The First Step

It has begun. I did the first short walk today with my friend and colleague Newton. I have a tendency to make projects bigger than they need to be, and I’ve done that here, but with an emphasis on ease and sustainability.

There are 2,215 miles of roads in Philadelphia, minus a few highways. So if I do a 4-5 mile walk 3 days a week for 3 years, I can easily walk every street. I plan to shoot one roll of film on each of the walks (that's a lot of rolls of film but I can develop and scan myself).

— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) March 16, 2021

Now, in addition to shooting a roll of film, I’m also wearing a GoPro. I just think it would be a cool hyperlapse to really quickly walk down every road in Philadelphia (I mean, come on, that would be cool) and it takes little effort other than to remember to charge the GoPro.

Then I realized that since I’m wearing a GoPro and walking with a friend, I may as well mic us both up running our separate wireless audio into the GoPro. This way if we have a cool conversation I could maybe use it for something later. I don’t know, a podcast?

And of course, since I have video of each walk, I could easily turn that video into little photo walk videos where when you hear the shutter you can then cut away to the picture that’s been taken.

Another thing I’ll need to have is a “calling card” I can give to people if I ask to take their portrait. This way they can go check out the project somehow, see if their portrait made it in. I have a very specific idea for this business card of course… More on that later.

You can see how this project is spiraling out of control, right?

Anyway, this is what’s wrong with me. But I think I’m actually doing this.

Look at that first little sprout of green… Can you see it?

Can you see it now? I’m gonna ALL that red to green. Just watch.