If you are having an event in Edmonton or beyond and are looking to book a photographer who can provide a mixture of photography and video coverage, be sure to contact me for a quote. Photography and video coverage is a great way to tell the story of your event and use it on your website to promote future events to your customers.

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Thanks to everyone who came out and I hope you all enjoyed your day. A big thanks to Edmonton photography legend Bill Hill for taking a great group photograph at the beginning of our walk.

Also a huge shout-out to the team from Fotojournal who donated a 1-year Pro blog and gave away some sweet buttons and discount coupons to our walkers.

If you would like to see photographs from any of the three walks there were held in Edmonton, be sure to visit the official Flickr group at  http://www.flickr.com/groups/edmonton-photowalk3-2010/. Scott Kelby has also created a Flickr group for everyone who participated in this year’s walk so you can see photographs from around the world. Just head on over to http://www.flickr.com/groups/wwpw3

Just a reminder to those who participated in our walk, if you want to enter your favourite photograph into the contest for a chance to win one of Scott’s books, you have until August 1st to upload your photo. Visit the Worldwide Photo Walk page, sign in with the user name you registered with, and upload your photograph.

Even though I was leading the walk, I did manage to find some time for photography. I decided that I was going to challenge myself by only bringing one lens with me and trying to shoot with just that lens. I chose to go with my brand new 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens which I recently added to the lens collection. I’ve only had it for a few weeks and have used it primarily to photograph wedding details such as rings, table decorations, wedding dress detail, etc. This was a chance to experiment with it more and play with the lovely shallow depth of field that you can get with this lens. I had a great time shooting with it and trying to look for the small details on a campus that is filled with many large scale buildings and giant trees. Here are a few quick photographs that tell the story of what I saw through my lens on Worldwide Photo Walk day.

It’s been months in the planning and tomorrow the day finally arrives. It’s Scott Kelby’s 3rd Annual World Wide Photo Walk and I’ll be leading one of the three walks taking place in Edmonton. For those not familiar with a Photo Walk, it is basically a social gathering where photographers of all ages and abilities gather to walk around, take photographs, and network with one another. This year’s Worldwide Photo Walk will take place on July 24th in over 1100 cities around the world with close to 33,000 people participating! That is a lot of photographs that will be created.

Walk Details

The walk I’m leading will be held on the grounds of the University of Alberta and will run for 2 hours from 10:30 – 12:30 followed by a social gathering at Earls on Campus afterward. Here are the details for the event:

Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Time: 10:30 – 12:30 (plan on showing up at 10:15 so we can start right at 10:30)

Location: Timm’s Centre for the Arts (in front of the West Entrance on 112th Street)

Below is a map of where we will be meeting:

View Larger Map

Afterward we will meet back at Earls on Campus to enjoy a cool beverage and socialize.

Entering Photographs into the Contest

Photo Walk contest submissions will open on Sunday, July 25 and close July 31. Here’s a short two-step walk-through for submitting your best image to the Photo Walk contest.

Step 1) Go to WorldwidePhotoWalk.com and log in (look at the top right corner of the page)

Once you’re logged in, you’ll automatically go to your Photo Walk page.

Step 2) Once there, you’ll see a section called “Upload Your Photo” below the Meeting Location & Time (not today or tomorrow, but it’ll show up on Sunday):

Just follow the on-screen instructions and you’ll be good to go!

Each walker is allowed to submit one image to the contest.  The deadline to submit is July 31.  If you change your mind on which image you want to enter, you can change it up until the deadline.

After that, walk leaders will have till August 7 to choose the winning image from their walk.  They won’t be able to make a selection until after the submission process is finished. The winner from each walk will receive a copy of one of Scott Kelby’s books.

All of those winning images will then be posted in the People’s Choice gallery where everyone can vote for their favorite shot during the following week.

Then, on August 14, they’ll announce the Grand Prize, Honorable Mentions, and People’s Choice winners who will be eligible to receive a variety of prizes from companies such as Adorama and the Kelby Media Group.

Sharing Photographs from the Walk

What’s the point of taking photos if you can’t share them with people? There are two Flickr groups which have been setup to share photographs with each other. The first is the official Flickr group for all participants from around the world. This group will allow you to upload up to 5 photos per day. You’ll find the group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/wwpw3

We have also setup a group for all three of the Edmonton Photo Walks where you can go to share your photographs. You can request to join this group by visiting http://www.flickr.com/groups/edmonton-photowalk3-2010/

Other Prizes & Post Walk Goodies

The great guys & gals over at Fotojournal have graciously donated a one-year Pro Blog and will also be passing out some sweet buttons and discount coupons to check out their service. If you are looking for a great platform to show off your photography, be sure to check them out. They are a local company and are also pretty darn awesome.

Secondly, Scott Kelby is hosting an exclusive Lightroom® 3 training Webcast for all 30,700+ registered photo walk participants on Wednesday, July 28 at 10:00am EDT USA! Scott will also be joined by Matt Kloskowski, Dave Cross, and RC Concepcion. During this exclusive Webcast, Scott will take viewers through his Lightroom 3 workflow using the photos he took during his Photo Walk. This live Webcast is only available to registered Photo Walk participants.

Finally, Adobe is extending a 15% discount to Photo Walk participants! Registered participants will receive a unique code via the email address you provided at registration to be used for 15% off the purchase of Lightroom 3 the week of July 26th. Watch for your email, or check the official website for the Worldwide Photo Walk.

