Google+ Photowalk in Austin
This past Saturday was the big Google+ photowalk here in Austin. It was hosted by none other than Thomas Hawk, the well-known photographer and blogger from San Francisco. If you are not familiar with his work, suffice it to say that he is well on his way to meeting his stated goal of posting 1 million photos in his lifetime. No, that is not a misprint. He cranks out photos like a factory, and yet it's all quality work. Really impressive when you think about it.
Anyways, being a huge fan of Google+, I was excited to get out there and meet lots of folks. Photowalks are always fun for me, but when they are large and actually have real sponsors (thanks Google and Dell!) it brings a whole new level of excitement to it.
Google+ has really taken the photographic world by storm - I consider it the Facebook for photographers. It's a great platform for meeting interesting folks from all over, and the level of engagement is something I have never seen before. It's impressive. Anyways, the walk started at the Hyatt down on the lake, which is right in the middle of downtown basically, and we walked around the lake snapping a lot of things. It lasted for a couple of hours, and then back at the hotel they even let you upload your best photo and they hosted a contest with prizes. Pretty cool huh? It was great fun, great to see such a huge turnout (there had to be well over 100 folks there), and it was great to speak with Thomas Hawk a bit. In addition to being a great photographer, he's a really cool guy. Here's us at the end of the walk. Like I said, cool guy, really down to earth despite all his notoriety and success. (Am I getting shorter or something? hehe)
So, here's a few shots from the walk. I have quite a lot actually, so I am just posting a few right now. Some others that I really like I will save for future posts. In the interest of speed and efficiency, I left the tripod in the car and went "commando", so to speak!
Here's the Hyatt where we started...along the beautiful shores of Lady Bird Lake (aka Town Lake or the Colorado River).
We even had a sign for the photowalk! This corporate sponsorship thing is cool! That's me in the white shirt on the end. Not sure what that expression is doing on my face - I was pretty fired up to be out shooting with everyone!
Thomas Hawk, lying in the dirt and shooting at something...
A model named "Eight" who happened to be standing around and posing...
Stevie Ray Vaughan statue along the lake...
It wouldn't be Austin if there wasn't some graffiti somewhere...
I love my town...
A new take on something I shot long ago...this is part of the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge which crosses the lake...
I love doors, and this one just needed to be photographed!
Google+ : Winning! We came across this little bit of "winning graffiti", and Thomas thought it would be cool to put a Google+ sticker there. So he did. Click.
Check out all these old film cameras! This guy said he got them all free, and they all work! Cool!
Signs are one of my favorite things to shoot...
Dell even arranged a taco drop, so some kind folks met us with a bunch of tacos and bottles of water, which we needed after all this hard work and walking! They didn't last long. :)
Well, this is probably my longest post ever, but I felt like posting a bunch of shots from this photowalk and it seemed like the right thing to do. Thanks for having a look!
