When Trey came to Phoenix for his photo walk across the US, I should not have gone. Let me clarify it by saying that Trey himself is a great guy and for the brief moment that we spoke he was extremely affable. Not faulting him any reason. But…it was hot and the crowd was huge and the photowalk wasn’t a pleasant experience for me at all, for several reasons. For one, I didn’t quite manage to see Trey on the walk (because of the crowd). I saw him in the very beginning, talking from a podium and later at the “afterparty”. So from that perspective, it wasn’t really Trey’s photowalk at all. I’ve walked that area many times by myself before and it was just another of those, except…
The second reason: this is what made it really bad. Photowalks are supposed to be social events, but most people kept to their small groups (which they supposedly came with). By a conservative estimate, I think there were 200-300 people. Two people stopped to talk. Someone I knew from my Google+ network. She stopped to say hi, but then she was lost in the crowd. Later another person came to my table at the restaurant and struck up a conversation. I stopped Stu Robertson (one of Trey’s friends from New Zealand) to say hi to him. He then recognized me from Instagram and we had a chat. That’s it. All the other people couldn’t even be bothered to say hi. I was around these folks for a good four hours. I greeted people who came within speaking distance, but most were too busy to to stop to talk. This is really the silliest part of the event. I don’t know how it goes down elsewhere but if you have a common interest (photography), are at an event together (the same photowalk) for a bit of time (couple hours) it makes sense to talk to the person next to you. Photography is much less about photos and far more about people and circumstances than you think.
However, since my esteemed fellow photogs were too engrossed in the practice of their art, I found time to (a) get some food for a homeless person (whose story was quite sad) and (b) talk to a second person who sows palm tree seeds around town, in the hopes that they will grow and provide a little shade. He was actually chattier than I thought he would be. Finally, I got to the afterparty where Trey gave a little talk. The best part of that was his explanation of which photos of his get the most attention. That was interesting. But as a result of my experience, I can now say with confidence that I am never going to another of these celebrity photowalks again. I have also seen many of the photos by the people who were there that day and I don’t think I want to be in that particular group either. Art is subjective, so I’ll be polite and just say that that isn’t my kind.
Did nothing good come out of it? Well, actually, something did. My camera jammed with film in it and I couldn’t do anything to fix it while walking outside. As a result, I got several multi-exposures. One is a 15 (or more) shots superimposed on the same frame. A super-multi-exposure. The color images were shot on movie film, Kodak Vision 500T, specially suitable for low light photography. I rated the film at EI6400 and it was pushed in development by the lab. As you can see there is a bit of grain. The black and white is Ilford Delta 3200 pushed to EI6400 and developed and scanned at home.
