You get what you pay for.

My friend Tony Balzanto (www.balzanto.com) and I signed up for a free photo walk in Tampa recently. We arrived to about 30 stereotypical photographer types and two hosts for the event. One was from a camera brand, the other from a popular software package I use. I’m not naming either because it was a big disappointment. This “walk” was over two hours away, and we never wandered more than a block or so from the meeting point. It was advertised as to be showing us secret corners, beautiful skylines, all the great things a photographer lives for supposedly shown to us by a local expert. Nope. To be fair (and that’s a stretch), I got four shots that I liked enough to edit, three of which are posted here. Luckily I was with a good friend, and we had a nice dinner at a local seafood house. The point of all of this? What did this photo walk do for us? It got us out and shooting. What did we learn? We can do that all by ourselves without setting ourselves up for the disappointment of unmet expectations (even if it was a free event). But we (you) need to make ourselves do that more often. Get out and shoot. Go to a nearby metropolitan area at dawn or dusk. Experiment. Shoot someplace new and take a friend. You won’t disappoint yourself, I promise.