Today's guest is the celebrated Canadian wildlife photographer Michelle Valberg, who shares stories of her photographic adventures at the two poles and the incredible animals she observes as she creates emotional imagery that has the power to make viewers feel. From the mailbag on today's show, how introversion affects what you photograph, favourite places in the world to MAKE those pictures and how being devoured by forest has you feel, making your own book or zine in 2024, how your experiences as a child can influence your photography as an adult plus there is news of a second retreat week in Scotland. It is the first Friday of the month, so it’s assignment week, and this year, all our challenges are one-word photographic assignments. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

#414 Photowalk: The power to make people feel

The Photowalk is a mailbag-driven podcast where we walk and make pictures together, and meet with special guests along the trail. For anyone who likes to take pictures. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

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Visual Arts

Storyteller Al Brydon is a walker with a camera enraptured by the landscape and human interaction with it. He's published and exhibited internationally, and his projects may surprise you, including his fascination with graveyard bins and an encounter with a phantom cat. Also today from the mailbag: a Route 66 adventure, the best natural medicine that we ALL have access to, Mexico in an RV, a story witnessed by a centuries-old tree, and synchronised picture making on our trails. Plus, it being the second Friday of the month, street photographer and mentor Valerie Jardin is here with Visual Stories. This month, we’re talking about the humour dogs bring into our lives photographically. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

#432 Graveyard Bins and Phantom Cats!

Imagine a five-pointed star. Now attach a word to each point and think of them as the core principles or values associated with how and why you create or make photographs. Today as we walk together on the Photowalk show, the philosophical YouTuber Sean Tucker discusses five that I have chosen, and we ask you to consider your own during this exercise of creative self-discovery. It's also an expanded letters show today: the special nature of the pictures we make of strangers, collaborations, the wonderful opportunity when exhibiting your work, photographs on the side of a mountain and documenting where you live as a legacy. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

#431 Find your FIVE points of creative thinking

Stephen Dupont is an Australian photographer recognised around the world for his concerned photography on the human condition, war and climate, earning him dozens of prizes including the W. Eugene Smith Grant, and a Robert Capa Gold Medal Citation. Today he talks honestly about books, the why of photography, life, death and the camera.   Also on the show, remembering and respecting, taking a pilgrimage of quiet in France and Belgium along the Western Front of WWI, getting sentimental about the pips, and postcards from Toronto, plus the countdown has begun for the last week of entries to this month’s assignment from iconic American photographer Stephen Wilkes. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

#430 Whatever you do, don't look away!

As we walk today, two guests feature in the show. Photographer and creative retreat mentor Margaret Soraya from the Isle of Harris shares how the arts have helped her mental health immeasurably during a period of grief following the passing of her mother. Former school deputy head Emily Renier, now Fujifilm UK's latest ambassador, recounts how a mental breakdown reset her life both creatively and spiritually. Also on the show today, how the recent eclipse seems to have brought people together, why AI possibly isn’t the monster to hide behind the sofa from, and recharging batteries in a beautiful forest, plus a reminder from former guest Stephen Wilkes of what this month's assignment is all about. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.  

#429 Photography reset my life: two powerful stories

Welcome to a photography podcast where we walk together with a mailbag of stories and pictures. My guest today, John Dolan, understands and completely embraces the importance of the photographic moment over photographic perfection. The second edition of his best-selling monograph, The Perfect Imperfect, is about to be released, and in it, he invites photographers to look beyond the shot list and find beauty and truth in imperfect moments. He has photographed the most recent Whitehouse Wedding; he is Seinfeld's family documentarian, and he is trusted to record the most intimate and often vulnerable moments for clients including Will Smith and Gwyneth Paltrow. Also from the mailbag as we walk, making pictures of the beautifully inanimate, the things that we pass by every day and never give a second thought to, a case of mistaken Googling when typing in the letters M A L and I, a letter on dragging yourself out of bed at sunrise, solar eclipses, the winner of last month’s assignment, plus it being the second Friday of the month, street photographer and photography mentor Valerie Jardin joins me for Visual Stories, this month talking about timeless pictures in Paris. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

#414 Photowalk: The power to make people feel

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