Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

I had a great evening out yesterday evening photowalking with a group of employees from Pandora. I’ve been a huge fan of the online music service since very early on when they started up and it was fun to meet a number of their employees yesterday in person. I’ve discovered some great music using Pandora.

We met up at Jack London Square and then shot along the traintracks down in West Oakland ending up finally at Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon for a beer. Heinold’s is the oldest business in Oakland and the oldest bar in California. Jack London used to tend bar there back in the day.

Nice getting to meet you all from the Pandora team and they’ll be more photos of mine to follow down the road. To see my photos and others from the walk, check out the tag photowalking070709.

I had a blast last week as a guest of the Cameradojo podcast talking about my photography, my workflow, and especially my own personal goals and ambitions with my photography last week. Kerry Garrison and David Esquire host the show and do a great job at what is really more of a long conversation than an interview. Really appreciate you having me on the show guys and looking forward to catching up in person the next time I’m down in Orange County!

Marc Silber is out with two great new photographer video interviews.

The first video is a short one with pro photographer Chase Jarvis who talks about how important it is to just get out and take photos with your camera, no matter what your skill level and that it’s fine to simply shoot in program mode if you don’t know what you are doing. Too many people who take up digital photographer become intimidated by the complicated technology that sometimes comes along with the DSLR and photo processing world. Chase reminds us that far more important than any of the tech or nerd stuff is simply that you are out there with any camera framing images.

The second video interview is a longer one and is with Senior Surfing Magazine Staff Photographer Jeff Flindt. Jeff is credited with 20 surfing cover shots for various surfing magazines. Surf photography is a whole genre in itself and it’s great learning about how Jeff has succeeded in that arena.

Chase Jarvis Tip for Photographers: Don’t Nerd Out, Get out and Shoot! from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.

Surfing Photographer Jeff Flindt Shoots the Curl from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.

Just a quick update to save the date if you happen to be in Chicago and are up for a May 23rd photowalk of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. We’ll meet at 6pm at the bean sculpture in Millenium Park and head out from there.

I’ll add more details later, but looking forward to meeting folks from Chicago and shooting one of the World’s great cities over the Memorial Day Weekend.

An upcoming.org page for the photowalk is up here.

I had a good time hanging out last night at the Miss Aniela photowalk in San Francisco. We met a the Ferry Building at 6:30pm and about 40 or so of us spent a fair chunk of the time out shooting on Pier 14 at night in the dark. It was a great clear night in San Francisco with a great vantage spot to shoot the city. Afterwards we shot around Jutin Herman Plaza for a while and then headed over to Harrington’s for a little dinner and beer.

We weren’t actually able to make it inside the Ferry Building as I think a group that large sort of spooked the security guards there.

Thanks to everyone who came out. I enjoyed the company, photography and conversation. These shots are a few of mine from a small set of my images that I put together here. If you have photos from last night’s walk up online please tag them with photowalk020209. Thanks!

I had the opportunity to hang out a bit with Natalie Dybisz (pictured left) last summer at the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit in Seattle. Natalie also goes by Miss Aniela on Flickr and has some really interesting self portrait work among other things. Natalie’s coming to town next week and hosting four photowalks sponsored by Microsoft, Samy’s Camera and Eye-Fi. I think it’s pretty cool to see some of these companies getting involved with sponsoring photowalks.

I’m planning on showing up and shooting at the Ferry Building Photowalk on Monday night at 6:30pm. If you live or are visiting San Francisco on Monday, come on out and shoot for a while. It should be an interesting group of photographers and a great way to catch up in person. I’m not sure where the walk from the Ferry Building will be headed, but the Ferry Building itself is very photogenic and there’s lots of interesting things to shoot around the downtown area there. Here’s a link to my set of images from the Ferry Building. Hopefully there will be beer involved at some point later in the evening

I set up an upcoming event page for Monday night’s walk if you can make it and want to RSVP here.

The other four walks that Natalie is hosting in the Bay Area will be in Berkeley on Monday afternoon, at the USS San Francisco Memorial on Tuesday morning and another walk up in the Haight on Tuesday aftternoon.

In addition to the four Bay Area photowalks Natalie is doing, she’s also hosting two additional photowalks down in Los Angeles on Wednesday as well. I’ve shot at both Union Station and the Santa Monica Pier in L.A. and think both are fantastic places to shoot. Time and details for all the photowalks below:

Berkeley – Eastbay/Berkeley Photowalk
Date: Monday, February 2
Time: 12:00 pm to 1:30pm
Place: UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley

Ferry Building – San Francisco Photowalk
Date: Monday, February 2
Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm
Place: Ferry Building entrance, San Francisco

USS San Francisco Memorial – San Francisco Photowalk
Date: Tuesday, February 3
Time: 7:30am to 9:00am
Place: USS San Francisco Memorial, San Francisco

The Panhandle to Haight Ashbury – San Francisco Photowalk
Date: Tuesday, February 3
Time: 3:00pm to 5:00pm
Place: Meet at Oak and Cole, San Francisco

Union Station – Los Angeles Photowalk
Date: Wednesday, February 4
Time: 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Place: N. Los Angeles St., Union Station, Los Angeles

Santa Monica Pier – Santa Monica Photowalk
Date: Wednesday, February 4
Time: 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Place: out on the end of the Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica