Photography and Exercise – a year later
It was a year ago today that I purchased, for $35, the 2MP Fuji A205 and decided to begin walking for exercise during my lunch hour. It wasn't until recently that I abandoned the idea of limiting myself to only 24 photos per walk and started taking the Canon A80.
Today, it's cold and raining, but I walked to the south loop to see the remains of the Wirt Dexter building that burned down two days ago. I also stopped off at Central Camera to see what prices are on twin-lens reflex cameras (answer: too much).
I've updated the map since the previous post to include a couple of the new areas I've wandered through. (However, I'm still not including the Garfield Park walks on the map.) Because of my walk from the Brown Line stop at Sedgwick, I've had to change the scale of the map slightly.
Some statistics:
- Number of miles walked: no clue. A lot, that's for sure.
- Number of photographs taken: 2211
- Number of photographs featured on WBEZ.org: 4 (?)
- Number of photographs featured on GapersBlock.com: 6 (?)
- Number of times yelled at by a cop: 1 (just today, in fact for not walking on the right side of the street even though the street was essentially closed to cars)
- Number of time I felt threatened by walking in these areas: zero
- Number of times I felt truly out of place: too numerous to count.
- Pounds lost: 12. Not great but not too bad.
I think I'm going to use Qoop.com by way of Flickr to print a mini-book of this years best images. It would be nice to have something on the bookshelf to pull out and review every once in a while.
Overall, I'm very happy with my decision to pursue this activity. My photography has improved, my health has improved, and my knowledge of Chicago, even a small part of it, has improved. Last week I made two 4-mile treks, which means I can probably open myself up to even more exploration and still do it within the lunch hour. And, based on my experience on the Brown line, I will be extending the area I can cover every once in a while.