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Since we launched my World Wide Photowalk on Monday, things have been just crazy. We thought it would be popular, but honestly we were unprepared for the avalanche of interest, sign-ups, and people who want to lead Photo Walks in their cities around the world.

We were also flooded with questions, so I thought I’d do a quick Q&A to answer some of the most common questions.

Q. Are more cities being added?
A. Absolutely—so far there are 33 cities, but new ones are being added daily (just yesterday we added Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Cincinnati (led by none other than David Ziser himself), along with Manila in the Philippines, Ybor City (Tampa), and Malmo, Sweden, among others.

Q. Are there are lot of cities pending approval?
A. Oh yeah—about 108 more cities so far. We had to add a little more automation to the “becoming a leader” process, and by tomorrow we expect that 40 or 50 of those will be awarded a Photo Walk city, and added to the list shortly thereafter.

Q. Will some big cities have more than walk the same day?
A. Yup. When you see a listed city that’s followed by a name in parenthesis, that usually means there are multiple walks in different areas of the city. For example; New York City (Chinatown). They’ll be other New York locations as well.

Q. Are walks starting to fill up yet?
A. A number of cities are already completely full, and registration is now closed (unless someone else can lead an additional walk in that city).

Q. Have you added any more prizes to the photo contest part?


A. You Betcha! Besides the Grand Prize, I’ll be choosing 10 other photos from the walks as Honorable Mentions to win a full shipping version of Lightroom 2 (courtesy of our friends at Adobe Systems).

Q. What if I don’t want to enter the photo contest?
A. You don’t have to. That’s just to make it more fun, so if you just want to walk and shoot—no sweat.

Q. Is it too late to apply to lead a walk in my city?
A. Not at all (just be patient once you apply). Here’s the link to apply if you want to lead a walk in your area.

Q. I’ve registered online, but I haven’t heard anything. What’s up?
A. When you sign up, we automatically send you an email for you to confirm, and when you get that email, you need to click the link to make your registration active.

Q. On the video on the PhotoWalk web site (link), I saw RC ‘chimping’ in the background right when you and Matt were talking about chimping . Did you guys plan that?
A. RC is always chimping, so we didn’t have to plan it out. He’s very “Chimpy”

Q. So who were the people shooting in the background, and were they really shooting?
A. That was: RC Concepcion, NAPP’s Executive Director Larry Becker (wearing the Kata backpack), My Executive Assistant Kathy Siler (in a bright red shirt), our Marketing Diva Mary Laurenitis (in a Maroon shirt), and NAPP Chief Operating Officer Dave Moser’s Executive Assistant Kristin Kupniewski. And yes, they were all really shooting (well, as far as I know).

Q. Admit it—isn’t this just a big promotion for you new Lightroom 2 Book?
A. Yes–I admit it. I thought it would be really cool to do something different to celebrate the release of Lightroom 2, and bring attention to my new update to the book (OK, I didn’t just update the book with the new features in Lightroom 2; I rewrote the whole thing from scratch, (which was crazy hard), and I added some new features, and more workflow stuff, and a live video workflow, and blah, blah, blah. I put an awful lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this new version of the book to make even better than the first edition, and it came out even better than I had hoped. I really think it’s going to help an awful lot of people, and as the author I want as many people to know about it, and hopefully get the book themselves, as possible.

Q. I can’t believe you just plugged your book like that, and yet you didn’t even include a link for where to buy it?
A. Wow, thanks for catching that. You can preorder it now (I’ve already finished writing it, and its in production now), and get it as soon as it’s released (soon), at either Amazon.com, or Barnes & Noble.com, or direct from us a KelbyTraining.com

Q. Are we going to need permits?
A. As long as you’re walking on public sidewalks there’s no need to have a permit. Unless of course, the cops arrive. In that case…run!

Q. Are you guys taking all our copyrights so you can do a rights grab and steal our photos and then use them for your own unrelated brochures, and websites, and maybe sell them as stock photography?
A. That’s the plan. While some contests just want your permission to use the winning photos to help promote future contests, we thought—why stop there? If you enter our photo contest, you not only give up your copyright to your photos forever (not just the ones you enter in the contest—all your photos), we actually come to your house and confiscate the camera you took the shots with in the first place.

Q. Really?
A. Of course not! Our attorneys want us to make sure you know that if you win the grand prize (or another big prize) that it’s OK for us to show other people your photo, and then use it (giving credit to you as the photographer), to promote future photo walks. We don’t want you to give up your copyright; it’s not a rights-grab, and it’s nothing sinister, we just want to stay out of trouble. That’s all.

So, that’s the scoop for today, folks. Remember, new cities are being added daily (with a bunch being added in the next few days), so keep an eye on the “World Wide PhotoWalk Site” and click on the Cities page to see what’s new (the list on the front is static as of now, but I’m trying to change that tomorrow).