Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk – Me to host the Gainesville Walk

You’re invited to join Scott Kelby and his friends around the world for the first ever “Worldwide Photo Walk” on Saturday, August 23rd 2008 – and yours truly will be Leading the photo walk for Gainesville, Florida! Who is Scott Kelby? Scott is the President of the National Association of Photoshop Users or NAPP and also the best selling author of scores of books on photography including Adobe Lightroom and two of my all time favorites – The Digital Photography Book, Volume 1 & Volume 2. By the way – these two books are the all time best selling books on Digital Photography.

What is a photowalk? Here is a video with Scott Kelby to explain the Worldwide Photowalk.

Here’s where I need your help! As the leader of the Gainesville, Florida photowalk, I need to come up with a interesting walking route, preferably a circular route and ending at a place to hook-up after the walk to socialize and see everyone’s photos. I was thinking about meeting up at the steps in front of The Hippodrome at 5 p.m. for a quick group photo and then from there walk around downtown and over to The Thomas Center and around 2nd Ave for some great Urban shots. Ending the photowalk at about 7 p.m. at Steve’s Cafe American on University Ave. I have already confirmed with the restaurant and they are setting up a place in the dining room for our group – which should be 50 plus. I have until Sunday evening to confirm the walk route and the restaurant so I can enter the information on the Official Photowalk Web site. Please leave your comments below with some of your suggestions of routes we can take, places of interest we can walk to within the downtown area and also any other ideas for restaurants. The restaurant or cafe needs to be able to fit 50 people.

I am so honored to be leading the photowalk for Gainesville. I have to tell you that I am forever grateful for finding NAPP and Scott Kelby’s books. When I was just starting out I was so overwhelmed with where to start, what do do, and how to fix in photoshop. I have learned so much from watching Photoshop TV and keeping up to date with Scott Kelby’s personal blog. It’s not just for people interested in photoshop but all things photography. It was because of Scott Kelby’s blog that I first found out about The Digital Landscape Workshop Series that I took with Aaron Bailey last year in Cape Cod. While there we got a chance to personally meet Scott and take one of the very first workshops on his 7 point system for Adobe Photoshop CS# – which I highly recommend. Check out the book here.

Here is a picture of me and Scott Kelby in Cape Cod last year during the DLWS Series: I so enjoyed taking this workshop and discovering the beautiful lighthouses on Cape Cod. Here is a link if you are interested in seeing my photos from the workshop.

I will never forget how overwhelmed and frustrated I was with my camera in the very beginning. What is aperture? How do you blur the background? What lens should I buy and why? I felt so stupid asking these basic questions. When I would ask, I still didn’t understand the answer – so I just smiled and nodded like I got it – but become more frustrated. I would like to be able to help those photographers just coming out of the gate and hopefully explain answers to their questions with a better understanding and sensitivity. That is one of the reasons I am just so thrilled to be able to meet everyone coming to the Gainesville photowalk and hopefully make some long term friends.

O.K., enough rambling. Here is some links to help you with the photowalk:

1. • Here is the web site where you need to go to sign up for the Gainesville Photowalk. The photowalk is Saturday, August 23rd – time to be announced Sunday evening.
   • Check out this link for great tips on what to do on a photowalk from Jeff Revell over at Scott’s blog
   • Here is the link to Scott Kelby’s Q&A on the World Wide Photowalk

Also, I need to add an icon for my section on the Photowalk Web site. Please help me choose. The one with me with the hat or without the hat. Please leave your comments below with your choice.

Don’t forget to leave your ideas and suggestions for the photowalk in the comments section! I can’t wait to see everyone sign up for the Photowalk! Please feel free to leave your comments below if you have any questions about the photowalk.

Keep Smiling,
Laurel