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A Message From The Walk Leader

Hi, I’m Jim Patterson, your leader for the North Phoenix - Paradise Valley Community College Photowalk 2009!  This is a worldwide event held Saturday July 18th, so you will not be alone.

Our walk will start at 9 am and end around 11am.

We will gather at the entrance of the Catch 22 Sports Grill located 18725 N. 32nd Street, just north of the Union Hills and 32nd Street intersection.  We will conclude our walk at the same location and go inside and share the photos we’ve taken and talk photography!  Our walk will take us from the Catch 22 parking lot eventually south across Union Hills to Paradise Valley Community College, where we will find interesting things to photograph!

Do check the main Photowalk page as you will see there are prizes for best photos and of course the great camaraderie that comes from talking and sharing with other photographers of various skill levels.

Some suggestions for our walk:

* Wear comfy clothes and shoes. Bring a water bottle.
* Fully charge your battery. In fact, bring a second backup battery.
* Look for the different, the unusual. Don’t always shoot what the pack is shooting.
* Think in terms of telling a a four photo story. Take a long establishing shot, then a bit closer, then a bit closer, then on top of the object or person.

Other things I recommend:

* Photoshop or Photoshop Elements are great editing programs. You can also do nice things with Picasa or Photoshop Express. Both are free and work on the Mac or PC. I’ve used all of these programs. Obviously, the professional choice is Photoshop but it does have a steep learning curve. Photoshop Elements may be all you need, especially if you use a good workflow program.
* I also strongly suggest you invest in a photo workflow program like Aperture for the Mac or Lightroom for both Mac and PC.

What do I recommend? Use either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements AND Lightroom. I use Lightroom for 90% plus of my photos and only use Photoshop for the real difficult photofixes. I also use a 24″ iMac and 13″ Macbook for all of my work and love them both.  Save yourself time and compose great photos in your eyepiece.  Learn by reading books and magazines and take courses at PVCC and other public short courses.  If you go to my photography page, you will find under “my photo gallery” a list of links of magazines, websites, and other great places to learn how to be a better photographer.

If you are a student or educator, you qualify for the education discount, which is substantial. The company I use for education discounts is Academic Superstore. All you have to do is register for one class at Paradise Valley Community College to qualify for the discount! Now that is an incentive. And, Apple is very good about giving academic discounts, too.

What Am I Reading and Looking At?

I subscribe to several photography magazines.  I’m constantly looking to learn new things and test my limits.  I’d recommend Popular Photography, Outdoor Photographer (if you like that kind of photography, which I do), and Shutterbug Magazine.

Scott Kelby has a series of books called the Digital Photography Book (actually the 3rd one is a prize here!). I highly recommend them. They are easy reads and are full of tips that I didn’t know about, duh. Do a search on Amazon; they tend to have the best prices. And if you are a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, you can order from there too. I know Scott is a sponsor of Photowalk, but gee he does good stuff! Also check out his Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 books; both I use as references here at the home office. I also have the Arizona Highways Photography Guide in my bookshelf for local photographers.

Off my photo galleryyou will see links on the left side. All are good to look at. One I will point out is Darren Rowse Digital Photography School. He always has great tips.

Let me know if you have your own tips and I will include here!

Jim