As travel became easier and tourism to these same places took off Travel Photography changed from being a glimpse of the exotic and strange to providing enticing and aspirational images for brochures and travel guides. However until relatively recently it was still the work of a few professional photographers who would head out to locations at the request of tour companies and travel guide publishers.

However in this age of digital photography and cheap access to the technology to take potentially stunning pictures I think Travel Photography needs to redefined again. When many locals in destinations that you or I might visit have access to photography and don’t have to travel anywhere to take great shots of their local area (which they also have a better knowledge of) the core market for Travel Photography becomes saturated with a surfeit of shots. As David duChemin mentioned on his blog a while back:

…the market is saturated, and anyone who wants an image of Taj Mahal can go to Flickr and find 100 photographers who’ve shot the same shot from the same angle on the same camera, and they’ll fight for the chance to give the image away in hopes of garnering a publishing credit.

So what is a Travel Photographer to do? Personally I think there are two options: quality specific shots and photo-essays.

Whilst sites like Flickr might abound with images of key landmarks and locations, a serious photographer is going to look for a different angle on a familiar subject to present it in a new and captivating light. And speaking of light, they are far more likely to work with it. Waiting for the right quality and direction of light. Overall this is hopefully going to result in a far more studied composition; a higher quality image. There will also probably be a fairly specific requirement from a client requesting images of the location in question.

The second option is photo-essays and this is where I now think the more modern definition of Travel Photography sits most comfortably.

By photo-essays I mean a collection of images that have a cohesiveness and tell a story, whether that is about the trip itself, or a culture or its history. A gallery that takes the reader along for the ride. Although you have to be careful that they are creative quality images and not just a collection of your holiday snaps. As a result this means having an idea of what you want the final output to be and conducting your research before going. (However its always advisable to remain flexible to adapt to conditions/experiences on your travels).

Personally, I don’t think the Travel Photography genre is going to disappear any time soon. But it’s clear that from its origins in the mid-1800s its definition has changed and adapted as both the available equipment and ability to travel have improved.

Back when I first started in photography I shot on black and white film. It was cheaper, and easier for me to develop and print myself (which allowed me to correct a large number of the mistakes I made when I took the shot!).

To this day I still like black and white photography, however with the move away from film and the advent of cheap digital cameras it seems few people take black and white shots nowadays. In this post I’m hoping to talk a bit about the difference between colour and black and white photography and encourage some of you to try seeing the world in monochrome.

When shooting in colour your primary focus is the colours in the scene. Are they complimentary or do they clash? Saturated or muted? Is there something in the image who’s colour will attract (or distract) the viewer?

When you switch to black and white the composition simplifies to contrast, light and texture.

However, although it might seem strange, if you camera has a black and white mode I would not recommend using it. Shoot in colour and switch to black and white during post-processing. The reason for this is although you might have a good idea in your mind how the scene you are about to shoot will look in black and white, taking the shot in colour gives you greater flexibility to tweak the contrast (via manipulation of individual colours in the conversion process) in your final image.

Light in black and white photography is perhaps more important than in colour. An evenly lit subject will often look flat in black and white and contrast is usually needed to bring out key details and shapes and to separate your subject from the background. Black and white can also be more forgiving. Skies on a bright overcast day can often be a disappointment in colour shots, but are more easily ignored/overlooked in black and white, where the focus is more on form and texture.

If you’re shooting portraits, think about what your subjects will wear. Patterned clothing does not always suit black and white photography and solid block colours can produce a far stronger final image.

Landscapes lend themselves especially well to black and white. You only have to think of the greats – Ansel Adams, Bill Bandt, Ralph Gibson – to see this.

So next time you’re out shooting, why not deliberately try to take some shots for final black and white output. If you can ignore the colour of a scene in front of you it helps train the mind to the composition and various textures in the scene which  ultimately (in my opinion) creates better all round photography.  As inspiration, here’s a collection of some great black and white images.

