Photography As Fitness

Since January, I’ve been working on a modest fitness goal: lose 10 pounds and start working out regularly again.

So far, so good. I’m down eight pounds, thanks to a combination of healthy eating and exercise, and I hope to reach my goal before the holidays (when I’ll really need to work on my discipline!).

Part of the program involves photography. Landscape, nature, and street photographers already know this, but including photography in your fitness plan is easy. You walk, you shoot, you get some fresh air – each thing reinforces the other. Heading out to shoot is a great excuse to get some exercise.

So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve made it a point to head out, especially during my lunch hours at work, and take a long walk, camera in tow.

The result has been a ton of new street photography experiments. Getting out and exploring Ann Arbor has been a lot of fun. And after a summer of getting outside, I’m really noticing the benefits.

A few tips:

• Take your lunch hour and get outside. It’s your time!
• Pick a new route to walk each day. This one’s easy for me, since I’m working in a new city, but note some new neighborhoods or parts of the city you haven’t been to, and go see those.
• Your camera’s charged or loaded with film, right?
• Start a project, and look to these walks as a way to accomplish it.
• Walk at least once a week. After a while, you’ll look for excuses to do it more often.

Win-win, right? Fresh air, slimmer waistline, and an excuse to make photographs.

photography ann arbor, exercise, fitness, hike, photography, walk