool is that

This was the 4th Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk, this time seeing over 1117 walks going on around the world and an excess of 30,000 photographers of varying levels taking part; Photography Professionals all the way to folks who like to take the occasional photo with their mobile phones…

Having fun and making friends with like minded people really is what the World Wide Photo Walk is all about, and taking photos and the chance to win thousands of pounds worth of prizes is an added bonus, and I know I’m not alone when I say this but I’ve met people by doing these walks over the past 4 years that have now become some of my greatest friends…

It’s incredible how fast the 2 hour walk went by; so fast I only managed to take a few shots the entire time in-between all the walking, chatting and laughter…

A HUGE thank you from me to everyone who came along and made the day what it was; a day with lots of laughs, meeting up with and making new friends, and some photography thrown in for good measure…and hey what about that weather

So did you take part in a walk? If not, then why not look at taking part next year and being part of what is a whole lot of fun, and undoubtedly the biggest photography and social event there is!
Enjoy

*Photo Walkers around the World have until 12pm EDT on Friday 7th October to submit their images to the relevant Photo Walk Web Page, and be entered for a chance to win thousands of pounds worth of prizes including software, books, photography equipment and much more…Good luck everyone!

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First off though I highly recommend you head on over to Scott’s own blog and read through his 7 tips for Walkers that he posted up earlier this week…

Just to add to Scott’s tips, here’s a few pointers that are mainly for those of you who are joining me in Oxford this coming Saturday but do still hold some relevance no matter where you’ll be, along with details of more prizes on offer…

1) Parking
Now, parking in Oxford, is well….’Challenging‘ to put it politely but that being said the City does offer a superb park & Ride Facility. There’s several Park and Ride locations dotted around the outskirts of the City so it’s worth checking out the Official Park & Ride website to see which is best for you [Link]

I’ll be coming into Oxford from the direction of the M40 so I’ll be using the Thornhill Park & Ride, which like all the others gives Free Parking and a ‘cheap as chips’ return trip on the bus into Oxford for just £2.20 each or £4.00 for a couple

Be warned though, these Car Parks do fill up and seeing as we’re walking on a Saturday that’s going to happen fairly quickly so why not get into Oxford nice and early and make a day of it.

2) Weather
Looking at the Weather forecast for the weekend it looks like we’re in for quite a warm day so just a ‘heads up’ for you to give some thought about what you’re going to wear and carrying.

3) Keep ‘em Peeled
Oxford is undoubtedly a beautiful City with so much to see but like anywhere in the world where you’re going to get a high concentration of people there’s always the risk of ‘thieves’. With that in mind, be sure to keep a close eye on your kit and that of others on the walk too.

On that note, you might want to take read this article that I caught yesterday [Link]

4) Prizes, Prizes, Prizes
As well as being a superb social event with the chance of winning some fantastic prizes, I’ll also be running a couple of extra competitions on the day.

Thanks to the folks over at the NAPP and Kelby Training I have a number of superb training DVD’s and Books to give away as prizes and those will be for photographs that fall into following categories:

• Mobile Phone Photo of the Day
• Perfect Timing (For all you Street Photographers)

5) One more thing…
Again for those of you joining me in Oxford, as it says on the Walk’s Official Web Page, we’re meeting up in Radcliffe Square which is where you’ll find the Radcliffe Camera.

It’s real easy to find but just to make life easier, as you come into the City Centre on the Park & Ride, you’ll need to get off outside the Carfax Tower Bus Stop. From there cross over the road and continue walking in the direction of the City Centre for about 1 minute and then turn into Catte Street which is directly opposite the Old Bank Hotel, and that will bring you into Radcliffe Square…

Right that’s all for now so here’s wishing you all a fabulous weekend of Photo Walks and for those of you coming along to Oxford, I’ll see you soon,
Enjoy

• • •

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The weekend of the 1st and 2nd of October sees the 4th Annual Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk: an event where last year in excess of 30,000 photographers or to say it in it’s broadest terms ‘People who like to take photographs’ in cities across the world took part in the biggest social event of it’s kind in the World taking photos, making friends, winning incredible prizes and what’s more…all for FREE !!!

Each year the event grows and grows in popularity as word spreads about how good it actually is and this year is yet again set to be another record breaker with even larger numbers expected and even more incredible prizes on offer.

