I gave a talk tonight at Wide World Books, our premier travel bookstore in Seattle, titled, "How to Take Better Travel Photos." I tend to ad lib these things, as they seem to go better when I think on my feet (kind of like my photography). Robin joined me in the presentation, as she has a unique viewpoint in how a photographer operates on location ("When he’s in that mode of ‘chasing the light,’ bring along a supply of food and water. And if you see an opportunity to pee, take it.")
In selecting work to show, I didn’t just want a reel of my "Greatest Hits." In preparing for this evening, I started pulling work from the foreign slide file, and stopped after three locations. Australia, Paris, Yucatan. This is diverse enough, I thought. I found examples of where I entered a situation, worked it, and came through in the end with the fulfilled image.
I talked about the task in understanding the gap between what we see and what the camera sees, and how to keep that in mind. When we see something we want to photograph, we often don’t see clearly what, precisely, it is that is generating this response. We have a kind of sensory tunnel-vision to emotional states. You think, oh, this scene/person/flower/mountain/building is so compelling, the photograph, of course, is going to capture that. Well, the camera doesn’t have an emotional response. It doesn’t care what you think or feel. The camera is dumb. It just records what is in front of it. We are poorly trained to see what is in front of us, because the details that trigger our response become so distorted when filtered through our emotions. The camera can be a powerful tool to understand more precisely how the external world connects with our internal state.
This is a topic I harp on a lot: Don’t allow the camera to become a barrier to being there. Use the camera to slow down and observe. With digital that means resisting the siren call of the LCD screen on the back of the camera. There’ll be time enough later on to see what you did. It means making connection with that person that looks so interesting, and having the camera be the beginning of a meaningful exchange. All the people photographs I showed were with a wide angle lens. I was never more than 5 feet from them. With landscape it means patience. Waiting out the light. What better reason to stay in one place and just observe?
In summary: Photography is the window through which I pay attention.
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