Canadutch
As I mentioned in an earlier post on Saturday I went into Amsterdam to check out the Zombie Walk. I think I may have had my expectations too high after photos I’d seen from walks in other cities. Most of them took place in the day and it was just people walking like zombies for fun. This was ok but not really like that, it was more like a zombie party.
It was terribly organized. We waited at Dam Square and even though we saw about 4-5 police officers none of them had any idea what was going on. The traffic wasn’t stopped so when the zombies came there was a gridlock between the vehicles that were along with the zombies and the public transit.
When the zombies arrived I sort of got pushed with the crowd into this one spot, and I thought it was going to be great because I was right in front. Unfortunately I was right at the entrance to Dam Square in an intersection and the zombies were packed quite tightly together. It was hard to get photos because when they’d come up to me they were TOO close and I had trouble focusing. I did manage to salvage a few photos though.
McZombies?
You can see more photos here on the Flickr set.
My favorite part of the evening wasn’t even the zombies, it was this little boy in his skeleton costume. He had a great time trying to scare all the people waiting around in the square. It was hilarious to watch.
What bothered me most was that it wasn’t just people being zombies for fun, like a proper zombie attack kind of walk. There were party trucks blaring music, with zombies drinking and smoking and dancing on top. Cars with zombie people driving along and the greater majority of the zombies were walking along smoking, drinking or taking photos themselves, rather than really acting the part.
All in all, regardless of my complaints, it was a fun evening. I’m going to keep my eyes open in case there is a regular, daytime, just for fun zombie walk and when that happens I will get my do-over.
Oh, and did my diffuser make any difference? I have no idea! I use my flash so rarely that I can’t tell if the photos came out better or not because of it. I’ll test it out another time, maybe for x-mas portraits!
Great photos! I see some people that I was *right* near and I even saw my friend in one of your photos, pity you didn’t see me! :)
Next year! …have to start thinking of something even better for next year….and something that’s easier to clean off my face!
mmmmbbbrrraaaiiinnnsssss ;)
i was at this walk(actually managed to find myself in some of your pictures) and i have to say, you were right… it was very hard to stay in character with all the people around me partying and walking around like normal people…the music was bothersome and i still have no idea what that wagon at the beginning had to do with everything…but i did manage to have a lot of fun.and that kid in the skeleton costume was the cutest thing i’ve ever seen
also, thank you for capturing me at my best :)
Something tells me that is how real Dutch zombies would act.
“Yesh. We are undead but there is no need not to party yesh?”
The little kid is great.
Hey, you got more than a few… my favourite is the one with the red backlighting.
Yeah those are my favorites too!
It’s fun that it took place at night though, no matter inconvenient it may be for photographer!
Ottawa had its zombie walk a week ago and it was good fun. I was getting a bit frustrated at first because it was hard to get good portrait shots, but eventually I just walked along and stopped at lights and such to get a good vantage point. In the end, I was pretty happy with the pics.
I shot with a 88 mm prime lens so I also had the problem of zombie coming to close and not being able to focus!
I think if I could go back I would have gone to the area where they were gathering OR at the end… rather than in the middle. At least then I could have gotten a lot of them stationary and posed for portraits. I’ll know better next time! :P
You got some wonderful pictures! And the quality because of your camera and ability to work in photoshop and of course your own natural talent is so much better than mine! I love the red effect in some of your pictures and how the diffuser worked. I think these are great!
Thanks Clarissa! I think you had way way better photos and photo opportunities. I think I’ll always be bitter that I wasn’t where you were haha I like the red effect too, some guy had a flare and it put off loads of smoke and red light, I wish there were more of those!
I had a little chuckle at the party wagons and people dancing on top – sounds like a bit of a Queen’s Day/Gay Pride/Carnival thing. Perhaps we can’t have any sort of festival/parade without it..!
Love the photos – that little kid is awesome.
haha yeah it was sort of like what Queens Day would be like if there was a zombie apocalypse…
Tammy I think the diffuser did work because normal flash photos look more washed out..these look incredible! well done :) Love that little boy..lol
Thanks Sonya! I don’t know if it really did make a difference but it was fun making it and playing with it anyway!