What do you think when you hear the word photowalk?

Does it sound like it means a chaperoned walk through a pretty place in a small orderly group?

Well, clearly to some people it does.

It doesn’t to me.

To me it means going somewhere with other people who love photography to take photos without being asked to do something else or being hurried along.  It means to make the best of a strange place and to FIND the beauty.  It means to get sore feet and find a spot in your camera bag to put a bottle of water because you know you’re going to get thirsty and there’ll be no time for coffee breaks and heaven forbid you actually find a loo.  It means to get out of your comfort zone and to learn from people that you wouldn’t ordinarily get the opportunity to be with.  And a whole lot more, but I’m sure you’re getting tired of this list by now.

The aim of this tirade is the following…

I’ve been sending information about the Worldwide photowalk to fellow photographers that I think would be interested in the event.    I’ve got quite a few people that have added themselves to the JHB list, and even got some guys in Cape Town and Durban to join those local walks too (via a tweet on Twitter).

Then, I thought… hmm… let me send it to the camera club’s chairlady and get her to send it to the rest of the club.  It would be a great opportunity for people to get out there in the city and to get shots for the monthly meets.  She did forward it, but not before sending me a mail telling me how she went last year and it was, in her words, “awful”.

I’m sorry, but how awful could it have been?  It was in Sandton early on a Saturday morning.  Hardly anyone around. What an amazing opportunity to get photos of the lines and angles etc in the city!  The only thing I can think of why it would have been awful was because of disorganisation.  But please, there’s 50 photographers! How organised can you be?  Who cared about that?  Just take photos!!  That’s what the aim is!

Then I reply, after I think about it carefully, saying that I’m hoping it’ll be good this year.  To which she responds “I hope so too, but I won’t be there!!!!!” Note how many exclamation marks!   I wasn’t asking her to go!  Silly woman.

Anyhoo, I think she needs to get a life.  Not all photo outings are about prettiness and organisation.

OK rant over.  This camera club is irritating me again.

LOL, guess I won’t be inviting any of them to our next inpromptu photo outings to arb places in Jo’burg hey?

… last night, that Connor can count!! Yes, folks… he can count, how clever is he?!!

I was making mashed potato, and he was helping me put the potatoes in the dish.  As he picked them up, I started counting… and he just carried on!  OK, it wasn’t perfect, but I was still damn impressed.

And it sounds so cute too

I said “One”

He said “One… two… tree… bore…”

Me “Five”

Him “Figh… six…”

Me “seven”

Him “Seven… aye…

Me “Nine”

Him “Nigh… teh”!!!

Clever hey?!!

We got up to thirteen in the end.  He lost track every now and then, but what I was impressed with was that as I mentioned a number he knew exactly which one came next!

I’m at a conference (the IAF Africa 2008 Conference) at the moment, and oh man, is it good!!  I’m thoroughly enjoying it, and learning so many new tools and techniques.

It’s the first truely international conference that I’ve attended.  There are about 120 people, yet only about 20% are South African.  It was very interesting this morning learning where everyone comes from – Aus, NZ, UK, US, Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Malaysia, Singapore, Malawi, Jamaica to name but a few.  It’s been fascinating learning what challenges are faced by people in other countries, and then comparing those to my own experiences. 

This afternoon I was sitting next to a person who works for the Singapore Police Force, and in the one session this morning I sat next to a consultant from Nigeria.  Absolutely fascinating! 

The more I get to learn about the art of facilitation, the more I want to learn and grow.  It’s a fascinating career.  I only really deal with such a small portion of it, I really to get more involved. 

One of the sessions I attended today was about Outcome Mapping.  That’s that’s a fascinating process, and very effective.  The facilitator got each of us to map out an action plan for ourselves wrt a personal goal within half an hour!  So…. I now have an action plan to work towards… and the goal… to start earning money out of my photography.  I think I have quite a way to go… but some people here (***eyeing people in the internet world out****) must brace themselves for some questions from me   They’re coming!  I just need to formulate a list

I posted about something I learnt last week, and decided to do the same kind of thing this week. Maybe I should start a new weekly meme actually. I think it would be quite fun to think of something, anything, no matter how small, that people have learnt in the last week. Let me know what you think!

I’ve actually learnt quite a bit in the last week. I went on a management offsite over the weekend and discovered yet again, that I’m apparently difficult to speak to. And that people are not sure how I’m going to react to news, so they’d rather not tell me! I apparently come across very defensive.
Hopefully I’ve managed to convince them that if I’m quiet after they tell me something, it’s because I don’t know what to say yet, but I’ll retaliate once I have an answer.

Anyway, enough about me… and I’ll speak more about the offsite in the next few days when I have more time. What we got told there has sparked some blog thoughts which I just have to think a bit more about.

As far as this week is concerned, even though it’s only Tuesday, I’ve learnt a heck of a lot so far. I’m on a Competitive Intelligence course for the week. Even though I vaguely knew that I’d be learning how to gather information about our competitors, I had no idea the extent to which people go with this science.

Firstly, I had no idea that companies employ teams of people that JUST do that. And they in turn hire external consultants to do the “dirty work” if they can’t find the information themselves. Wow! It’s sure opened my eyes to what is out there.
Secondly, I’ve decided that I’m very naive when it comes to gathering information. I had no idea that military means of gathering data was used. I did know that you get systems that scan and store publications for information, but had no idea how it was really used.
Thirdly, it’s a lot more systematic than I thought it was.

Well, anyway, wish me luck, I’m going to need it. My team (there are 2 of us) have an assignment for Friday. To do an industry analysis on a company’s potential growth into China.