Yesterday I received the exciting news that I’ve been selected to lead Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk in Edmonton. This is the third annual Photo Walk and is expected to attract thousands of photographers in hundreds of cities. For those who are unfamiliar with a photo walk, it is basically a social gathering of photographers with a common goal of getting together to photograph a particular subject or location. While primarily for fun, there will also be prizes awarded to the best photograph from each city and then all of the winning entries from each city will be judged by Scott Kelby himself and winners will be eligible to win great prizes including:

As a former participant in Junior Achievement, I was delighted to see how much the program has grown and that the interest amoung students, educators, and the business community in Edmonton remains strong. It seems like a lifetime ago that I served as the company president and treasurer for JA-Mart – our little upstart company which designed and sold re-usable lunch bags long before the environmental movement had even gotten off the ground. During the evening’s event, over 150 JA participants got up on stage  to share what JA meant to them and I started reflecting back on some of the great business lessons that JA taught me and what a great feeling it was to reconnect with JA again but this time as a small business owner. It was great to see so many young people learning about how to start and run a small business and equally as great to see the support they receive from the local business community. If you are interested in getting involved with Junior Achievement, they are always looking for volunteers who are intersted in giving their time to work with young people to help them develop their entrepreneural skills. Be sure to check out their website if you are interested in getting involved with JA.

Here are some photos from the evening’s event.

I arranged to do some more concert photography for Wil and ended up getting some extra passes so we were so lucky to be able to introduce Wil’s music to the amazing photography duo of Rob & Lauren. If you haven’t checked out their work be sure and head over to their website to learn more about them. Both took turns doing some shooting and shared their thoughts and a few photos from the event on their blog.

Here are a few of my photos from Wil and Matt’s performances. I also shot some video which I’ll try to get posted up soon.

If you are looking for photography coverage of your next special event, be sure to get in touch with me to discuss how we can work together to capture your big event.

Diane Begin from NAIT, organized a dinner and Q&A session for local bloggers who had the chance to meet David and ask him a variety of questions. Diane also invited the public to ask David questions via Twitter for the chance to win an autographed copy of David’s book – Deconstructing the Dish. The evening’s conversation was recorded and will be available on NAIT’s official TechLife channel on YouTube later this week. Fellow bloggers included: Brooke Jensen,  Cathy Walsh, Chris Falconer,  Isabelle Gallant, Mack Male, Sharon Yeo, Marianne Stover,  Nikki Stoyko, Twylla Campbell, Valerie Rodgers Lugonja, and Maki B. Students from NAIT’s culinary program served a delicious meal featuring recipes from David’s cookbook. My favourite dish of the evening was the beef with buttermilk onion rings.

David answered a variety of questions ranging from what he likes to cook when he’s at home to who would play him if they made a movie of his life. He was very frank and open and shared tales of what it’s like to be a chef in the world of celebrity and money. His Playboy persona and tales of lap dances, drunken escapades, and shopping sprees, may have caught a few of the local bloggers off guard but I enjoyed his frankness and willingness to just be himself; something for which he openly confessed to and made no apologies about.

Here is a quick video clip I shot where David answers a question about what ingredient he likes to cook with.

Here are a few photos from the evening’s event. Be sure to visit the blogs of everyone who attended this evening to get their impressions of the evening. You can also watch the full event on NAIT’s YouTube channel later this week. Thanks again to Diane Begin from NAIT for organizing the event and thanks to Chef Adjey for spending time with us and answering our questions.

This year, the theme was Hell’s Kitchen. Sarah gave everyone their own chef’s hat and personalized apron to wear. Each person who attended, brought along four random ingredients and the goal was to create a meal using every single ingredient. Here are the ingredients we ended up with: fresh tomatoes, basil, frozen shrimps, onion, coconut milk, rib eye steaks, 24 buns, a can of re-fried beans, oatmeal cookies, bamboo shoots, crab meat, herb & garlic cream cheese, brocollini, salsa, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and orzo. We were also allowed to use any spices or condiments that were available in our house. Here is what we came up with:

• Re-fried beans on buns with basil leaves
• Bruschetta on toasted buns
• Steak Neptune with oatmeal cookie topping (it tasted awesome)
• Thai green curry with shrimps and bamboo shoots served over orzo
• Brocollini served with a salsa cream-cheese sauce

Considering that this meal could have easily been a train wreck, it actually wound up being an amazing meal. The cream cheese salsa sauce was a big hit and will definitely be something to add to the family recipe book. If you are having a party, you should consider throwing a Hell’s Kitchen themed party and see what you come up with. Here are a few photos of the evening’s festivities.

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It was a mixed bag of weather ranging from overcast and snowing to windy and warm but overall the conditions were excellent for skiing and for photography. I decided to rent a 300mm f2.8 lens from Lens Lenders and this was a great opportunity to try out this beast of a lens to see if it would be one I’d like to add to the lens collection one day. I hand-held the lens for about 6 hours and my arms and shoulders felt it on Sunday but the overall image quality of this piece of glass made up for the pain. It is a very fast lens and extremely sharp. Being outdoors with decent lighting I didn’t really have need for the IS but there were a few instances where it definitely helped, particularly considering I was working with it hand-held. For my fellow Canadian photographers, if you are looking for a great place to rent glass, be sure to contact Todd at Lens Lenders.

This year, four of us including myself, provided coverage of the event. Special thanks to Owen Law, Stephanie Wachnuk-Dowber, and Paul Kruger for their help with this event.

Here are a few of my favourites from the event: