Two weeks ago the London Photo Walk took a road trip down the road to Port Stanley, Ontario. Heading out that afternoon I was happy to see that it was a generally nice day without any wind in sight.  I must admit though that I was a little ‘worried’ that because of the location (outside of London) and the winter weather that the turnout for February’s photo walk might not be that good.  Well I have to say that I was impressed.

With about 15 people turning out and a bunch of new faces, the London Photo Walk explored Port Stanley, Ontario and took some great shots.  Although the terrain was a little wetter than I had thought it would been, we went up and down the beach, walked in and around the harbour and some of us had the chance to grab a bit to eat afterwards at what appeared to be the only restaurant open in the evening, The Buccaneer.

There certainly is something that is intriguing about heading to a location that typically is visited only during the summer months and capturing the beauty of it on a nice winter’s day. Some great pictures were taken during the day and everyone I spoke to seemed to enjoy the location.

One thing I want to note is that the London Photo Walk isn’t just about walking and taking photos, its about helping those who might happen to get their pickup truck stuck on a mound of snow in a deserted parking lot where ‘luckily’ the London Photo Walk just happened to be.

Before we even started walking on that day we managed to help someone get their truck unstuck in the parking lot, then we watched him drive around the parking lot trying not to get re-stuck.  We figured we should help out as we would expect others to do the same for us.

Stay tuned for the details of the March  photo walk, we hope to have them in the next week or so.

Oh, and remember, April’s photo walk will be the 1 year anniversary of the London Photo Walk and we will be heading back into East London for our walk.

Lens Lenders has added new lenses (and a body) to their rental catalogue. These additions are exciting and include supertelephoto lenses which customers have requested almost since the business first opened.

In addition to all of the lenses/gear that were previously available to rent (for week/weekend periods) the following list of items has recently been added:

Canon 5D Mark II D-SLR camera
Canon 50mm f/1.2 L USM
Canon 85mm f/1.2 L USM II
Canon 300mm f/2.8 L USM IS
Canon 400mm f/2.8 L USM IS

Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 G AF-S
Nikon 45mm f/2.8 D PC-E
Nikon 200-400mm f/4 G IF VR
Nikon 300mm f/2.8 G IF VR

Olympus 14-35mm f/2 SWD
Olympus 35-100mm f/2

Make sure to check out LensLenders.ca for a complete list of what is available to rent, pricing details and rental agreement.

Photo by Kevin Van Lierop

London Photowalk is going for a wee trip for our next photowalk. Port Stanley is our destination for February, specifically the beach! Ok well you might not be catching some rays and getting a tan but it will be a great spot for amazing photographs. So here are the details we have so far.

When: Sunday February 28, 2010
Where: Port Stanley Beach (map in sidebar)
Time: 3:30pm

Route: The route to be taken has been updated in the map to the right (in the sidebar)

The winter offers some great shots along the beach with the frozen lake, snow piles and more. We highly suggest that you bundle up nice and warm and dress for the weather. The beach tends to be windier and colder than the weather forecast.

We are looking for people that can offer up room in their vehicle to help transport any individuals that need a ride. Please use the comments section on this entry to help everyone out

Hope to see you all there!

Our latest photowalk in no way involved math. Unless of course you were calculating your sunny 16’s (without sun) and f-stops. Our first photowalk of 2010 was in beautiful Springbank park.

We were hoping for a little more snow in the park, and some snow on the trees but that did not stop us from going out and freezing our fingers off! We once again had a great turn out of about 20 people. No after party this time though as everyone was extremely cold and ready to head home and enjoy a nice hot cup of co-co.

Our walk this time started off with geese, yes geese, contrary to were you think they should be (in the sunny States and Mexico) they decided to stay right here in Canada. What troopers! They made for some great photo-ops and of course made for some great photo-ops with the other organizer Kevin chasing after the great pic!

Some of us went of the groomed walking trail and took to the beaten path down below near the water. Good thing no one fell in. As you may know I am prone to slipping and falling on these walks with my crazy ideas for shots!

We got to see a lof of new faces out this time as well. In fact the majority of our group this time was NEW! Thank you all for coming out! Hopefully we didnt scare the newbies off and they will be back.

Keep your eyes peeled at the top of the page for the random imports from Flick’r and in a few weeks time Kevin and I will as usual pick a few photos to highlight in the side bar. I would also like to take this time to tell you more about that sidebar. It is in no way a contest over there, each of us goes through the group and finds two shots that we feel showed off the overall feeling of the last walk. If you ever don’t want your photo there please send us and email and we will remove it right away.

Please post your photos to our Flick’r group as well so everyone can enjoy them!

We are also looking for suggestions for walk for February and any other time of the year as well. Feel free to email them to us or post in the comments below.

Hope to see you all at the next walk, and until next time keep those fingers warm and photos coming in!

It has been a suggestion that I have received many times for the London Photowalk site. So here it is finally!

LOPW now has a market place. Feel free to post anything you would like on the market place, if you would like to suggest a categories please just send us an email.

I will let you know of a small glitch in the plug-in that we are using. You can not actually view the categories with the view categories link. To see ads relating to just a specific category there is a drop-down in the main view. That one will work.

There are already some great steals on there for you to look at so head on ever to the Marketplace!

NOTE: You must be registered on the blog to post on the marketplace.

So this review is only 2 months way over due! I was suppose to write this up shortly after the walk but then came Christmas and then our latest walk earlier today. That review I promise will be up much sooner.

For our 8th and last photo walk of 2009. We went through London’s industrial area. This area has been given a bad rap over that past few years, with many rundown buildings and not that much curb appeal. That is now a myth as all of the participants of the 8th walk will tell you.

The industrial area made for great photos, regardless of the grey skies that followed us through the walk. The area was full of colour and thankfully not full of snow being November.

We had a very good turnout with around 25ppl participating this time around. After wards we headed to Sam and Bills on Dundas across from the old McCormick factory for some well need refreshments, and few good laughs. Many of those laughs were attributed to Kevin’s friend Kyle and his NaPhoBoMo adventures:

I encourage you to take a look through the flickr group and hope to see you at future walks!

Here at the London Photo Walk we hope that everyone had a great holiday season and a chance to relax with family and friends.

With the new year we are back to walking and photographing, starting in a couple of weeks.

The details of the next walk are as follows:

Date: Saturday January 23, 2010
Time: 3:00pm
Meeting Place: Springbank Park (Storybook Gardens Parking Lot)
Entrance: Off of Commissioners Road
Route: Still to be determined

Map Will Be Posted Soon

We thought that this would be a great opportunity to get out and take some nice winter scene pictures (assuming that the snow is still around).  Trees with snow, people all bundled up, perhaps we can build a Snowman or throw a snowball or two, its all an opportunity to get out during the winter season and just have fun.

We hope to return to Springbank Park later in the year and hopefully Storybook Gardens as well, but more news on this as the year passes on.

We hope to see you all out.  Remember to dress for the weather, that means remember to wear your electric underwear.

If the weather turns out to be very very bad that day we might have to re-schedule, but we will see what it is like that day.