Photo “To Work” Walk – First and Last?

I decided at the last moment before leaving for work today to take my camera with me.  I had looked outside before heading out the door and there was a great fog about.  My first instinct was fog makes everything look surreal so I ran up and grabbed my camera with my 24-70 f2.8 lens and stepped out.  I started snapping shots immediately, but since this was an impromptu ‘photo walk’ I had not provided for any additional time to get to work and that meant taking shots ‘from the hip’.  Due to low light (6:50am) and fog it was tough to keep them from being blurred.  I ran up the ISO to 6400 so I could still hand hold as I did not bring along my tripod. The Canon 5D Mark II that I use as my main body is fully capable of taking amazing low noise photos at this high ISO so I didn’t worry about it.  I had a blast just having fun, carrying my camera, shooting, and all while going to work.  I work downtown Calgary among all the new buildings and they are such great subjects, I shot away.  I stepped into my building which is also new and took more.  Got to my desk and finally put my camera down.  Took a quick look at what I had taken, not bad.  I felt really alive and awake from this new method of getting to work.  When it came time to go down and get a coffee with a few work buddies I took the camera, why not there’s more to capture.  I was in the process of getting some good lobby shots when I was approached by a Building Manager and told that I was not allowed to take pictures in the building unless I had written permission from the managing company.  I told him these photos I was taking would not be published commercially.  They were for my artistic personal use only, but he didn’t care or understand.  So I put the camera down and he left me with my work buddies.  We finished our coffee and talked about how ever since 9-11 the ‘enhanced’ added security measures and the new ‘policies’  that have been put in place to maintain a sense of security really create more anxiety and pose to continue the fear that was felt that day.  My fun, alive day had just ended!  I didn’t take another picture all day.

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