Fake I Heart Faces Photo Walk – Austin, TX

Last Thursday I had the distinct honor of doing a “fake” I Heart Faces Photo Walk with Julie Rivera. You see, since I missed the REAL photo walk because of a wee sick little baby, I signed up to take the kids for Julie’s offered “make up session”. We did a mini walk and I enjoyed having more one-on-one time with Julie since there was only one other shutterbug mama on the walk.

I managed to talk my husband in to going with me downtown, too… to make sure that I wouldn’t end up lost or forget my keys somewhere. He’s handy like that. We both like to shoot things (him at the gun range, me with the Canon). I just reminded him that I put in some time at the range with him – it is only fair that he give up a Thursday evening to join me on my photo walk.

“Why are we doing this again?” He says as we search for a parking space downtown.

“You know – for the same type of reason why you love target practice. We both have our hobbies. We need to support each other.”

I was glad he went – even if it was like pulling teeth at first. It gave him a glimpse of what photography is really like… and Julie was such a fun, down-to-earth teacher.

I loved watching her work. She even taught me a few tricks with my DSLR that I hadn’t learned yet. There are plenty of those – since I’m pretty green in the photography world.

Julie shoots with a Canon 5D Mark II. She has fancy red-ringed lenses, too. Not to mention, she’s an editing NINJA.

She does the Fix it Fridays over at I Heart Faces and her processing skills are amazing. We were shooting together and her pictures are unbeatable. So for all the ones you see in this post, she has a bunch that are twenty times more wonderful.

On the way downtown, an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in. It lasted just long enough to leave us plenty of puddles for the boys to play in. The other little fella on our walk (around baby K’s age) really had some fun in the water.

I used to hang out downtown as a teen and young adult – back in my pre-Jesus days – so I wasn’t surprised with the grunge.

Time hasn’t changed it much. Still under construction.

Still a bunch of smoky bars and weird, eccentric shops and grafitti. Plenty to photograph if you like that sort of haunt.

Of course, we had to snap a shot of the colorful guitar on the street when we passed it. Austin is the “Live Music Capitol of the World”.

And you can’t go downtown without snapping a shot of the stately Capitol building. Morgan caught this one with my 18-270 Tamron zoom lens from the back seat of the car on our drive home.

Julie really had a way with babies. She got some sweet smiles. My kids enjoyed working with her.

I was impressed with the great shots she got… and most of them in dirty alleys.

Some guy even came up to make sure and let us know that “people pee here all the time”. Useful advice, no? We made sure to bathe when we got home.

All said, it was even better than the I Heart Faces Photo Walk – because we got Julie to ourselves… and we got to meander at a slower, less congested pace.

Not that I won’t be signing up for the next Photo Walk, of course… but if you love to do photo walks, I highly suggest small, personal ones! I just might try and set up another local one some time before long… and I hope Julie will come.