Telling Our Travel Story
Toulouse, France. This was home for us for a year. Je t’aime Toulouse.
Why do we photograph our travels? To brag about the exotic places we’ve been? Or is it to create a story of our adventure so we can share with family and friends, AND relive it for years to come. I vote for the latter. To me travel photography is so much more than just pretty photos. It’s the little details, the people that you watched, the funny signs. It’s what you look at when you get home and say “oh yeah remember that guy?” or “that restaurant had the BEST creme brûlée!”
When you get home, you can’t possibly remember the blur that was your vacation. You are taking SO much in, trying to keep up with the culture, language, itinerary. Photos are your only chance for keeping track - a visual journal - of what you did, so you can relive it later.
That’s why it’s important to think of the story-telling as you are moving along with camera in hand (or on strap more likely). I think of a story starting as the overall scene, say a market. Then a bit closer, say the lady shopping at the market and the people around here. And finally the details, like the sign for ‘fêves’ (fava beans) with a gorgeous red pile of tomatoes behind it.
The French markets…I could photograph them for days.
There are lots and lots and LOTS of travel photography tips, tricks, blogs, classes…So many (at least for me) tend to get caught up in the technical aspects of when is the perfect light, what lenses to take with you, what backup system to have in place. I’m not saying that stuff isn’t important. Indeed it can be. But depending on where you are in your photographic journey, some of it is just freaking overwhelming and confusing.
Take me for example. Neal and I were getting ready to journey off to France for a year, and do some traveling while we were there. I studied everything I could get my hands on about cameras, lenses, editing, hard drives, blah, blah, blah. At times I was ready to scream. Now let me just say I am prone to analysis paralysis, so am particularly susceptible to information overload.
At some point I distilled it down to what worked for me. I wanted to travel with a minimal load, take some gorgeous photos and tell my story along the way. If National Geographic didn’t spot my Instagram feed and beg me to run their photography department, well so be it. A lot of it is trial and error. Unfortunately when heading off on a big trip, we don’t want that trip to be our error.
So you can consider me to be your guinea pig in the trial and error department. I tried a lot and I erred a lot. Subsequent blog posts will share my results so you can learn from them. My tips, tricks, and comical recreations of my photographic journey will hopefully help you learn what works best for you. Because all I want is for everyone to love photographing their adventures as much as I do. And I freaking love it. A lot.