Q. How can I lead a Photo Walk?
A. You can signup to be a Photo Walk Leader right here. It’s really easy to to setup your Photo Walk and you’ll get instructions after you register.
Q. Does everyone get accepted as a Photo Walk leader?
A. We’re looking for people who have experience leading groups, so if you’re the president of your local camera club, or a college teacher, or photography instructor, or you run a local camera store, or you’ve lead PhotoWalks in your area before, etc., you’re more likely to get accepted to be a leader. We ask for your qualifications on the leader application, and that’s the type of experience we’re looking for. Last year, we had some people put, “Well, nobody else signed up from our city, so I guess I’ll do it.” That’s doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in you as a leader.
Q. What if my city already has a Photo Walk, but I want to lead a walk, too?
A. Some big cities can accommodate more than one walk, and so as soon as one starts to fill up, we add a second city walk if we have a leader apply. Or, if the walks are held geographically far from each other but technically in the same major city, we usually add those, too. (Cities like Paris, New York, London, Tokyo all can have multiple walks and draw from totally different population groups)
Q. I set up my walk, but I don’t see it on the map. Why not?
A. Once you’ve set up your walk, the last step is to click the blue “Publish” button on the right side of the page. Once you do that, your walk should show up on the map.
Q. How do I pick the winning photo from my Photo Walk?
A. When you log in to your admin area, you will be able to view all of the photos submitted by your walkers and choose the winner.
Q. What do I get for being a Photo Walk leader?
A. You’ll receive your choice of either The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers or The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers, both by Scott Kelby.
Q. Can I enter my best photo into the competition?
A. Leaders are not eligible for the grand prize competition, but you do get a free copy of one of Scott’s books (hey, that’s more than most walkers will get)!
Q. What can I do to get the word out about my Photo Walk?
A. When you log into your account, go to the Dashboard. There you’ll find a link to download a Press Kit full of helpful resources for publicizing your Photo Walk.
Q. What is a Photo Walk?
A. It’s a social photography event where photographers get together (usually in a downtown area or trendy section of town) to walk around, shoot photos, and generally have fun with other photographers.
Q. When is the 3rd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk™?
A. This year’s Photo Walk event will be held on Saturday, July 24, 2010.
Q. Is there a fee to participate this year?
A. Once again it’s free—there is no fee to join this year’s Photo Walk—just come and have a ball!
Q. How many cities participated last year, and how many photographers did the Photo Walk that day?
A. We had over 900 Photo Walks and over 32,000 people who participated around the world last year! That’s a HUGE leap from the 236 locations and 8,324 people we had the first year.
Q. What happens when a city fills up?
A. It’s full.
Q. How many is full?
A. PhotoWalks are limited to 50 photographers. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, you haven’t seen 50 photographers coming down the sidewalk at the same time, and later all converging at once on a restaurant or pub. It’s more like a scary bike gang (except without the bikes, or gang, or scariness).
Q. Is there a Grand Prize?
A. You betcha!! Details of the prize packages can be found in our Prizes page (Top prize is awarded by Scott to the single best overall photo taken that day, from all the Photo Walk locations around the world).
Q. Are there other prizes?
A. Scott will also pick photos for 10 Honorable Mention prizes, and there will be one People’s Choice award that will be voted on by you! Whatever photo you all vote as your favorite will get a great prize!
Q. Do I have to enter the prize competition?
A. Absolutely not. This is a totally separate part of the experience, and if you don’t want to enter your images, you absolutely don’t have to (it’s just to make the experience more fun). Some people freaked out last year thinking they were required to enter, but just know—you absolutely don’t have to enter your image—you can go and shoot for the day, and never let anyone see your photos. Ever. They can be your private “secret” photos.
Q. Did anyone complain last year about how the winners were chosen?
A. Absolutely. People get pretty cranked if they think their image deserved to be the winner and wasn’t chosen, but Scott’s been one of the Photoshop World Guru Awards judges for 10 years, along with judging other competitions over the years, so he’s kind of used to that response. Surprisingly, he didn’t get one single complaint about the picks from any of the winners.
Q. Where can I share more of my photos from the walk?
A. While you can only submit one image for the contest, you can upload up to five images per day at the Official Flickr Group for the Worldwide Photo Walk right here.
Q. So are you going to try and work some angle so that Orphanage in Kenya gets something out of this?
A. Ahh, you know us too well. Last year Scott was trying to come up with a good tie-in, but luckily one of his blog readers, Rob from Towner Jones Photography, came up with a great idea—we created an official Worldwide PhotoWalk T-shirt. We’re doing it again this year, and 100% of the profits from the sale of any of these t-shirts will go to feeding the kids at the Springs of Hope, Kenya Orphanage. We think it’s a great idea, and we’re so grateful that Rob came up with it! You can buy a shirt right here.
Q. What has been best thing that came out of this whole Worldwide Photo Walk thing?
A. I think it was the fact that so many photographers have not only made new friends, but have gone on to form their own photo walks during the year. This is totally a social event, and that’s why makes it so much fun. Most of the people on my walk had never done a Photo Walk before, but everybody had so much fun, they all wanted to do one again right away. Photo Walks are infectious, because when you get that many creative people together, who all have the love of photography in common, you can’t help but have a great time.
