This time when I travelled to San Jose, CA to attend Adobe Tech Summit in Feb'17, I got a chance to go on a PhotoWalk organized by one of our colleagues. It was a closed group of photography enthusiasts with lots of photography gadgets. Earlier, I was not part of this group, but I got a last minute entry, and I must say, every second of it was worth. It was rather a unique experience for me even though I had been to several photo walks in the past.
We started from our hotel in a van early morning on Sunday. Since I was included in the very last moment, I had very little idea of the itinerary. After having a heavy brunch somewhere around San Jose, we started moving towards Davenport Beach in Santa Cruz. Soon we were driving on the highway alongside of this beautiful sea line, and I knew this is going to be fun.
When we reached Davenport Landing Beach, we were amazed to see this breathtakingly beautiful beach. It was rather a cloudy day with chilled wind blowing. I instantly regretted for not carrying my pullover.
After walking around the beach, it was time to get some hands on experience in drone photography. There were some organizers who instructed us on how to operate the drone with integrated camera which we could control by remote. This was first time I was trying drone photography.
We could fly it further in the sea as it had a wide range, and we took some of the unique shots which otherwise would not have been possible.
We formed lots of small groups and learned how to control and fly the drone. There were drones of bigger sizes as well for which I don't remember much details.
As if drone photography excitement was not enough, we had another exciting event "Fire Breathing Show". These two people were the star of the show. And we, around 15 people with our cameras and tripods etc, were on the other end clicking.
Few of us also played with fire. It was a foam kind of substance which you can hold in hand and then fire it up. You were supposed to throw it once you start to feel the fire I guess.
Then started the main event of Fire Breathing. Since it was very windy weather, it was very difficult for them to control the fire. I was simply in awe of the courage of these guys for doing it in such a non-friendly weather.
It was very unique experience for me as I had never attended such an event in the past. I was not alone feeling amazed. All of us had the same feeling.
They gave us different poses around the Beach Cave. It was getting difficult to control fire in some poses. We had to pause the event multiple times to wait for the wind to be stable.
It was very difficult to shoot though. One it was raining in the evening and we had to save our cameras from water, second we had only couple of seconds to shoot as each fire breathing lasted for few seconds only.
I had to adjust my camera settings multiple times to get the right shot at the right moment. I missed clicking good shots in the beginning.
Here comes the fire blazing gun. I liked the costume and and expressions of these actors. The way they performed, it was very convincing.
We had a lot of fun shooting in rain with chilling wind at the Beach.
After some time we started feeling cold, but not these guys. They continued with the same energy and passion till the end.
Finally it was time to say good bye to our friends who made our day most memorable. We headed back to our hotel with lots of photographs to cherish this fun filled photo trip.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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