A Photo Walk in Camden, what is a photo walk?

Right first the boring bit.  All photos are taken with an Olympus OM1n, Zuiko 50mm lens.  Colour film is Kodak Vision 50D, black and white is Kodak TMAX 400 with an orange filter.

Martin and I recently organised a photo walk in Camden Town, London.  An interesting area with markets and street art plus lots of interesting characters and sights.

But you may ask yourself, why come along to something like this, well let me try and explain.

A photo walk is a chance to meet like minded folk, relax and take photos.  Whilst this walk predominately was with film photography folk, it is for everyone who likes taking photos, be it with digital cameras, film cameras or a smart phone.  Not iPads though, no, no, oh well if you insist.

If you are a keen photographer you will understand the struggle when out with friends and/or family who do not share your interests.  The eye rolls whilst they wait for you to compose an image and take a photo.  The exasperation when you just want take a quick look down that street as the light is good.  The impatience when you reload film or change lens.

With a photo walk suddenly you are amongst like minded people who get you, get your hobby and interest and in fact are supportive in more than just words.

We had 15 people on this walk, some had met on a previous walk, for others this was their first time.  We all met in a chain coffee shop in Camden.  Let’s be honest here, it is awkward at first.  Trying to remember the name of the person you literally was just introduced to, trying to work out what are you are supposed to be doing.  Are people judging me, what if they are professionals and just think I’m a wannabe.

Do you know what, we are all thinking the same and all feeling the same, but there really is no need. Let me explain further.  With this Camden walk we started by heading to the canal.  At this point we found a meeting point and said to everyone, take 10 minutes to wander around and take photos then meet back here.  This is when the photowalk comes into its own, suddenly you have time to take pictures and no one is being inconvenienced, it’s all about you and the photos you visualise.  We repeated this meeting point formula throughout the walk.

The next thing that happens on a photowalk, you start to see the participants interacting.  Suddenly people are asking questions about each other’s photography and no one is judging each other.  We’re all interested in what motivates us and our interest in photography.  We start to subtly learn from each other.  How you may ask?  We observe and see the pictures others are composing and what they are visualising and here is the thing, we can also ask them what has motivated them to take a particular shot, also you know what, others will ask that of you too.  I had an orange filter with the black and white film and it sparked a conversation as there were people that had not used a filter.

We continued our walk around Camden and soon it became time to break for lunch and refreshments.  So we stopped for a break.  This is where we all chatted and socialised, discussed the walk so far and basically got to know each other.  Let’s be clear here, there is none of the go around the table and introduce yourself to the rest of the group.  It was just a time to reflect on the walk so far and enjoy each other’s company.   Conversation flowed naturally, not because we are chatty extroverts, but because we all shared a common interest.

We were having a great time over lunch but it was time to move on.  Camden has many interesting streets with great street art which we were able to view as we walked back towards Regents Canal.  The plan was then to walk along the canal path down towards Kings Cross.  This is the other advantage of an organised photo walk, not only can you visit places you may not have thought of, but there is also comfort in numbers if it was somewhere you didn’t feel comfortable going on your own.

A little word about this particular walk.  Martin had managed to organise sponsorship of this walk with Kodak.  This meant Kodak kindly gave us all some of their films to try out.  Everyone picked a couple of rolls each to try.  I picked a roll of Kodak T-Max 400 and loaded it for our walk along the canal.  Disclosure, aside from getting the film supplied by Kodak for them to sponsor the walk, I am not being sponsored or asked to write this for them.

I had tried the film before but in it’s 100 speed variety.  So was looking forward to how it turned out.  I have to say I was not expecting much as I did not like the 100 version but was pleasantly surprised by these results and will give this film another try.  I guess in this particular case Kodak’s sponsorship has had its desired effect.

At this point in the walk it was around 4:30pm.  We had met up at 11am.  Thus here some people decided to call it a day or head into another direction from the rest of the group, which was fine.  Those of us left headed for a pit stop at a bar in St Pancras Station.

Here there was lots of discussion on how the day went or swapping tips and tricks in regard to photography.   Those shooting instant film were lucky enough to be able to review their shots there and then.

So in summary should you join a photo walk?  That is only a question you can answer.  That said I would say it’s a great opportunity to meet like minded people, visit places you may not have otherwise and ultimately you get to take photos in your own time without those infamous eye rolls from friends and family.  You could even organise one of your own……….

Sandeep can be found:

On Twitter as @givemeabiscuit
On Instagram as filmphotography.london
On the web at http://www.filmphotography.london/

Thanks Sandeep for writing this guest post about the Camden Photo Walk, but also for the great introduction to photo walks.  Martin – PhotoWalk.Me