I never watched Touched by an Angel, but apparently that was the name of the theme song.  I’m sure it was lovely.  Anyway…

One thing I’m noticing is that there is no shortage of information about photo walks on the web.  Our buddy Terry Reinert posted a blog about Getting the Most out of the Worldwide Photo Walk a few days ago, and he has some really great tips.  Terry works with Vanelli (who you may know as our Photoshop World security and Kelby guest blogger), so I’m sure he’s a troublemaker if he keeps company like that .  But you should go check out his blog anyway!

One of the things Terry mentions is looking at photo magazines and books to help get ideas for the Photo Walk, so I thought I would share a few of my favorites with you.

My two all-time favorite photography books are LIFE Classic Photographs and Pictures Under Discussion, both by John Loengard.  These books helped shape my vision very early on in my photography career.  Both are very similar in format, as they both have a photograph on one page and text that tells about the image on the opposite page.  If you’ve read Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks (another one of my favorites), this is the format he uses as well.  Mr. Loengard, former photographer and picture editor at LIFE, does a masterful job at giving the story behind each picture, making you feel like you’re standing next to the photographer as they’re snapping some of the most iconic imagery of the century.  Must reads for any photographer.

Another favorite read is Jim Marshall’s Proof, a definite must-read for music and celebrity photographers.  He’s photographed everyone from The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix to Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, and Woody Allen.  You know how in most photo books, you just see one picture from each shoot, maybe two if you’re lucky?  This book gives you the select image, some copy that tells a little about the picture, and the proof sheet from the shoot so you see all of the other pictures as well.  The cool thing about this is that it lets you in on his mistakes (if there were any bad frames), as well as the other shots that just weren’t the moment.  Getting inside a great photographer’s head is always a great thing.

I’ll probably share more of my favorites later, but if you want more now, you can go check out Joe McNally’s first guest blog for Scott Kelby right here.  Lots of great stuff in that post.

And lastly, a kind of non-photo photo tip… If you have a camera that does video (like a point-and-shoot, Nikon D90, Nikon D5000, Canon 5D MkII, Canon Rebel T1i, or anything else that does video), don’t forget about that!  You can get some great footage, especially with the DSLRs that do video.  If you have a lens with a really shallow depth of field, slap that thing on and go crazy!  I shot a wedding not long ago, and during the rehearsal I decided to play around with the D90 and 50mm f/1.4 a little when the musicians were practicing.  If you want to check it out, you can go to my Flickr page and see it in HD.

You could document the day, do sweeping video panoramas, and even do little interviews of the other people on your Photo Walk and post them on the web to share the joy of Photo Walking with the people who will miss out this year!  Hey, that sounds like a good idea… I think I’ll do that

Check back on Friday for another great guest post from my good friend Laurie Excell on black & white processing!