Glasgow Photowalk

A few Sundays ago I headed to Glasgow not for my usual Sunday cinema trip but for a photowalk and workshop with a bunch of strangers. Standard. This was arranged by Ashley over at Girl With A Camera and since I couldn't go to the first one, I sure didn't want to miss this second one. Armed with nothing more than my iPhone 4S I made my way there.

I was late. Only by a few minutes and only because the queue for the car park was looooong, then i had to catch the underground. But I did make it and they hadn't started yet. Phew. When I arrived there was a room of people sitting in dim light on various shapes of seating, kinda like a house party! I took a seat and waited a few minutes. Then it began...

Ashley welcomed everyone and introduced today's guest, Dan Rubin. Someone I actually have followed in Instagram for a while. Great photos there. He gave a little talk about what we'd be doing, then about some of his favourite photographers, then techy stuff about cameras. Myself and one other person were the only ones using smart phones - iPhones to be exact. Yikes. Everyone else seemed to have huge all singing all dancing camera equipment with them. It was all very interesting though since I am in the middle of deciding which camera to buy and what use i would get out of it. (As is the norm for me, I'll have to go through my 6 month uhming and ahing research and gestation period before i nail the final one down. By which time a new model will be in the pipeline!). Anyway, I felt a little bad for just having my iPhone but then Dan said it doesn't matter what equipment you have, it's what you see that's the main thing - or something along those lines. He put a list of apps that were useful for phones and luckily I had almost all of them on my phone already.

After about an hour of slides and tech talk and pointers about what to talk pictures of we set out on our walk. It wasn't raining but it was dull and grey. No harsh sunlight though which was apparently good. We wandered out into the lane and everyone set about taking their pictures. It was good to see how other people worked and what they wanted to take pictures of. Some were portraits, others were buildings. Me? Well I like looking up. Buildings, skies, clouds, architecture. Portraits are quite hard on an iPhone unless you are able to use your elbows to get to the front. My elbows seemed to be out of action that day...

However, in the lane next to the workshop venue there was an old bike, a worn old crumbling painted door and a great wall. I took one of my best pictures there. What do you think?

I shot this on the VSCOcam app, then edited it later on at the workshop after a few hints and tips from Dan. It's my best picture form the day, or one of them at least. When I uploaded it to the Glasgow Photowalk Flickr group then opened it on my laptop, I loved t even more. The quality is pretty decent for a 3 year old iPhone 4S camera.

We walked around Ashton Lane, the headed to the University of Glasgow and back around in a loop to the workshop venue. I was glad as it was getting pretty cold and my hands were numb from taking pics on my phone. My battery was almost at zero too! Damn you iPhone and your rubbish battery.

Back at the venue we got sandwiches and tea and then were told to each pick about 3 photos to edit. I had a hard job deciding. In the end I opted for the bike shot above and the two below.

Not a bad days work and a great way to spend an early spring Sunday.

Hopefully I can make it along to the next one. And you can too! check out the website.

Angela x