Or LCPW as I will refer to it through the rest of the post.

What is a LCPW?

A LCPW is a photowalk that is organized by a member of the London Community. This not only includes the people who live in the London community but the ones that visit it frequently etc. etc. A LCPW will be posted on our blog by that member and it’s easy I will instruct you how further down in this post.

Where did this idea come from?

If you have read Kevin (the original brain child of the London Photowalk)’s post on where he has been the last photowalks you will know that over the year we have been running these photowalks more and more “sub” photowalks have been popping up with ppl looking to explore more of London more often than once a month. Opening up photowalking to the community is of course not new, but we are offering our blog to post those walks and get more attention to them and great a larger photographic and arts community in London, Ontario.

How do I find the LCPW’s I can Attend?

Well this is the simple part, just click the Community Walks link in the top navigation. You can also look for post in the Community Walks category and prefixed with LCPW:

Ok so How DO I DO IT ALREADY!?

Ok ok anxious photowalk leader! This is what we need from you to get your photowalk posted on the blog:

1. Register on our blog. Link in the sidebar near the bottom (if your already registered skip this step)
2. Log In – Here you will see in the left column the Posts section. Here you can write you post for the blog. We will get into the details of that post in a few.
3. Hit Send for Review. Everyone who registers on our blog is registered as a contributor. This means that you can write your own posts and send them to the Admins and have them posted!

We are working on an automated process to the photowalk posting process. But until that day comes this will work just fine. I would like to point out that the post having to be approved is NOT us sending your walk through and approval process BUT a way for us to do the behind the scenes work of getting that post in the right spot, making the robots like it, and getting is sent out to Twitter.

Conditions of your Blog Post

We already have one LCPW posted and another one in the ques. This is what we would like to see in your post.

A little blurb about where you are going to go, what your going to go, points of interested etc. Then we would like you to use this format for the Details:

When: DATE
Time: TIME
Route: ROUTE MAY BE A LINK TO A GOOGLE MAP
Meeting Location: MEETING LOCATION
Afterwards: (optional but a great way to talk more about photography after)

And then any other detail you would like to include. Such as contact information, registration links if you’d like etc. By posting through the blog we will send you a notification when someone comments on your post so that you can respond accordingly.

Pheeew!

That was a lot of reading (and writing on my part ;) We really hope that you enjoy this new feature and that it gets used lots! As mentioned above it will be improved over time to become more automated and faster.

Thanks for reading!

Signed
James Wilkinson ;)

Over the past month  I have received several email from active photo walkers asking me where I have been? I haven’t been around much in terms of the photo walk and I thought that rather than sending our a similar email many times I would just provide a general update.

In the past month’s I have been very busy and have been neglecting the photo walk, not by choice but by necessity.  Things such as helping family members move, other community projects (ChangeCamp and Nuit Blanche and PARK(ing) Day) and personal issues have kept me away from the photo walks.

On the one hand I have really missed planning and taking part in the walks as they offer a great opportunity to explore London and meet up with so many great people. However, on the other hand, missing the walks has helped to push the London Photo Walk in the right direction.

Where We Are Going (I Hope)

With myself not being available (and James not being available on occasion) the walks still have continued.  Thanks to the dedication of some of the photo walkers in London, the walks have continued and have been as successful as ever.  Two examples are the Watson Park Walk, which I attended but did not organized. This walk has been one of my favourites over the past year.  The other example is today’s World Wide Photo Walk. Because of personal items, both myself and James have been unable to plan or attend today’s evening walk, no worries as Chris Baldwin and Donnie Currie have taken control.

These two examples are just a small hint as to where I believe the London Photo Walk should be going.

There is no doubt that I sill plan on organizing and participating in a monthly walk, but the intentions are, over the coming months, that the London Photo Walk website will be fully open to have people suggest/organize walks that they would like to lead and that this information can post automatically, there by essentially allowing photo walks to happen, any time and any place.

