Importing a concept

The concept of a photo-walk was probably started by

in Madras some six months ago (the credit for this idea, he says, should go to Monica). Since then, it has become a monthly feature, and of late, has started attracting participants from outside of madras also (such as

).

I don’t know if such a thing is being done in Bangalore. I know that there is a group of photographers who meet up every weekend and take photos at markets. This seems like a completely photography-oriented endeavour. There is also a Bangalore Walks, where for four hours on a weekend morning, if you pay four hundred rupees, you are taken around a fixed walking tour of Bangalore (two of the tours are in the M G Road area, and one in Lalbagh). There are also several “birding expeditions”, as I learn from

‘s blog.? Then, there is Arun and a couple of his friends who walked around Lalbagh and a couple of other areas for a few weekends and called their photo sets as “bangalore photo walk”.

Since my survey (able aided by chandroo and aadisht) doesn’t reveal any photo walk (in the way that chandru does it in madras), I propose to fill the gap in this market. I propose to have the first photo walk on Sunday, the 27th of April at 8 am. The tentative route is between K R Market and Gandhi Bazaar, along the K R Road (we will start from the end of KR Road, and just keep walking. I get the impression that the market itself has been covered by sufficient number of groups so let’s leave that for now). I will confirm and put more details about this route in a day or two.

Just to refresh you people about the concept, it’s just “photo” and “walk”. We meet at a point (say point A) and walk from there to point B along a pre-specified route, taking photos as we go along. And then we disperse. And maybe meet again in a month’s time at a different point.

Now, there is one important difference between Madras and here. Chandroo has decent fundaes both about Madras and photography. I think I’m fairly competent when it comes to knowledge about Bangalore but I don’t know much about photography. I use a simple Kodak aim-and-shoot digicam, and generally churn out not-so-good snaps (you can see some of my snaps here). I have a special interest in photographing unusual signboards. Coming back to the point, I would hope to draw upon the experiences of more experienced photographers who might choose to walk with me in order to improve my own skills.

Why am I doing this? It’s been a long-standing aim to just walk around the streets of Bangalore and randomly take photos. So far, I’ve been too lazy to do it. Basically, NED has been happening. Now, if i set a time and place, and also promise several other people that I will be there, it will be that much more difficult to put NED. And I’ll get down to doing the task.

Oh, and by the way, this thing is going to be free. The only thing I’m going to ask for is your time. And hopefully, in this time, I can share with you some of my fundaes about Bangalore, which might prove to be useful. Also, this opportunity of going out as a group and taking pics might draw you out of your NED.

I shamelessly admit to being a copycat. However, i think it’s a good thing to copy good things. Let me know if you’re interested by leaving a comment. I’ll be back soon with the route details etc.

A couple of requests. Please leave a comment here if you want to attend. Not that I’ll cancel the walk if not enough people respond, but it would feel good to know how many people are interested.

Also, if you like this idea, I request you to give more publicity for it. Maybe post a link to this on your blog. Or if you blog at one of the more popular blogs (such as metblogs), you could put a link there. Thanks in advance.

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