To give you more of an understanding of what this is all about, you can check out the Official World Wide Photo Walk website at this [Link] and to give you a glimpse at what goes on here’s a short video from last years’ Photo Walk which I lead over in Windsor, UK:

Come to Oxford and join the Party
I’m really excited that this year on Saturday 1st October I’ll be leading a walk in the gorgeous City of Oxford; a City steeped in history with beautiful architecture, Universities, stunning Gardens, a famous indoor market and of course the home of Inspector Morse

It’s guaranteed to be a fantastic, fun social day of Photography and meeting and making new likeminded friends so don’t whatever you do miss the opportunity to come and join the party. Walks are limited to 50 participants and spaces have already started being filled so make sure you head on over to the Oxford Photo Walk page and reserve your free space [Link]

Look forward to seeing you there,
Glyn

ps> In addition to the prizes that are up for grabs Dave Clayton of N.A.P.P. Member UK [Link] and myself will be running a few other competitions on the day with extra fabulous prizes available plus I’ll be adding a few extra surprises…maybe a mini Photography and Photoshop editing workshop for those who want to hang around a little longer afterwards.

World Wide Photo Walk website [Link]
Oxford Photo Walk page [Link]

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Last weekend I found myself down in Sunny Devon photographing a beautiful country house complete with thatched roof, wooden beamed ceilings and gorgeous gardens; the photos are to be used by the clients to pass on to location scouting agents with a view to it being used in TV and Film work. So, Saturday was spent photographing interior and exterior shots but rather than make the 3 hour drive back home once I’d finished I decided to make a weekend of it and stay over to the Sunday..

I arranged to meet up with a friend of mine, Scot Baston, in Lyme Regis…one of my favourite locations and go on a mini Photo Walk, and that’s exactly what we did; walked, talked and armed with one camera and one lens (most of the time) took photographs of anything and everything.

I did this a couple of times last year down in Brighton [Link] and Bournemouth [Link] and got so much out of it. I didn’t intend to leave it so long before getting out and doing this again but we can get so busy being busy that time passes by at an alarming speed and before you know it another month, another 2 months and more have gone.

Anyway both Scot and I went out with the view that if we didn’t get anything worthwhile it didn’t matter; just getting out with the camera in the fresh air and with no agenda was what it was all about.

•    •    •

No tripod needed here…
The first two images in this post are HDR (High Dynamic Range). Now, normally you’d think to photograph HDR images using a tripod but thanks to the HDR function within Photoshop CS5 all three ‘hand held’ exposures can be aligned, blended together and edited pretty seamlessly; great news if you’re on a Photowalk as this means less to carry

Again, no real purpose here and not what I normally do but just playing:

Back at the computer continuing the ‘playing’ theme with textures in Photoshop can be real fun and produce some interesting results. The picture above for example couldn’t have been easier; the original image open in photoshop with an old paper texture layer above with it’s blend mode set to Overlay.

A few more shots of ‘stuff’ that just caught my eye…

I guess what I’m getting at here is this…Make time to get away from it all and just shoot whatever ‘catches’ your eye. There’s something incredibly uplifting and energising about walking around in the fresh air, hanging out with folks with the same interests and taking photos without any pressure of working to a brief or time constraints.

So why not put a date in your diary right now and commit to some ‘me‘ time; you’ll be amazed at the benefits!

As always if you have any questions or comments then please feel free to make use of the comments section below but out of interest when did you last go out on a Photo Walk and just photograph whatever caught your eye? When was the last time you just played around in Photoshop as opposed to working on client images?

One last thing…
I thought I’d leave you with a photograph of Scot. This shot was taken during the last ‘tester’ for my new workshop [Link] when Scot foolishly kindly agreed to step in whist I was setting up and testing the lighting…had to be done

•    •    •

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So why’s it different???
Well there’ll be no relying on looking at that big beautiful screen on the back of your fancy DSLR as it’s going to be covered in Gaffa Tape and you’re limited to a maximum of 36 shots for starters.

