Taipei Photo Walk: 2009 Picture Adventures in Taipei

Just who showed up?

After last week's successful Taipei Photo Walk, I just got an email saying that the participants photograph is now complete. It's unusual in that it's a 360 degree photograph (called a pano)made with Flash. Take a look, and see if you can spot yours truly. A clue: I'm wearing glasses.

the event

This afternoon, Craig Ferguson and a bunch of us 'big noses et al.' met at 50 Songqin Rd, just a stones throw from Xinyi Rd and the World Trade Center. Actually, from the Google map, I didn't recognise that area at all. I should have. I lived near there for nearly six months.

Though the weather threatened heavy rain, it held off for the most part; though the humidity was high, and a stop at Big Tom's was welcome for some 'cool' relief, later on. This walk was for our contribution to PhotoWalk Day which is now a global event taking place on July 18th in 900 destinations. In Taiwan there were two walks today: one in Taipei and one in Taichung.

We ended up at about seven o'clock in Yuma about 2-3 miles from the start point which is an enjoyable and affordable South Western Grill style restaurant. It seems popular with foreigners in Taipei and a very hip/trendy local youth market. I quite enjoy the food there, and the ribs are really great!

I've got a couple of pictures of some of the participants, but there'll be more at Flickr. I'm planning to post three or four, but right now I need to select the best two that represent my contribution. Of course, I have no chance of winning anything in the competition because my skills are sorely lacking. But I have to show up, just for the sake of participation.

my skills are sorely lacking. But I have to show up, just for the sake of participation. A picture of Craig, our fearless sunburned leader! More of the group posing for a 360-deg. group photo. Can't wait to see how that turns out. So we took in Taipei 101 and after that, I got separated from the rest of the group. Probably just as well, I got to take some more Taipei photo pictures and explore areas that I found. Walking with others becomes much more of a social activity (also good!). Most of the photos will be uploaded this week, and we'll see which photos Craig chooses to represent Taipei's PhotoWalk. My own photographs were mostly taken with my Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FX30. It's a great little camera for most shooting, but today's walk exposed a number of annoying limitations: speed - too slow a shutter speed to take some photographs, some photos became quite grainy in lower light settings, and the unit became quite hot (due to the heat/battery/my hand) in more intense usage. Perhaps it's time to upgrade to something a little more suitable. Suggestions? After the end of the walk, I went to Costco to buy a little device to help turn my 35mm photos to jpegs. I'm planning to unbox it tomorrow. Will take photographs for you!

My first shots on the Taipei Photo Walk

Our PhotoWalk-2, originally uploaded by obblogatory.

This photo was taken as part of the Taipei Photo Walk Yesterday by me on my humble Lumix camera.

My entries to the Taipei Photo Walk

Saturday Traffic Duty in Taipei Thirsty on a hot day in Taipei? You can see the other entries by clicking on the images. If you can't click, visit WorldWide Photo Walk. I tried to provide a stable link to Taiwan's PhotoWalks but the URLs keep changing. So hunt on the site for the walks in your area.

Results of Taiwan's entry

Craig finally announced the results of the 2009 Photowalk. I'll give you a wee preview here, but you have to check out the blog page (hint: click on the picture to view the actual post) yourself. Oh, and Craig has a bloody fantastic new theme. The pictures made me nearly fall out of my chair they were so big! I might have to get a new theme for my site, the company doing the theme has some mindblowing themes available, both free and paid.