WE ARE PHOTO meet-up in Harlow Town Park

I have been tinkering around more with my camera, especially since picking up some new lenses! My favorite thing to take pictures of tends to be flowers, getting close up to their pedals when it comes to the morning walk to school or when out and about. I also quite like taking pictures of food, but that’s likely because I just love cooking too. I’ve had a lot of fun taking more pictures of my family as well, which I’ve been featuring around our blog.

At the start of May, I was surfing Facebook when I saw the WE ARE PHOTO group being advertised on a local community group where I was posting about Pokemon Go. I realize I had a mutual friend from Pokemon in the group, so decided to join it and see what it’s all about! WE ARE PHOTO is ran by Charly Mae Photography, a local who not only is a professional photographer but also runs workshops and classes to help others learn how to take stunning pictures. This Facebook group focuses on highlighting local photography and creating meet ups that bring together those new to photography all the way to those who do this for a living.

The group itself has a lot of photo threads and lots of people being positive and uplifting other people’s work. As someone who doesn’t edit photos and doesn’t know much about lenses or the like, I found this to be a really welcoming place. I have been posting my school run snaps along with various other camera outings in the group and getting to see other people’s duck photos or photos of the various places around my town that I’ve previously seen, but from a new perspective. I also very much enjoy the themed threads and seeing how people take the various themes or prompts, which bring a lot of focus to what I am doing.

WE ARE PHOTO also runs in-person events! In June, they had two scheduled; one a bit further away at a beach, which sounded amazing, however it happened to be on the same day as another local community event, involving cooking. I opted to attend the second event in June, which took place in the Harlow Town Park, split between the main park itself and Pet’s Corner. Amelia, our middle child, is also very interested in photography and when I told her about the event she asked to come along.

I took my Canon that I have been quite drawn to lately, where as Amelia finds cameras to be bulky and prefers the control and comfort of her phone camera, instead of the one she has at home. WE ARE PHOTO does encourage those to use their phones if that’s what they want to use, so we saw quite a few people with brilliant lenses and cameras, as well as people with their phones! Everyone was very welcoming and chatty, despite the British Weather of sprinkling rain. We got two themes when we started out our day; Raindrops (due to the weather) and Animals (due to Pet’s Corner being one of the places we were going to take photos.)

Amelia and I walked around with everyone, taking pictures of flowers and enjoying the company! I have been to the Town Park and Pet’s Corner so many times for Pokemon Events, community events and band concerts, but had not taken the time to take photos in this area of the park. Charly was extremely welcoming and the vibe of the community is fantastic. We had a wonderful time and are very much looking forward to the next meetup, to take more fantastic pictures! Though there were prompts and the Facebook group has threads for those themes, nothing feels competitive – everyone is just joining together in their mutual hobby!

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!