London Photo Walk Ready Steady Pro & The Guild of Photographers
Twice a year I put together a photowalk in London. I love the place and am there every week, but there is nothing quite like getting together with a group of like-minded creatives and walking the streets with your camera!
On April 18th this is exactly what we did, with members of the Ready Steady Pro and Guild of Photographers communities invited we had 26 participants on the day, making for a relatively large crowd!
We lost half the group for a short while and decided to make a coffee stop. This was about half of the cameras that were there on the day! (Interesting to see so many mirrorless cameras eh!)
Thanks to everyone that came, I had a blast and loved meeting so many new people and making new friends. Of course, it was great to also catch up with some more familiar faces too.
In terms of photography it probably wasn't a vintage day for me personally as I spent so much time chatting with other people on the walk. Settings, gear, creativity and tips: so many people wanted to know so many things! To see my photographs scroll to the bottom of this post, but I really wanted to share some photographs from some of the photographers that attended on the day. Be sure to check them out online and show them some love!
(All of these photographs have been used with the permission of the respective photographer. Please respect copyright laws and do not use, reproduce or modify these photographs in anyway without first seeking approval from the photographer in question):
Copyright Katy Memon
Copyright Katy Memon
Copyright Joseph Zee
Copyright Glenn Parker
Copyright Paul Gray
Copyright Paul Gray
Copyright Paul Griffiths
Copyright Tony Jones of Oakhouse Photography
Copyright Tony Jones of Oakhouse Photography
Copyright Eric Pang
Copyright Eric Pang
My Photographs
Here are a small selection of my own photographs from the day:
Subscribe
If you're interested in joining a future photo walk or want to know more about these events please do get in touch. The best way to stay up to date is to subscribe to this blog and I'll email you to let you know when future dates are announced!
Gear for Street Photographers
On April 18th I'll be hosting another great photowalk in London! If you're a subscriber to the blog then you may have already seen that this walk will be something slightly different to the usual walk.
Previously, walks have started in the morning with us stopping for lunch, however, this walk will start at 1pm and see us take in quite an extensive route. We'll make a 4pm stop in Covent Garden, whereby those wanting to join the walk at a later time can meet us then.
The idea behind the later start is so that we can stay out later and photograph London at night! The sights and scenes change when the sun goes down and of course the way you shoot will also have to change: higher ISO's, lower shutter speeds and pockets of illuminations. There's more though: long exposures and cityscapes.
After the sun sets we'll stop for a bite to eat before heading back out into the city to photograph some long exposures of The River Thames
Tripods
With this walk starting at 1pm, so the idea of carrying around a large and heavy tripod for the entire day may sound very unattractive indeed, so I wanted to propose that those of you joining us have a good look at the Gorillapod's from Joby.
I've got the Gorrillapod with a ball head for my Olympus and it's excellent: fits neatly into my bag and has a ball head too. It's incredibly light and superbly useful! I've tried a few other solutions, but to be honest the Gorillapod is the best of them all.
They come in different sizes and there options with and without ball heads. If you're interested in picking one up you can get them reasonably priced through Joby's shop on Amazon, right here:
Gorillapod for CSC's (Fuji, Sony A7's, Olympus etc)
http://bit.ly/joby-gorillapod-csc-ballhead
£23.66
Gorillapod for DSLR's
http://bit.ly/joby-gorillapod-slr-ballhead
£39.99
Join Us
If you're interested in coming along for the walk simply register your interest over on the events page. Or, if you're a member of Ready Steady Pro, or The Guild of Photographers you can confirm your attendance using the events page for those Facebook communities too.
See you on April 18th!!
Olympus Street Photography with Rob Pugh
Olympus have a great event schedule available for photographers to attend. Many of the events are free and others are available for a small fee, depending on the sort of event. If you're an Olympus photographer, or even if you're not, you can check out the Olympus Image Space website for the calendar of events and get your name on the list if you want to attend an event.
The great thing about these events is that Olympus usually have an Ambassador and an Olympus rep present on the day, so if you're curious about features and functions on your existing Olympus camera, or want to know more about the Olympus range you'll be in safe hands at an Olympus event. And yes - you can usually try out the cameras and lenses too!
