Worldwide Photo Walk V

Banners celebrating Stuttgart on Reunification Day were still hanging two days later

October 5, Fynn and I went on our fifth "Worldwide Photo Walk," an organized gathering of nearly 30,000 photographers around the globe who take pictures in one of over 1,200 cities on one day. In past years, I had led two of the walks in Stuttgart and have enjoyed participating in the others along with Fynn as a "walker."

The weather was awful. Whereas it has threatened to rain the past years, or rained and then stopped in time for the walk, this year it rained all morning, so Fynn and I decided to wait it out and go after lunch since the leaders had decided to do a six-hour marathon this time. Unfortunately, we missed seeing some friends we had hoped to meet there, but we got to see their pictures online. Registered walkers could post their best photograph on the official website. Scott Kelby will then choose his favorite and give thousands of dollars of prizes to the winner. One can always hope, right?

My favorites are Andy's photo of the old violinist and Jennifer's double-exposure of her son and the autumn leaves.

If I had been a bit more bold, I would have entered this picture as my best. It reminded me of Andreas Gursky's photo of the Rhine River, the most expensive photograph ever sold (though mine is much more interesting!).

This photograph can also be purchased for $3.1 million

Fynn has developed a good eye over the years. This year his pictures ended up better than mine. I was walking around with an 8mm fish-eye lens most of the time to try to get some interesting angles - and I did - but nothing beats an all-round zoom lens for street photography!
Fynn took this one outside the Staatsgalerie with a Sony A700 and a Minolta 28-105 lens.

My best shot was of Fynn standing in the Königstrasse.

Of course, he also took some of me, too.

And as one can see: like father, like Sony.

At the end of the tour a wedding photographer was up at the Eugensplatz to take pictures of the couple. They weren't expecting to see 25 other photographers there. We gave them a nice backdrop to one shot where it looked as if the couple were posing for the paparazzi. Were they not?

What we saw:

What the photographer and the couple saw:

What onlookers saw:

Meanwhile, on our way home, we walked past a slightly older couple showing how they keep their wedding vows alive: