The Final Number of Worldwide PhotoWalk Cities: 236
I’m stunned, psyched, thrilled, and a half dozen other adjectives about how many cities around the world have signed up to have their own photowalk, and that thousands of people have already signed up to be a part of the walks in their area. This is just too cool!
Here’s some other stats:
- 48 States have PhotoWalks
- 43 Countries Around the World now have PhotoWalks
- 47 Cities are already completely full
Although we’re no longer accepting applications to lead walks for new cities, here’s a list of some new cities that were added since Friday, so take a look and see if there’s now one close to you:
- San Antonio
- Panama City, Panama
- Souix Falls, South Dakota
- Fresno, CA
- Boston, North End (2nd walk)
- Philadelphia, PA (2nd walk)
- Setubal, Portugal
- St. Charles, Missouri
- Hilo, Hawaii
- Huntsville, Alabama
- Tom Price, Australia
- Grand Haven, Michigan
- Lubbock, Texas
- Melbourne, Australia
- CD Juarez, Mexico
- Montreal, Canada
- Guatemala
- Cambridge, England
- Nuerenburg, Germany
- San Francisco, CA (walk #3)
- Antwerp, Belgium
- Greenville, South Carolina
- Kuala Lumpur
- Bogota, Columbia
- Oulu, Finland
- A Coruña, Spain
- Morristown, Tennessee
My thanks to everyone who volunteered to lead a photowalk in their city, and although we had to limit the number of cities that were awarded walks, we’re still humbled by how many people were willing to take their own time to connect with other photographers in their area. My sincere thanks to you all.
We’re less than two weeks away from the Saturday, August, 23rd walk date, and we’ll be coordinating this week with our confirmed city photowalk leaders, and nailing down some of the final details, so stay tuned.
If you haven’t signed up for a walk yet—there’s still time. Remember, it’s totally free and totally fun, and I hope you’ll join us for the history-making event (Click here for the final list of cities, and where to register to be a part of a walk near you).
Chad again ! I am on that photo walk on the Brooklyn Bridge and have 2 other photographers that have signed up. I hope I don’t bring to many lenses.
Scott,
I am bummed out!! I know you said to set Aug 23rd aside. Unfortunately I have a conference at UF that day which I have to attend. It would have been great for my son & I to do the walk together.
Joe
Scott, Many congratulations - and thanks - to you for setting up such an amazing event, and an amazing organization. The fact that thousands of photographers all over the world are joining up to be part of this event is really mind-blowing. I really feel that you and the people at NAPP, and its members have given me a sense of community. It’s hard for me to find people as excited about and devoted to the same things I am, photography, photoshop, etc. and I really get that from NAPP. I think that the outcome of this Photo Walk is partly a result from that great community you’ve created. It’s going to be so so great to spend the day with other photographers, as opposed to connecting online. And Im so happy to be part of it. So thanks so so much! And I cant wait!
ps- Is there a photo walk in Vegas for PSW?
Hello,
Some bad news, for me, I wasn’t choosen to lead a photowalk In Lausanne Switzerland !
Scott, It is possible to get any explanation !
Thanks in advance for your great work.
Frédéric
1. All 50 States have PhotoWalks
Really? Where is New Jersey? I’m so sick of people just lumping us in with NYC. We’re not NY, we’re NJ! There is not one photo walk for New Jersey, out of all those cities around the world, we don’t have anything aside from having to trek into the City. Not all of us like NYC, it’s not required to like it just to live in NEW JERSEY.
For things like NAPP seminars, and the PDN conference, and stuff like that, fine, but if you say all 50 states will have something, providing 5 walks for NY does not count! That simply counts as NY getting more walks than some other places, but NEW JERSEY still has nothing. I’l keep saying the name of the state until people realize we’re not just New York’s armpit.
Sorry, had to let that out. Actualy I love everything you do Scott, it’s just irritating to see that we got forgotten again, like we always do, just because Manhattan is so close.
Hi Rob,
Just wanted to let you know that the Garden State is going to have a strong contingent of people at the Chinatown photowalk and I am really looking forward to meeting them and getting to shoot with them for a few hours.
Also it may just be a case that the web team is still working to get a page up for a city in your home state. As a walk leader, I have had a few interactions with Scott’s team and I can assure you that they are working tirelessly to get these pages up and keep everything running smoothly. What they are making look seemless is no doubt a very time consuming and technically challenging task.
By the way, the great state of North Dakota isn’t on the list either and the first person to guess that Scott was saving August 23rd for a World Wide Photowalk was Dan Francis, a Fargo based photographer.
I hope that you are signed up for a walk in the area and have a great time. I am really looking forward to the event and would like to thank Scott for the amount of time, energy and resources (I think he said in an interview on Your Mac Life that he has six people on his staff working on the Photowalk) he has given to making this event a reality.
Scott, what is this about limiting the number of cities? Our leader just got an email saying he was not accepted. AFTER he had already been accepted for a couple week. Does this mean our walk has been cancelled??? If so, I have to say this is the first and only time that I’ve really been disappointed by you and NAPP. Why allow 20 people to sign up for a walk (and there are more waiting to do it here I know of) and then cancell it? Is it a problem with books? Legal? What?
I know for one that I still plan on showing up where and when our leader had planned, and I hope so do the other 19 people.
I’m really confused and disappointed in what appears to be happening…. Hopefully you can straighten it all out. Thanks.
Hi Doug:
We haven’t cancelled any walks ourselves; we did have one leader pull out form a walk in the UK, but it just sounds like an email mess-up or mis-communication. I’ve sent an email to our Web team to find out what went wrong. Could you tell me which city you were signed up for? That would help, but in the meantime, don’t jump to conclusions. With a walk this size, little problems crop up daily, and we fix ‘em as soon as we can.
-Scott
Hey, I was hoping (and told the leader) it was just a glitch. Glad to hear that is what it looks like. The city was New Orleans, Louisiana, and the leader was Harry Nelson.
The email came from a different (email) address (someone else at NAPP, won’t put the exact one here), but was addressed directy to him “Harry” in the opening, and signed by “Scott Kelby” at the end.
Thanks for checking into this!
Pennsylvania doesn’t have a walk either. Philadelphia doesn’t count because their basically New Jersey. So we really need to focus on getting a walk in Pittsburgh, a real Pennsylvania city. Your prompt attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
– Wade
Scott,
The F.A.Q. for the Photowalk say that the photos will be posted to a Flickr group for judging. I never use Flickr because I object to their Terms of Service that I must agree to, as well as the fact that they strip copyright and IPTC metadata from uploaded photos. Can I participate in the competition without having to have my images hosted on Flickr?
Dave
Hey Scott… the Auckland New Zealand event is filling pretty quick and everyine I talk to is really looking forward to the day. (hopefully the weather gods will be merciful)
I saw that the town of Tom Price in Western Australia made it on the cities list. I’ve spent a lot of time on that region and although there moght only be a handful of photogs on the day, the scenery around the Pilbera will amazing.
Well done on organising the event, maybe you should make it annual??
“You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Hang in there Champ!
Trace,
Sorry, but that comment wasn’t intended to help resolve your issue, so I can understand why you would not view it as being helpful. There have been a lot of people that haven’t been completely happy with some of the growing pains that have been experienced from this event. Scott helped me out with an issue I had with my walk and it was more an acknowledgement of appreciation to him more than anything else.
I am in no way associated with the organization running this event, other than I am happen to be NAPP member, but I can maybe help you understand a few of the decisions that were made as I observed them while they occurred. This is the reason for 3 walks in Manhattan, 2 in Brooklyn and 2 in Washington DC. My walk was the first walk that was posted for Manhattan. It hit 50 people within the first day and I received several inquiries personally to make exceptions to the 50 person limit. Scott had already anticipated the demand in NYC and had two more walk leaders lined up, and a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and Shawn and Lesa King of Your Mac Life Radio’s walk in Greenwich Village were added. Those too filled up within a few days. Then the Central Park walk was added and filled up as well.
I have to say that having considered and scouted several of the same locations for those four walks in planning my walk, each presents a very different view and feel to NYC.
As for the Coney Island’s walk, which like the others was added very early in the process, it is in a world all its own. While geographically it is part of New York City, it is a completely unique experience to the other four NYC walks. It is Beach and Boardwalk and Amusement Parks.
As for Washington DC, there was initially a mix up and Jeff Revell’s walk was posted twice, once as Washington DC and once as Alexandria. They were intended to be the same walk, but before Scott’s team was able to correct the double posting, over 90 people had signed up. Jeff and Scott made the decision that the only fair thing to do for those people was to host a morning and an evening walk, so Jeff basically volunteered to doubled his workload in order to be fair to the people that signed up for those walks.
I realize that this doesn’t solve your problem or give you the explanation that you seem to be looking for, but hope it provide a little perspective as to the enormity of planning this event.
I do have to say that I don’t quite agree with you as to the approval / rejection aspect of this event. While I understand your point and I am sure that the legal agreement and terms of service state otherwise, as a walk leader, you are representing Scott and his company on the ground, while not officailly, at least in spirit. I think that the vetting process is necessary to make sure that those that are ultimately running the walk are confortable that their local representative will embody what they hope is the spirit of the event, and to be fair, I am of the honest opinion that you should try not to begrudge that choice, whatever their selection criteria were.
Hi Trace,
I am sorry to know about your problem. I totally understand your disappointment. I have organized another Photowalk two months ago, and I will keep doing it after this one anyway. When I first talked to Scott, he was planning to have only 100 cities for this event. Now we have 236.
I wish I could have done more to help Scott. So many people wrote me asking to open a second Photowalk here in Fort Lauderdale.
As I said, I can understand your disappointment and frustration that you might be feeling right now (I probably would be feeling the same way), but I have to say one thing!
Until now, almost nobody knew about Photowalk. This event that Scott is coordinating with the help of all the City Leaders is going to change the history of Photowalk.
I know that you couldn’t have your city added to this event, but this doesn’t stop you to organize a Photowalk there in your city anyway.
If you need any help, please just let me know. And if you go ahead and organize a Photowalk there in your city, I would love to have your “FLICKR GROUP” URL, check how beautiful your city is.
Good Luck
Paulo Jordao
Well, to the other “you[ve been disapproved” problem above, our leader received an email saying that it was all some automated mistake in the system, and he was still fine. Our walk was fine, nothing was cancelled. They’ve reset everything on his system. I even got a nice email saying it was resolved.
So hopefully this is true for everyone else in this situation also.
Thanks NAPP and Scott for straightening it all out. Once again NAPP has come through like the great people they are.
I hope everyone has a great time on their walks!
Alessandro,
While appreciate your attempt at an explanation, and that you’d have no way of knowing this, I’m a native New Yorker. Even though we Manhattanites would like to think N.Y. begins and ends at our borough, we do have to include the other 4, including Staten Island (no walks there? guess no one qualified).
That said, if you’d read my post, I have no problem with multiple walks per city. I applaud it even. I would have been a multiple for my large city (not N.Y.). My point was, why not another for my city? If you look at the list for multiple cities, the criteria for awarding multiple walks was not contingent on the fact that the first or other walks were all or nearly full, nor could it be contingent on the city size (Des Moines?).
Like many others, when we “registered” for walk leadership, and received the confirmation link email we were registered, I was expecting a followup email with directions on setting things up. I had a wonderful route selected, made arrangements with the restaurant, and had a very good start on attendees. It really was disappointing to let them know “not this event”. Our walk will be carried off, but not tied in with this.
Any conjecture on your, mine or anyone else’s part about what constituted “approval” is merely peanut-gallery speak. Only Scott can answer the question(s): How many walk leaders were “Registered” prior to the deadline who were not “Approved”, and why were we not approved (if a global why can be applied, or if it was on an individual basis)? And why was he here telling people to register for walk leadership on the last day (Friday the 8th)?
Or as Frédéric put it simply: “Is it possible to get an explanation?”
Sometimes Scott is like Santa - he can travel the world [wide web] in one night and seems to know everything! I have a full walk, more people asking to join (every day!), and more saying that they are showing up no matter what. I think that this is an amazing event and a HUGE undertaking by Scott and his wonderful team! I can just imagine how many e-mails they are getting for just this event, not to mention their every day jobs. At this point, I am going with the flow and enjoying the Photowalk high!
Thank you Scott and Team! I hope that you’ll plan another Photowalk event in the future.
I’m disappointed to see that Long Beach, CA didn’t make it as a Photowalk site. We had a qualified prospective leader (local pro photographer) who applied twice but received NO response. I sent an earlier e-mail supporting that prospective leader’s application. Not sure what the problem was, but I’m personally disappointed that I cannot participate in this event. As a disabled photographer, I needed a local Photowalk to be able to participate.
People don’t cry a river..if you are not approved just make your photowalk private and do it with your people just change the name and that is it..