by Kevin Cody
PhotowalksTV host Jefferson Graham was filming an episode at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 2021 when his $6,500 Sony camera was stolen.
“I was at Crissy Field, this big, fantastic park at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge where people take the iconic selfies of themselves. This kid with a big grin on his face runs up to me, grabs my camera and tripod, and takes off in a getaway car,” he said.
Graham was as angry with himself as he was with the thief.
“I did a stupid thing. I had the tripod too close to the road,” Graham said. He knew San Francisco is as notorious for camera thieves as London is for smart phone nabbers. And that the San Francisco crooks work tourist areas near roads for quick getaways.
“A San Francisco TV news crew got robbed while live on air, reporting on camera thieves,” Graham said.
In hindsight, Graham acknowledged, the bandito did him a favor. It catapulted PhotowalksTV from a scrappy YouTube show to a weekly Sunday TV series on Scripps News, the country’s most widely distributed, free national streaming news channel.
Jack Rabbit Trading Post on Route 66 Arizona. Photo by Jefferson Graham/PhotoWalksTV
This past week, Graham returned home to Manhattan Beach from a five-state, 440 mile trip from Boston to Washington DC. During the trip he filmed a series of episodes for the country’s 250th anniversary that will begin airing in January.
PhotowalksTV is a combination of travelog and phone photo tips.
“I realized there was a space for a show that helps people slow down, and really see a place — not just rush through it,” he said.
Graham filmed his first Photowalk episode in 2018, shortly before stepping down as a tech columnist for USA Today.
That year, upon showing a friend a video he made while visiting his son in Japan, the friend said to him, “Anyone can make a travel video. Why don’t you tell how you made the video.”
The idea made sense to Graham, given his background in tech coverage.
Sampling pies in Williams, Arizona on Route 66 at the Pine Country Restaurant. Photo by Ruth Stroud
“I’d watch tourists at the Manhattan Beach pier taking selfies with their backs to the sunset, and not understanding why instead of properly exposed photos of themselves, they get a silhouette,” he said.
Following his friend’s suggestion, he began traveling all over California and eventually the country with wife Ruth
to film both iconic, and obscure photo locations, and telling viewers how to get great photos.
The San Francisco camera theft let him to question both the practicality, and the necessity of expensive camera equipment,
“I decided to film the show with the iPhone. It’s less susceptible to theft, and fully capable of good quality,” he said.
Later editions of the phone, most notably the iPhone 15, 16 and 17 series saw a huge bump in quality. (Pro tip: the cover shot was photographed just after a rain, which Graham pointed out in the New Mexico Route 66 episode, is prime time for amazing photos, due to the reflections created by the rain.)
A spurt in viewership followed, catching the attention of Scripps News, which recently re-signed him to a third season of PhotoWalkTV. Best Western Hotels and Resorts came aboard as the sponsor of the show in April. Via Scripps, the show also airs on Amazon Fire TV, the Roku Channel, Peacock, Pluto and Tubi on dedicated Scripps channels there. Photowalks is among Scripps’most viewed weekend shows.
Monument Valley, Utah, Forest Gump Road. Photo by Jefferson Graham/PhotoWalksTV
To the best of his knowledge, PhotowalksTV is one of only a handful of TV shows produced on a phone.
“I film the show with the same cell phone camera you have,” Graham tells viewers at the beginning of each show.
“You don’t need expensive gear. Just your phone for stills. For video you can get a microphone for $99, (Rode Wireless Micro) and a tripod, which you can pick for $150 to $200 at Paul’s Photo in Torrance. That’s it. No need for a crew. Just focus on telling a story, and don’t wait for a gatekeeper to welcome you in,” he advises viewers.
Smartphones, he found, are also less intimidating to the people being filmed than expansive cameras, resulting in them behaving more naturally.
Monument Valley, Utah, Forest Gump Road. Photo by Jefferson Graham/PhotoWalksTV
To help him identify the best photo locations, he invites locals to be his guides.
In Washington, DC, local photographer John Dukes met him at 6:30 a.m. outside the Lincoln Memorial to show him when to get the best sunrise shot.
In Chicago he met up with a local guidebook author at the popular photo spot, the Bean and in Missoula, Montana he climbed the “M” trail with Emily Brown, a reporter for the local Scripps TV station to see the best view in town.
Graham edits his shows from his Manhattan Beach garage with Final Cut Pro on two Apple computers.
After traveling to over 125 locations from Paris to Hawaii, Graham insists Manhattan Beach remains one of his favorite photo locations.
“Our town has weather, walkable streets, and the pier,” he said. And it has its interesting locals.
This week, Graham filmed Easy Reader’s Surfing Santa at Neptune Street in Manhattan Beach.
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