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At the end of Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photo Walk, I stopped by lake Harriet and took this picture. It has become my first picture on flickr with 5 favorites. 88 views as of tonight. Kind of strange. I like this picture, and it has a surreal look to it, but I wouldn’t have thought it would be so well liked.

Somehow I screwed this up, it was supposed to be posted on the 27th.

David duChemin had two posts today on learning, at his blog, and as a guest on Scott Kelby’s blog. Two things struck me, one he said to get to a workshop, and two, find a mentor. Both of these are interesting to me. Joel, our walk leader from a couple of days ago also suggested I go to a workshop. I am not sure how to pay for it yet, but I think something from the Digital Landscape Workshop Series would be great. Moose Peterson, and Joe McNally are two of the instructors. Joe wrote the book “The Moment it Clicks“, which is one of the few non technical books I bought this year.

The other is the idea of a mentor. I hadn’t thought of that before. It sounds like a great idea. The issue will be finding one.

Woo Hoo. The D90 has finally been announced. This is definitely my next camera. If I could just stop buying new running gear, I could start saving for this thing.

It will move me up from 3 to 11 focus points, and from ridiculously slow to 4.5 frames per second shooting. A better viewing screen, and a 12.3 Mpix sensor that borrows from the D300. We will have to wait for reviews to see if this is the same sensor as the D300 or more likely a slightly toned down version.

Automatic sensor cleaning will be nice, and live view will be interesting to play with, but a movie mode? That is crazy! I will be watching to hear what people have to say about this.

DPReview has more to say on the D90.

It is not shipping yet, as expected, but Amazon is pre-ordering for $999 body only, and $1299 with the new 18-105 f/3.5-5.6kit lens. Not sure about the lens. We’ll have to wait and see what people say about the quality of this lens. At $300, it might be a good investment. I have a 17-50 f/2.8 Tamron, and it is a great lens, but as a walkaround, 50mm is short.

Anyway, I have a little while to decide while Nikon makes the camera available, and I try to find stuff to sell on ebay to afford the new toy.

I got an honorable mention in the photo walk photo shoot contest in Minneapolis for the shot below with the evening shot of the tender and the city in the background.

See this discussion.

I finally got to my pictures from the photo walk. I put some of them in this Minneapolis flickr group, and all the ones I posted into this set.

Spent Sunday at the the Renaissance Festival. I had never been before, and was quite impressed by the size and scope of the event. There were more poeple than I expected. I figured they would all be at the State Fair. I was trying to take pictures, and I will have a few to post later I am sure. It was a little difficult to take pictures with one hand while holding Lily with the other. I didn’t get that much of a chance to take them. There were tons of people in costume, so people pictures abounded. She really could have used a nap before we went.

We all had a great time Saturday night at the Minneapolis photowalk. Joel did a great job of leading the event. We were the last two stragglers making their way to their cars after the restaurant. I had dragged a tripod with me, and Joel was giving me some tips on some Minneapolis night time skyline shots we saw. I met some great people, and look forward to seeing their pictures. I am still going through mine. Last night Aperture decided half way through my sorting that it wouldn’t recognize the file format of half my pictures, so I just shut down. I’ll try again tonight.

It sounds like the other walks went great also. Scott seems to be indicating that this could be an annual event. I wonder if he will be updating his lightroom book yearly?

I am psyched. The first Worldwide Photowalk is tomorrow. Scott Kelby started this as a way to promote his new lightroom 2 book, but the idea of the photowalk has really taken off. There are over 7000 people in cities all over the world. Thank goodness they won’t all be in Minneapolis. Although, it would be fun I think to have all of these people here instead of the Republican National Convention next week. The walk here in Minneapolis will be around lake Calhoun. I am really looking forward to it. After the event, look to this flickr group for the photos.

National Camera had their yearly tent sale last weekend. That makes it exactly one year that I have had my D40. Wow. It seems like I have been taking pictures for longer than that. I guess I have, just not with a DSLR. It has served me well (enough), and now I await the next upgrade. This next year should be interesting. I have come a long way in a year. Will interest wane, will I improve, will I wish for a full frame camera? Who knows.

To mark the occasion, I bought a 67mm circular polarizer for the Tamron lens, and a set of close up filters. I haven’t got any pictures out of the camera yet with these, so I will write up more about them later. I am not expecting great things out of the close up lenses, but I thought I would give them a try as they were half off.

I have seen a few posts lately about what makes the picture, the camera, or the person taking the picture. It seems a little silly to me. It’s the camera! You point, push a button, and out pops a picture. Oh, you mean a good picture. Well, that seems a little elitist. Lots of people take pretty good pictures, and some get really lucky and take a great picture, by just holding a camera in front of them, and pressing the shutter. David duChemin says that taking pictures is hard. And that we (armatures) expect great pictures by buying expensive gear, and don’t want or expect to put in lots of effort. Matt Brandon talks of his days in a store where some people would buy more expensive cameras than he could afford, when “he” was the real photographer.

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