Anyway, head on over to Dan’s website [Link] to read more of what’s in store and if you’re free tomorrow (Saturday 27th November) for a couple of hours for a bit of fun, a bit of photography and a bit of networking. I’ve invited along too so I’ll be there too and if you fancy popping along just one word of warning…wrap up warm and be prepared for any weather; like I said I’m going to be there

•    •    •

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Thursday:
It all started on Thursday when I caught  up with Scott Kelby (bringing over his Photoshop for Photographers Workshop from the US on the Friday) and UK NAPP Evangelist and Pearly King of Ole London Town, Dave Clayton.

With no real agenda other than to grab a bite to eat, chat and go out for an impromptu Photo Walk we headed out and hit the streets of London…

Walking across Millennium Bridge Scott and I became deeply engrossed in conversation about
World Politics, the Economy and the correct pronunciation of Gaussian

Needless to say there were plenty of laughs which was just as well as London had decided that grey was the new blue with the weather taking a turn for the worst and the London Underground taking on some emergency maintenance. Still we made an executive decision and all decided (well, Scott and I) that the weather and the hold ups were all Dave’s fault

Here’s a shot of Scott & Dave near the Houses of Parliament. If you’ve read Scott’s account of his time over in London you’ll have seen the same picture
except for the fact he’s Photoshopped it so that it looks like I took a crooked shot and Big Ben was leaning over;  such a prankster

Just to prove that despite the weather and having an extended tour of the inside of an underground tunnel we did actually manage to take a few shots;
nothing to shout about and yes that’s Dave bottom right doing his best Harry Worth impression.

Neither Scott or I wanted to, but Dave was adamant it would make a good shot, so anything for a quiet life…
We then headed off to find a wall covered in graffiti for the ‘arty’ shot

Later in the day and having removed a good few millimetres of tread off our footwear we headed back over to Scott’s Hotel to thaw out and grab another much needed coffee where we were later joined by Photographer, NAPP Guru Award Winner & all round nice bloke Ed Davis for an evening meal.

I can honestly say hand on heart when it comes to Scott, ‘what you see is what you get‘; great company, extremely enthusiastic about what he does and speaking from experience, generosity that knows no limits…the real deal! Scott, thanks for your friendship and your time…you’re a ‘Top Geezer’!

As for Dave, this was the first time we’d actually met face to face as opposed to over t’internet. Without doubt Dave is one of life’s good guys that it was an absolute pleasure to spend quality time with and who’s someone I really do look forward to catching up with alot more in the future.

The combination made for a truly great day that despite the grey skies and hold ups on the underground was a total blast with each of us getting their fare share of abuse … but all in jest (at least I hope so)

Friday:
Friday it was back into London but this time to the Business Design Centre in Islington where Scott was delivering his Photoshop for Photographers Workshop to several hundred Photographers from all over. In a word it was a fantastic day but then I guess you’d expect me to say that so let me explain…

Hands down this was the best workshop I’ve been to outside of the US and yeah I know Scott’s American but you know what I mean.

To an extremely attentive and welcoming audience of several hundred photographers of mixed abilities, Scott delivered a Workshop that was entertaining, informative and packed full of tips and tricks that prompted many a response resulting in sounds of ‘ooohhhh’ and ‘aaahhhh’.

Without going into too much detail the day was broken down into the following segments:

• Scott’s 7 Point System for Camera Raw
• Portrait Retouching
• Killer Photoshop Tips for Photographers
• Printing Techniques and How to show your work
• Photoshop editing workflow from start to finish

Now before the Workshop I had my own workflow sorted…or so I thought. I had my own way of dealing with images editing mainly in Photoshop and using just a few favoured techniques in Lightroom but that has now changed…considerably. In short my workflow is now a heck of alot more streamlined that as a photographer is a real good thing meaning…more time behind the camera.

I think it’ okay to say that when it comes to using Photoshop and Lightroom I’m no slouch but sitting in on Scott’s workshop is proof yet again that you should never stop learning and refining your craft because there’s always something you don’t know…no matter who you are. Heck Scott and all the gang from NAPP and Kelby Training are always going on courses and the likes of Joe McNally are too as he did this past year when he attended a Jay Maisel workshop.

So would I recommend going along to Scott’s Photoshop for Photographer’s Workshop? … You bet! In fact next year we’re heading off to Photoshop World again and it would be great if you could join us for the most incredible learning, motivational and fun experience.

