A Beautiful Day for Street Photography

It's been awhile since I've blogged about...well...anything, but things have been pretty busy as of late.  Zach Egolf Photography has had a string of shoots (like this one), while Zach Egolf the person has been all over God's green Earth visiting friends and family.  On top of that, I recently took part in another great photowalk, put on by The PhotoWalk Alliance.  We enjoyed a beautiful day in Washington D.C. and, while I could tell you more about it, it's probably just easier to check out Joe Sterne's latest blog post.  He does a lot better job of telling a story than I do!

So what AM I posting about?  Read on to find out more...

One of the neater aspects of being in a city like Washington D.C. is the sheer number of people that are around and the vast opportunities that exist to "people watch" at just about every stop.  One aspect of photography that I've never really gotten the chance to enjoy has been the art of street photography.  Whether it be a result of me living in the suburbs, or of the fact that I'm not 100% comfortable with sneaking photos of people in public, I've never been the biggest fan of street photography.

On our photowalk, however, I happened to have my trusty Canon 70-200 and the thought that I wouldn't be back in D.C. for another couple of years, so I figured "Why the hell not?" and just started shooting.

It was a really neat experience, getting to shoot people acting naturally.  With the length I have on that lens, there was very little chance of me getting caught, which probably made it a bit easier.  It was also a little creepy, knowing that someone could probably be doing the same thing to me and I would be completely oblivious.  I would love to explore this new-found territory a bit more, and hope that future photowalks give me the chance to do so!  I'll post a few more at the end of this post, if you want to check them out.

A Ghostly Photowalk // Fall 2011 Baltimore Photowalk

Recently The Photowalk Alliance took our second Photowalk.  For this walk, the Fall 2011 Photowalk, myself and Joe Sterne planned a private tour to Westminster Hall and the current burial site of Edgar Allen Poe.  This trip was different for us, in that we had made quite a few leaps and bounds since planning our previous walk.  For starters, this walk was our first official sponsored walk, with donations and assistance coming from the fine folks at both ThinkTank Photo and Black Rapid, makers of some of the finest accessories and equipment for photographers the world-over.

What did those fine folks do for us?  Funny you should ask.  You may recall a previous post where I reviewed the ThinkTank Digital Holster 50 v2.0.  At the time, I couldn't reveal the secret, but ThinkTank actually gave us that bag to give away at our walk.  We held a photo contest during the walk, and the winner was selected at 10pm on Sunday, November 20th.  The winner of the contest was the photo that looked the "creepiest" and was selected by members of TPA.  The winner of the bag was Christine Sullivan, with the following photo:

Christine is a local photographer in the Maryland area, and we're pretty sure she managed to capture a ghost in this image!

The image definitely fit in with the entire ambiance of the trip.  The tour guide gave us some great ghost stories, and I don't think there was a single hair in the house that wasn't standing on end, and not a single person just a tiny bit creeped out.

Our other sponser, Black Rapid, was also kind enough to give us an item to give away at our walk.  For this particular item we drew names out of a hat, and gave away a Black Rapid RS Sport strap.  I personally love the Black Rapid line of straps (and have raved about them just about every chance that I get) and I think we were able to sell a few to some of our fellow walkers!

I think everybody had a lot of fun (I hope) and I'm really looking forward to our next walk.  If you're interested in joining us on any of our future walks, make sure to hit up our facebook page.  We try our best to keep our costs down and our fun up, so make sure you get on the list for the next one!

If you were at the walk, feel free to leave a comment on this post telling everyone about your experience, and enjoy some more photos from our walk after this post!

[Photowalk Gallery]