Walking the streets of downtown Menlo Park with camera in hand

Photographer Jay Maisel tells us to “go out empty” when we walk out to make pictures. Last Saturday morning I did just that as I grabbed my camera on a morning of intermittent showers/rain and sunshine.

I was helping my spouse run an errand where I’d have an hour or so of downtime. I thought this would be a great opportunity to just take a walk downtown Menlo Park,  with nothing particular in mind other than enjoying a walk in the fresh air. I started out near El Camino and Oak Grove Avenue, heading west.

Along the way, a few things caught my eye, resulting in this collection of images. Not exactly street photography, this collection is more eclectic than that, but it was great fun to shoot and helped me enjoy the day. For me, a walk with camera in hand is almost therapeutic!

All of these images were cropped into a square format — Instagram-style. I opted to leave them in color rather than converting them to black and white. The images were shot with my Fujifilm X-E2 and the Fujinon 35mm/f2.0 prime lens.

Photos by Scott Loftesness – © 2016