Travel Photography

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close

enough.”

Robert Capa

It is very easy with travel photography to be so blown away

by what you are seeing that all creativity goes out of the

window. You raise your camera and ‘snap’: you end up with a

purely representational photograph that is identical to so

many others. I will try to inspire you to create pictures that

you are proud of, not just records of the fantastic places that

you travel to.

I am a jobbing travel photographer and writer, accepting

commissions to go all over the world, almost always with

insufficient time. I sometimes have just a few days to capture a

place’s essence and produce pictures to fill multiple pages of a

book. I have to battle against time constraints, jetlag, bad weather,

crowds, equipment issues and a lack of familiarity with the place

itself. In this way my professional life often mirrors the experience

of the amateur photographer who is limited by time and budget.

If you have tremendous luck, or unlimited time, then all the

If you have tremendous luck, or unlimited time, then all the

elements may come together for a picture: the light will be perfect,

the subject laid out before you, without a tourist coach in sight. All

you will have to do is take your camera, snap and get a

masterpiece. Unfortunately, that seldom happens.

Once, when shooting Hong Kong Island, I spent five days

struggling against the smog, travelling to the top of Victoria Peak

on four occasions to try to get the perfect shot. On my last night I

was relaxing in a bar, when the owner told me about a sunrise at

the beginning of the week. In his five years in Hong Kong, it was

the clearest and most beautiful he had seen. The pictures he had

taken out of the window of his apartment on the Peak were

fantastic. He wanted to know what I, as a photographer, had

thought of it. To my dismay, I had to tell him that this amazing

sunrise had occurred the day before I arrived!

On another occasion, I was shooting in Rio. The weather was

cloudy and difficult but I kept working and tried a shot from the

summit of Corcovado in the early morning. Shooting into the light,

with all of the islands of the bay draped in backlit shadow

produced a spectacular image which ended up on the cover of my

first book. It would have been easy to give up and stay in bed that

day but my persistence paid off.

What both these experiences show is that, as a photographer,

you can’t have perfect luck all of the time and you certainly never

have unlimited time. You have to make your own luck with skill

and hard work. This book aims to help you by offering tips, advice

and encouragement. I believe that you can always take a great

photo – no matter what the conditions. It might not be the photo

that you set out to take or a photo that you would see on a

postcard rack but that unique picture is out there. All you have to

do is create it.

I often come back from a long trip exhausted, somewhat lighter

and leaner, but ultimately more fulfilled and relaxed than if I had

just been on holiday. Travel photography is really a way of life: a

way of travelling. I have seen more sunrises and sunsets, looked

more people from all walks of life in the eye and shaken more

hands than I ever would have done as a traveller or holidaymaker.

I have climbed more hills and mountains, and then often climbed

I have climbed more hills and mountains, and then often climbed

them again the next day when the weather is better. I often find

myself in the middle of the action – running from bulls, bathing with

elephants or pilgrims, swimming with sharks – in a way that would

not be possible without photography. Photography has been my

motivation and I have experienced a greater level of enjoyment

and involvement because of it. I hope to convey some of the

magic of travel photography in this book and inspire you to get out

there to see and embrace the world yourself.

Contents

Introduction

From Steve Davey

About the book

Using the book

Preparation

Digital photography

Shooting JPEG or RAW

Styles of camera

Focus on: Morning exercises, Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam

Buying guide

Lenses

Suggested kits

Other equipment

Choosing a camera bag

Focus on: Taj Mahal from the far bank of the Yamuna River

Familiarization and servicing

Insurance and customs

Research

Exploration

Photography on the road

Hazards and attitudes on the road

General travel tips

Styles of travel

Focus on: Bungee jumping self-portrait

Execution

What makes a good picture?

Composition for meaning

Creative workflow

Mise en scène

Angle and viewpoint

Shoot vertical

Focus on: Pilgrim with a prayer wheel at Jokhang Temple

Lens choice

Composition for balance

Compositional devices

Exposure

Exposure metering

Exposure and dynamic range

Reading histograms

Exposure solutions in automatic

Manual exposure

Creative exposure

Combining aperture and shutter speed

Exposure modes

Shutter speed

Freezing movement

Shooting action

Motion blur

Panning

Aperture and depth of field

Sensitivity

Low-light shooting

Nature of light

Focus on: Sunrise at Hopi Point on the Grand Canyon

Colour temperature

Filters

Flash

Fill-in flash

Focus

Thinking in colour

Shooting in black-and-white

Patience and waiting

Shooting around a subject

Shooting details

Taking pictures for correction

Shooting to increase dynamic range

Chimping, editing and binning

Camera settings

Digital on the road

Inspiration

Shoot local

Portraits

Candid and creative portraits

Cities

Religious buildings

Ruins and archaeological sites

Photographing the great travel icons

Festivals

Performances

Sunsets and sunrises

Night photography

Shooting star trails

Focus on: Ostriches at sunset Makgadikgadi Pan, Botswana

Wildlife

Landscapes

Deserts

Snow and mountains

Shooting panoramas

Jungles

Beaches and coastline

Adventure sports

Interiors

Markets

Food and drink

Close-up photography

Abstract, quirky and humorous photography

Reportage

Photostories

Aerial photography

Photographing from a boat

Photographing from a train

Focus on: Tea shop, Hama-Rikyo Detached Garden

Underwater photography

Other tourists

Family travel

Correction

Principles

Software

A few of the basics

Storage and image management

Editing your work

Focus on: Snake charmers, Jemaâ el Fna, Marrakech, Morocco

Cropping and straightening

Developing RAW files in Lightroom

Adjusting your images in Photoshop and Elements

Making selections

Selective corrections

Layers

Reducing depth of field

Digital graduated filters

Combining multiple files for dynamic range

History

Focus on: Korzok Gustor festival, Lake Tsomoriri, Ladakh

Retouching

Panoramas

Black-and-white conversions

Sharpening

Printing

Web presence

Profession

Working professionally

Focus on: Bathing pilgrims at the Maha Kumbh Mela

Equipment

Taking pictures for sale

Organization and workflow

Pitching an idea

Copyright and legal issues

Libraries, competitions and art sales

Online marketing