Photos with tag 'photo-ride'

Posts with tag 'photo-ride'

Photo ride

Last Tuesday, a myself and some fellow bike/camera enthusiasts tried a new (to us, at least) experiment of a "photo ride".

The photo ride follows the same basic concept of the familiar photowalk, where people meet at a location and walk around together taking photos of their surrounds and each other. The biggest problem I have with photowalks is the choice of surroundings is effectively limited to where you start the walk. In the course of the last photowalk, we covered slightly over 2km in 90 mins and never left Gastown. While this can be a good challenge to improve your photographic eye and find new possibilities in familiar places, it can also be pretty boring.

With the inclusion of bikes, the radius of exploration for a photo ride can easily be 15 km or more in the course of several hours, and gives us command over the majority of Vancouver. Everyone brings a suggestion of a spot to check out, we pick a general route to cover them, and head off. At each location, bikes are put aside and cameras come out and people explore for a while, and people can call to stop along the way if they see something interesting or think of a new spot as we pass it.

The first experiment proved that the idea has a lot of potential. There were a number of logistical challenges I'd not really considered until the ride got under way. For starters, the ride feels like it would work much better if there was a specific set of stops to visit. Simply riding along trying to find photo opportunities is challenging, since the scenery goes by so fast. Which ties into the next issue: If one is looking for photos while on their bike, how does on keep their camera somewhere easily accessible, but still reasonably safe, while riding? Some had their camera bags attached to their bikes, I had mine on a short strap around my neck. There's definitely some room for experimentation and improvement there, and I predict every one that comes regularly will be a pro at riding no-handed while holding a camera by the end of the summer.

Even with the mediocre weather on Tuesday, we managed to go from the VAG, through Gastown, down to Railway Street, and up to the Science World gazebo to meet fellow biking friends in slightly over an hour. Sunny days and longer rides can only turn out even better. I'm thinking of making it a twice a month event for the summer, and will be posting updates at the new Photo ride Flickr group.