Streets Ahead
On Saturday 24th January I attended my second Olympus Image Space event, this time with Rob Pugh in Reading for an event titled 'Streets Ahead'. As you can guess it was Street Photography related.
Myself and another 13 other Olympus Photographers, who were in attendance by invite after applying to go, met up with Rob and Jez from Olympus in Reading at the newly (re-)opened Jessops store before setting off on our route around the Berkshire town of Reading, which is just a few miles away from where I live.
An Education
From the get-go it was easy to see why Rob was selected by Olympus as an Ambassador: Rob not only knows the Olympus cameras inside and out, he was also able to professionally demonstrate and explain his vision, settings and ideas as we walked. From reflections in puddles and the angles on buildings, to the colour filters available within the OM-D's and how they'll affect various scenes in the end result. Furthermore Rob explained these methods and techniques in such a way that all of the participants seem to understand the reasoning behind them. I was very impressed with Rob's aptitude for information sharing and enabling others.
Rob had us all switch our EVF's into Mono mode and then make some adjustments to the level so that we were seeing a nice contrasty rich view through our EVF's. It made the experience of shooting much more fun!
Local Knowledge
Being a local Rob also knew Reading pretty well too. It's a town I visit a couple of times a month with my wife and children, but usually for a spot of shopping or lunch. It was great to see what else Reading had to offer in terms of photographic opportunities. We walked through alleys and pathways I never even knew existed in a town I've been visiting for some 15 years now! As part of the walk we also stopped for at the Handmade Burger Co as well for a bite to eat and a catchup on all things Olympus. For many (myself included) this was a golden opportunity to ask our two hosts about forthcoming Olympus gear and releases. Rob and Jez remained tight-lipped though and refused to confirm or deny anything we were asking or suggesting, of course, but exciting things are coming by the smiles on their faces :)
Gear used on this shoot
I got caught up in conversation with Rob and Jez so much that I guess I was distracted somewhat from the scenes around me. Whereas I'm usually shooting the scenes and goings-on around me, I was more focussed on the conversation and the shapes and structures rather than the people and that reflects in the series of photographs below.
I spent the day with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 and trusty Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8. I tried the 25mm f/1.8 for a short while too (thanks Jez) as it was a lens I wanted to buy, but also wanted to play with before hand to see if it was as good as people say it it. I can confirm it's a great lens and as part of my move over to Olympus after selling all my Canon equipment, it was indeed one of the lenses I had in my shopping basket. Both of these primes are sharp and fast to focus! Which is exactly what is needed for Street Photography.
The Photographs
So, here is my small selection of photographs from the day. The EXIF and Camera / Lens details are below each shot. Comments are more than welcome, of course!
Enjoy!
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 800 | Aperture: f22 | Shutter Speed: 1/25
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 800 | Aperture: f/5.0 | Shutter Speed: 1/640
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 800 | Aperture: f/7.1 | Shutter Speed: 1/800
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 800 | Aperture: f/7.1 | Shutter Speed: 1/250
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 3200 | Aperture: f/2.2 | Shutter Speed: 1/2.2
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 250 | Aperture: f/ 1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/1250
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
ISO: 640| Aperture: f/1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/200
Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8
ISO: 100 | Aperture: f/1.8 | Shutter Speed: 1/800
London Street Photography with Ready Steady Pro
This past Sunday 26th October I made my way into London to meet up with some wonderful photographers and members of the Ready Steady Pro community for a walk around England's capital with the cameras.
We hold regular walks in various locations and photowalks are a great way to get to know more photographers that are otherwise profile pictures and banter over the internet.
So, we met in Leadenhall Market and after a few introductions we set off on our route
This is the Lloyds Tower, just outside of Leadenhall Market. Very Swanky!
Sometimes you just get busted taking someone's photograph. Damn!
"In Rememberence" - The Tower of London - the ceramic poppy display as a tribute to those who laid down their lives for us.
Love Lock - A now common practise on the railings of bridges all over the world
So, if you're interested in joining a photowalk just head on over to Ready Steady Pro and join us! You can also subscribe to this blog for updates and announcements for new walks.
The next walk is Manchester on November 22nd!
Looking forward to seeing you there!