About us

Glasgow Camerawalk

Small, friendly photography walks around Glasgow for people who enjoy looking, noticing and making pictures.

Glasgow Camerawalk is for anyone who enjoys exploring the city with a camera, whether you use a phone, compact, film camera, DSLR or mirrorless camera. Beginners are very welcome, as are experienced photographers. You don’t need expensive equipment or technical expertise. Curiosity matters much more.

Each walk has a photographic theme and a carefully chosen route through Glasgow’s streets, river, architecture, people and less obvious corners. These aren’t formal photography classes, and the aim isn’t for everyone to come home with the same photographs.

Instead, we slow down and pay attention.

Sometimes we’ll look at light, shape, reflections, geometry or the relationship between people and the city. At other times we’ll play with questions: What have I walked past without really seeing? What changes if I stop thinking of something simply as a bridge, building or street and look instead at its shapes, textures and relationships?

I like the idea that photographs can be both windows and mirrors. A photograph can show us something about a place, but our choice of what to photograph also says something about what caught our attention. Often the most interesting pictures do both.

What happens on a Camerawalk?

We meet at an easy-to-find location, have a short introduction to the route and photographic theme, and then explore together at a relaxed pace with plenty of time to stop and make photographs.

The walks are deliberately small and social. You can talk and exchange ideas, wander quietly for a while, compare photographs, or spend an unreasonable amount of time investigating a wall that everyone else has ignored.

After the walk, booked participants can submit up to three photographs made during the event. We then get to see how differently people interpreted the same streets and places, and participants vote on the photographs.

Each ticketed Camerawalk includes a prize for the winning photograph, funded as part of the event ticket cost. The winner is decided through the walk’s photo voting rather than by chance.

The photo challenge isn’t about declaring one person the Best Photographer in Glasgow before teatime. It’s a reason to select your work, share it and see what other people noticed.

Who hosts the walks?

I’m Ian, a Glasgow-based photographer who has been taking pictures for most of my life, starting with a Box Brownie and eventually finding my way through film, darkrooms, Pentax cameras and digital photography.

I’ve been involved with Edinburgh University PhotoSoc and Ayr Camera Club, but these days I’m less interested in photographic rules than in noticing what’s actually there.

I like streets, people, old buildings, industrial edges, reflections, changing light and the odd detail that makes a familiar place suddenly look different. Glasgow provides a fairly inexhaustible supply.

My job as host isn’t to tell you what your photographs ought to look like. I’ll provide the route, some ideas and questions, keep the group together and hopefully encourage everyone to look a little more closely.

Tickets and booking

Some Camerawalk events are ticketed. The individual event listing will always make the cost and booking arrangements clear before you book.

The ticket covers the hosted small-group walk, the curated route and photographic theme, participation in the post-walk photo challenge and voting, including the prize for the winning photograph.

Where an event uses Camerawalk’s own booking system, the Meetup event listing will make that clear before you leave Meetup to book.

A few practical things

Routes, distances, surfaces and accessibility vary between walks, so each event description will include the relevant details.

Walks generally go ahead in ordinary Glasgow rain, although routes may be shortened or altered in poor weather. Events will be cancelled where conditions make them unsafe or impractical.

Please be considerate of other participants and of people we encounter. Photography should never become an excuse for harassment or intrusive behaviour, and we respect restrictions at locations we visit.

Most importantly, you don’t have to prove anything or arrive with a portfolio. Bring a camera you enjoy using and be prepared to notice things.

Walk. Look. Question. Photograph. See what everyone else saw.

Find out more about Camerawalk here:
https://camerawalk.org/