On Saturday, Bill and I participated in a photowalk in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. It was one of a few hundred photowalks around the world that took place on August 23 as part of the Worldwide Photo Walk. Over 8000 photographers registered for the various walks. Jeff Revell led both the morning and evening photowalks in Alexandria. There were about 50 photographers on the morning walk – and Jeff was expecting an equal number for the evening photowalk.

Photowalks are great fun. How they work is that someone announces that they are holding a photowalk at a certain date and location. They decide on a walking route (usually a couple of miles – with the ending point near the starting point) and figure out where the photographers can get something to eat at the end. Photowalks usually last a couple of hours – ending with a meal where all the photographers check out and share the photos they’ve taken. The organizer also sets up a Flickr group where people who attended the Photowalk can share their photos. What participants do is walk, talk and take lots of photos. 🙂

One aspect Bill and I really enjoy about the photowalks is the opportunity to meet other photographers in the area. There are some fantastic photographers in the DC area – and we’ve had a chance to meet several of them on the photowalks. Many of the local photobloggers participate in the photowalks. On Saturday – we finally met Shawn Duffy, Mark Anderson and Cindy Dyer in person. I’ve been reading their blogs for months – so it was nice to finally have a face to put with their names and photos. Cindy already has her photos from the Photowalk posted on her blog – Mark has posted some of his on Flickr. It’s always neat to see what caught other photographers eye as they followed the same walking route that we did.

Here are the first set of my photos from the Photowalk. I’ll be posting more photos from both Bill and I later in the week.

The Old Town Alexandria Photowalk started at Founders Park. We walked along the Potomac River, up through town, spent some time at the Farmer’s market and then ended up at the Torpedo Factory for lunch.

As Jeff Revell was doing the introductory briefing on Saturday morning, his phone rang. It was Scott Kelby – author of the Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers and organizer of the Worldwide Photowalk.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

We started walking along the Potomac River and eventually got to the plaza and dock area behind the Torpedo Factory. The ropes on the guardrails used by the city of Alexandria to keep people from falling into the water caught my eye.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

This is the Cherry Blossom – one of the boats that gives tours on the Potomac River. I loved the look of the paddle wheel and the wrought iron work on the boat. Several photographers took some great photos of the same boat and have already posted them on the Flickr group for the Photowalk.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

A couple of subjects that lots of photographers photograph on the Photowalks are cute kids and dogs. In Alexandria – I found two little boys playing with a dog. The three were happy to pose for me.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

After photographing in the dock area for a while, we headed into town. Objects in store display windows can be really fun to photograph. Here’s a pair of ducks – one wearing a sombrero – I spotted in the bicycle store window.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Just down the street from the bike shop, a small patch of sunflowers were growing against a building wall. I think just about every photographer on the photowalk took at least one photo of the sunflowers. Here’s my sunflower photo.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

When I spotted the headline on the paper – I had to photograph Saturday’s Washington Post in one of the newspaper boxes on the street. There were other things happening in the world besides 8000 photographers going out for walk.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

I’m not sure what this post is for – but I loved the design. My guess is that its for bicyclists to have a safe place to chain their bikes to.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

My final photo for today is a cute little bunny decoration in a planter on someone’s front porch.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

I’ll post my photos from the farmers’ market and the War of 1812 reenactors on Wednesday, and Bill’s photos on Saturday. Hope you enjoy the photos.