In the meantime if you haven’t already, head over to Scott’s blog (link) to read his account of the ‘London Experience’; it makes a great read.

Also, check out the superb “N.A.P.P. Member UK” website put together and maintained by Dave Clayton (Link) for heaps of information and also a great write up of Scott’s stay in Ole London Town.

Enjoy

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My good friend Scot Baston summed the day up perfectly when he said ‘It’s not about the photography, it’s about the people’ however there’s no escaping the task; there has to be a winner, so after much head scratching and hair pulling (ok maybe not so much of the hair pulling) Anne and I have finally decided on the following photograph submitted by Stephen Porter as the ‘winning image’:

Congratulations and good luck to Steve who’s image will now be submitted to the World Wide Photo Walk Competition where the overall winner stands to win $1000 Adorama Gift Certificate and a One Year’s Subscription to Kelby Training Online.

I thought it would be great to ‘hear’ how Steve came up with this image so I asked him to put a few lines together explaining how he took and edited the shot, so Steve it’s over to you…

“Where: Not knowing Windsor too well I will describe where I took the shot and let you explain it.  When you go over the bridge from Windsor to Eton there is a road that goes off to left, when you turn left there is a brick wall ahead of you.  I took this frame there.  It wasn’t where I initially started photographing him, I first photographed him in an alleyway on the right just after you go over the bridge, I was looking for somewhere out of the harsh sunlight.  I wasn’t happy with what I’d shot so I saw the brick wall over the road in the shade and took him over.  I got him to sit on the floor and lean against the wall.  I stood above him and got him to look up straight at the camera.

Camera details: Canon EOS 20D, 20mm f2.8, @ f3.2, 500^th/sec, natural light, ISO 200.

Post processing: Adobe camera raw, I boosted the shadows a lot to darken the image down and upped the highlights in his face slightly and flattened the contrast a little.  Once in photoshop I cropped the image square to make the centre of the face pop out of the image.  I then burnt in the corners and the edges to black to just leave the roundness of his face.  I initially wanted to desaturate the image a little and keep a little colour but it looked much better B+W so I just desaturated all the way.  I then sharpened a little using the high pass technique.  I dodged the whites of his eyes a little to make them pop a bit more.  Finally I used your beauty skin softening technique, using a gaussion blur mask and at 25% opacity and brought the eyes and mouth back with a brush.

I have to admit I am still experimenting with different post processing techniques and the majority of what I have done to this image I have learnt from your blog, thanks a million!“

You can check out more of Steve’s work in his Flickr Portfolio and by following him on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks again to everyone who came along and joined in making the day a total success; great weather, great turnout, great bunch of people, plenty of laughs and new friendships made along the way.

Here’s to next year, wherever we may be,
Glyn

>You can see more of the photos taken during the Windsor Photo Walk by clicking on this link.

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Saturday 24th July 2010 will surely go down in history; a day when 33,000+ photographers in cities around the World took part in Photo Walks. This World Wide Photo Walk was the brain child of best selling author, Photographer & President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (N.A.P.P.) Scott Kelby and is the 3rd of it’s kind.

For those of you who don’t know, the idea of the Photo Walk is to get groups of no more than 50 people together in cities across the world and go on a photo ‘hunting’ exercise for 2 hours; basically a huge social event for anybody interested in Photography from Professionals to folks who use their camera phones. Each of the cities around the world will have a designated leader; someone who has organised and advertised a walk and who’s unenviable task it is then to choose a winning photograph from the day; the winner then being eligible for prizes valued in their £££’s in the overall World Wide Competition.

However it’s so much more than a ‘competition’ as my good friend Scot Baston said…“It’s not about the photography, it’s about the people” and having lead 2 previous walks and experienced the unforeseen benefits, he’s so right.

This year I lead a Photo Walk in Windsor, UK and had a fantastic day with a great bunch of people, great weather and plenty of laughs along the way; and for those who wanted to stay a little longer I put together a ‘mini’ workshop to go through just a couple of lighting techniques too.

I just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone that came along and took part making the day a success and a big shout out in particular to those of you that had travelled a considerable distance and number of hours to be there; I really do value your friendship and support guys!

So, here’s to the next World Wide Photo Walk…wherever that may be
Enjoy.

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