…the belief that the ultimate goal in photography is to get a pretty picture. Not just any pretty picture, the prettiest of pretty pictures, the most beautiful of the beautiful, the most stunning of the stunning, the most jaw dropping of the dropped jaws photos. The bestest ever.

That is everyone’s goal—yours too, admit it. That is why we always go out for yet another sunset or sunrise. This might be the sunset that beats all other sunsets, you think and if that happens you’ll be there and, even better, you’ll be set for life. You’ll be celebrated by all your photo buddies and envied by all your photo competitors. You’ll be recognized as that guy or gal that took the best shot ever and money and fame will surely follow wherever you go.

In some ways I agree, but do think its a little over-simplified.

The article proposes your approach should be to focus more on themes (or stories as they call it). A collection of related images that hang together as a whole around a specific theme. I guess the theme could be technical, stylistic or subject based. I don’t think it matters so long as all the images, when viewed together, form a coherent whole.

If you’d like to make up your own mind you can read the full article at the link below.

The Biggest Myth in Photography

This is definitely the case with one Flickr user – Dippold – who has shared a template to build your own camera. A perfect little project to keep you from gorging on all those chocolate Easter eggs this holiday!

All you need is a printer, some paper, a rubber band and a couple of rolls of 35mm film and you too can make your own pin-hole camera. Even better, Dippold has even added a nifty chart providing guideline exposure times.

Follow the link below to view Dippold’s Flickr stream and get the template yourself.

Dippold: Pin-hole Camera Tutorial & Template

Whilst I still don’t claim to be an expert and I’m learning new things every day, I did finally manage to get my head around most of the technical aspects of my camera and taking shots.

For those that are starting out and facing the same difficulties, or even those that are used to their equipment and just want a refresher I just discovered a great article by “Bernie” – A Beginner’s Guide to Photography for Computer Geeks Who Want to be Digital Artists. The article is full of information on a range of topics such as:

• focal length
• shutter speed
• aperture
• sensitivity
• metering, plus lots more

The article goes into good detail explaining why things work the way they do and providing some great example shots along the way. By way of a sample, have you ever wondered why the background appears closer to you subject, despite the subject being the same size, when you shoot with a higher focal length lens?

Using a wide angle lens means that the camera is much closer to the subject than the subject is to the background. This exaggerates perspective and makes the background seem small and distant. The reverse is true with the telephoto shot, which includes less of the background while making it appear closer to the subject.

I highly recommend setting aside some time in your day and checking out the article in full at the link below.

BernieCode: A Beginner’s Guide to Photography for Computer Geeks Who Want to be Digital Artists

Digital Photography school has just put up a very amusing article on the 10 Deady Post Processing Sins. These include:

1. Don’t buy photoshop right out of the gate.
2. Processing fads rhyme with “stay away for the love of all that is holy.”
3. Radioactive eyes are so last season.
4. Skin should not look like it was grafted from Barbie, Ken, or Skipper.
5. A heavy vignette does not a professional photograph make.
6. Just say “NO” to over saturation.
7. Selective colouring died circa 1990.
8. Don’t make your clients look dead.
9. Fake Sun flare . . . looks fake. and stupid.
10. Textures? I’ve only ever seen a hand full of photographers who can really pull them off.

Check out the link below for the full article complete with suitably bad example images!

DPS: Warning – 10 Deady Post Processing Sins

The first is part of the Digital Economy Bill and relates to orphan works usage rights, which will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified. Assuming most people are not going to try and find the owner for images they download online, that’s potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet.

As the Copyright Action site indicates:

Copyright in photos is essentially going to cease to exist, since there is no ineradicable way of associating ownership details short of plastering your name right across the image.

One of the more galling aspects of the UK Digital Economy bill is that it has been specifically drafted (at the behest of the music and movie industry) to further protect music and movie copyrights but then seems to strip any need to worry about copyright for Photographers. What is worse is that despite the Lords Select Committee stating that the definition of an “orphan work” should be included in the bill, Lord Mandelson (who is the one pushing this through) refused on the grounds that:

“the need for flexibility in specifying what comprises an adequate search makes this difficult. That what is an orphan work will change according to evolving methods of determining its status.”

