Social Media Brings People To Photowalk Together

Happy crowd. Ehrenströmintie, Kaivopuisto, Helsinki, Finland 13.7.2013
(Edited with Picasa’s Creative Kit: Cropping, Holga-ish & watermark, CC BY Tiina M Niskanen)

Idea and will take a long way

It’s great to see, how social media makes various things so easy to do. You just need one person, who’s got an idea and willingness to make things happen. Good network of contacts helps, of course.

Photowalk Helsinki – international crowd

I attended a photowalk in Helsinki on 13.7.2013. It was advertised mainly in Facebook and Google+ (events feature). The idea had come from Thomas Paris and taken up by Heli Vilmi, who acted as a host. Anyone was welcomed: no matter if you were a hobby, amateur semi-professional or professional photographer. Among us hobbyists there were eg Jussi Aalto and Mikko Lagerstedt (more names in the end).

Almost 30 people signed up for the photowalk. Since not everybody showed up, about 20 photo enthusiasts gathered by the Helsinki railway station at 1 pm on the sunny Saturday. We were a multicultural crowd, participants had roots in at least following countries:

Finland (15 persons)
France
Peru
Poland
Romania
UK
USA

We walked, talked, took photos and stopped for refreshments. By every stop one or more left because of other obligations, but at least one joined on the way. The last ones had the chance to enjoye the hospitality of Octavian Balea at his studio late in the evening.

Future photo events

The organizer can steer the nature of the photowalk by the wording of the invitation and where the event is promoted. Ultimately the event gets formed by the participants.

One idea that came up in Photowalk Helsinki was, that some future event might be more focused on discussing photographs, than taking them. A group could go to an exhibition together or arrange a session to screen each others’ photos. Online there have been various photocritique sessions using the “hangout” feature in Google+.

I hope there will be more photowalks in Finland in future in one form or the other. Taking part in photowalks abroad is of course an option, too!

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Facebook, event: Photowalk Helsinki
Google+, event: Photowalk Helsinki

Heli Vilmi (website)
Thomas Paris (500px profile)

Jussi Aalto (blog)
Mikko Lagerstedt (website)
Octavian Balea (blog)

Bret Pulkka-Stone (RedBubble profile)
Henrietta Hassinen (Society6 profile)
Ilkka Roitto (Flickr profile)
Kimmo Vornanen (500px profile)
Louis Handley (website)
Pauli Araneva (website)
Päivi Kahila (website)
Tarmo Pekola (website)