When I first suggested having a photo walk I did so out of a very selfish manner. As many know, I had just purchased my first digital camera and wanted to learn from other people how to use it. Quickly the Photo Walk developed to a great community event that presents the opportunity for anyone to come out and explore the city with other members of the public in a relaxed environment.  Although planning the photo walks has been great, the logical next step is to give the London Photo Walk to community and let them run with it. More details will be coming over the next couple of months.

I’m excited as where this can take us.

We would like to share the following community event with you full of photo opportunities!

Thanks to Chris Baldwin for leading and Donna Currie for support this walk is back on. sorry for the confusion!

The London Photowalk Group is back again this year for another World Wide Photowalk! This year we will be exploring the beautiful Gibbons park and surroundings during the golden hours. This is a very large park so we will have lots of room for our 50+ participants (if we count on last years numbers).

Gibbons park is situated on the edge of the thames with a beautiful walking bridge, shore side access, lots of trees, a splash pad and pool, and of course many geese and ducks ready to be photographed!

So here are the details!

Gibbons Park World Wide Photo Walk
Date: Saturday July 24th
Time: 7:00PM – 9:00PM
Where: Gibbons Park Splash Pad Parking Lot
Route: Walking through the park with a stint into a historic neighborhood then back down through the north end of the park. See RED on map.

You need to register to be a part of the Wordl Wide Photowalk, and it is open to 50 ppl. However just as we did last year we do not limit the amount of ppl who can come. So come anyways if you dont get registered. However if you do get registered you are entered into the World Wide Photo Walk photo contest!

So we hope to see all of you out, and dont forget to Register!

Here was the wining photo for London, Ontario from last years WWPW by Jason Parreira:

Our next photowalk will be at the beautiful St. Peter’s seminary and taking the trails down to the River and following the bike path back to the seminary. This is a 3KM walk but only 2KM is really pretty. So bring comfortable walking shoes and water! We will be going during the evning for some really nice light. Points of intrest are the Seminary it’self, the courts behind the seminary, and the river. So here are all the details in short, see the map above for the route.

Huron Woods Photowalk

Date:  June 19th, 2010

Time: 6PM-8PM

Meeting Spot: Kings College Parking Lot, just beside and back from the seminary.

Route: Through the seminary yard down the nature trail and back on the walking path.

Parking: Paid parking located at Kings College meeting spot, as well as free parking along the side of the street.

Well as you can hopefully see the site has changed a bit! London Photo Walk is now a year old and the original website was just a random theme off the internet and then further down we added and changed a few things, and now we have completely re done it all from the Top Down! I say that because if you notice the footer isn’t quite finished yet! So lets go over what is new!

1. The Design of course. The new design puts a larger focus on the London Photowalk’s Next Walk as seen at the top of the page in the big green bar, and the overall brand of the walks.

2. The Marketplace, this feature was implemented a few months ago but we have put more focus on it. We have found from our website stats that the Market place is our second most visited page, third is the photos page.

3. The Photos Page, this page is still under construction. We are looking for a non-flash solution for pulling as many images as we can from our flickr group and displaying them on that page. If you know any really nice ones please share them with us in the Comments!

4. Comments, nothing has changed here but we really want you input! Tell us what you think of a post, whether or not you plan on coming for a walk and feel free to contact us if you would like use to post a community event on our Calendar. We are all about Community Involvement and engagement!

5. Calendar, this has always been there but we once again want to remind you that all of our walks and community events will be posted to this calendar and you can subscribe to the Calendar feed!

So that is an overview of what you can see on our site that has changed. Under the hood we have removed a bunch of excess “fat” and the website now runs smoother than ever! We really hope you enjoy this new design and like always let us know your thoughts!

Oh and one more thing. WE ARE ON TWITTER NOW! You can follow us @ldnpw . Our feed will send you updates when we post a new post on the blog as well as the occasional tips and tricks, and what ever else we find that is photography related!