If this is passed it means that any image that turns up on a Google image search or personal website could be used commercially with the user just claiming they tried to find the owner and hoping they aren’t caught out. Time to dust off the watermarks I think, however this is a shame as ultimately watermarks go against the idea of showcasing your work on personal sites or places such as Flickr!

The other half of this story is that the Information Commissioners Office is proposing a new code for personal information online. It should be noted that the proposal is still in consultation, but should it be passed, as well as the obvious personal data items it also includes new rules that will all but prohibit photography in public places where anyone who’s in the photograph might be unhappy about being photographed. However in order to avoid impacting tourist photos, this new ruling will only apply to pro photographers. Without even getting into definitions around who is pro and who isn’t this still poses massive problems.

Imagine a demonstration through a city. There are bound to be pro documentary/news photographers there shooting the crowd. However unless the photographer walks around and collects consent from every single individual in the crowd they will now not be allowed to take a photo of the event!

Again, as the Copyright Action site puts it:

Minor considerations like journalism, history, social documentary, freedom of expression – and even the simple logic that if you can eyeball it in public, it can’t possibly be private – all are just collateral damage. At a stroke, ICO is redefining allowable photography to exclude all that contentious street stuff that has made the record of the last 150 years so insightful.

Visit the link to the Copyright Action site below for a far more extensive post, along with links tot he relevant bills. If you’re in the UK then I also urge you to write to your local elected representative about the Digital Economy Bill and the orphan licensing rights expressed within it.

Copyright Action (for photographers and photography users): UK Gov nationalises orphans and bans non-consensual photography in public

From both personal experience and that of my friends there seems to be a general belief that if an image is licensed with Creative Commons then anyone can use it pretty much however they want. Unfortunately this is not how the license works and at a minimum you are often required to provide a credit and link back to the image owner. Creative Commons is also frequently used to allow hobby bloggers, etc to use the image but to restrict commercial use. However again there have been cases where images have been used for monetary or commercial projects under the mistaken belief that Creative Commons allowed this.

As mentioned, I think Creative Commons is a good idea (in principle) however the organisation behind it needs to do a lot more promotion and publicity to educate people on the ground about how it works. In addition, its not clear what you would do if your license was violated. The Creative Commons team itself cannot provide legal advice or support. Finally, even the creator of Creative Commons – Lawrence Lessig – when asked whether using an image marked “Non-commercial” on a blog that contains, for example, Google Ads would be a violation responded “I don’t know”. This is due to the fact that many of these cases have not yet been tested in a court of law.

If you’re really worried about people stealing your work, then don’t put it online! However if you do, certainly for now, I would recommend using an “all rights reserved” note at least until Creative Commons is better understood and better tested.

Firstly, there’s a great write up over on the X= blog about why you should import and convert your photos to Adobe’s DNG format. Definitely worth a read.

Secondly, apologies for it being a little quite round here of late. I’ve been working on a new site that I will be moving all my travel photography over to in due course and it took slightly longer than anticipated. Although its not 100% complete yet it is now open to visitors and you can check it out at www.importedlight.com. Be sure to check out the galleries option which displays a world map showing where each of the photo sets were taken.

If you’ve got any comments on either using DNG (are you a fan or not?) or feedback on the new site, add them below!

1. Use Solo Mode To Tame All Those Panels
2. Use Collections instead of Folders
3. Store all your photos inside one main folder
4. Do as much work in Lightroom as possible
5. Create Presets and Templates whenever possible
6. How to Save Your Image as a JPEG
7. Turn off Auto Show for panels
8. Throw away your old backups
9. It’s OK to have multiple Catalogs
10. Ask yourself whether you need lots of keywords or not

Now most of these I agree 100% with. I’m not that great and creating presets and templates but hey – there’s so many good ones available out there I tend to use them and tweak as required. Plus of course, considering my free Keyword Sets I would say that answer to number 10 is “Yes you do need keywords!”.

Scott Kelby – 10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users