My brother Jacob to come down from Illinois to do the walk with me at Coney Island. At our location alone there were around 40 other participants and we couldn't have had a more beautiful day. It was an amazing experience for at several reasons. First, Coney Island. What an amazing riot of color and people and activity. Normally, I feel too self-conscious and invasive to take pictures of strangers on the street, but because Coney Island was so crazy no one even noticed if I snapped them. Of course, it didn't hurt there there were so many other people doing the same thing. It made what I was doing with the camera just background noise. The other photographers also made the day special by giving me a sense of community that is all together too easy to be without. Photography can be such isolating work, just you, your camera, and your computer. It was wonderful to be with other people just as obsessed with the visual world as I was. And oh what amazing images they created. I felt honored to able to be a part of the group.
For those interested, you can go here to see a stream of the worldwide photowalk images. If you want to see some of the images I captured at Coney Island, you can see my photostream here. As a part of the event, Scott Kelby is going to choose some photographs from the entire walk as prize winners. Below, I'm including my two entries. If you get a chance to go next year, I highly recommend it. You don't have to be a professional. You just need to have a camera and love photography. As Émile Zola said, "In my view, you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it." Take care.
