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26.01.09
Tips for the travelling photographer
words by Adam Scorey
Photographers love to travel and capture what we see and experience. Our guide to travel is the perfect inspiration and the first step in making that photo holiday dream become a reality. It’s packed tighter than a backpacker’s rucksack with inspiration, techniques, ideas, gear and useful advice – sorry but we had to stop short of paying for you and giving you a personal tour, the PM bean-counters would have had kittens. “Ah,” you might say, “but what about travel insurance?” Well, we have an in-depth buyers’ guide starting on page 128, and we’ve even included a list of photo holiday companies who will sort out all those irritating details for you and guide you around the best spots.
EUROPEAN CITY BREAKS - ARCHITECTURE
Shooting architecture is about lines, shapes, juxtapositions of the old and the new, the soft and the hard. Look for wide shots of tall buildings reaching for the skies, abstract reflections in glass, the details on ancient cathedrals, remembering that there is as much to shoot inside as well as out. And let’s not forget sunrise and sunset silhouettes.
Ensure you research your location on the web or in guidebooks and make a plan of attack for the iconic hot spots and for both day and night shooting.
If you have the time, perhaps in the taxi on the way from the airport to your hotel, a recce of a few of your chosen subjects will help with times to shoot and directions of light, especially if you plan to get up early to catch them in the morning light with fewer people around. Often buses, trams and trains are the best forms of transport – you get to see more of the city without worrying about finding a parking spot. Many cities also offer ll-in-one travel tickets, so you can roam all over the place on all forms of transport with just one ticket.
Shooting in any city from its streets means converging verticals. No matter though, they can easily be corrected in image-editing software, unless you want to make a feature of them, that is. Remember to play with angles, twisting the camera for interesting compositions, defocus slightly, mess with double exposures or zoom bursts on details – the options are unlimited.
Bridges are good spots for vistas and panoramic shots and, if possible, find a high building and shoot skylines – don’t forget to ask permission. Choose the beginning or end of the day and you’ll be rewarded with fantastic light in the sky, plus you can meter for silhouettes.
Superzoom:
With a 10x zoom range this lens could meet all your travel needs in one.
Teleconverter:
Click here for our guide to choosing and using them.
Tripod:
Take something small and light such as Manfrotto’s 190 or Velbon’s Ultra Maxi F.
Filters:
A polarizer is essential, but grad NDs and warm-ups will also be handy.
Reflector:
Lastolite makes collapsible 12in versions, but a piece of paper or even a t-shirt will do.
Memory:
Take plenty of smaller memory cards rather than one big 16GB card. Consider the extra safety of a storage device, we’ve some great examples on page 121.
Protection:
From silicone armour to rain ponchos, protect your investment for a small percentage of its value. Sensor cleaning: Particularly for dryer climes, the Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly will save you hours on the computer.
Rucksack:
Go to Jessops, load one up and see which feels best for you. Market leader, Lowepro, has several bags on offer that fit the current size regulations for hand luggage.
Guidebook:
An essential for finding all the photo hot spots.
Digital compact:
As a backup or use it for less conspicuous candid shooting.
Lensbaby:
This nifty gadget attaches to your DSLR to produce some creative distortions and aberrations.
Toy cameras and lenses:
Cheap plastic toy film cameras, such as Lomo and Holga, are so much fun to use.
BAD WEATHER
What heavy clouds, duller conditions and rain add to an image is mood. As long as your kit is protected with a camera poncho, camera specific raincover or even a plastic bag, you have no excuse not to don your raincoat and grab your tripod – it’s better than sitting in your room watching telly you can’t understand.
Plus there will be fewer tourists about and you can concentrate more on the city itself. Contrast will also be lower, which means less chance of duff exposures.Remember, bad weather doesn’t mean bad light and there are some beneficial side effects, and not just e extra mood and atmosphere. Get yourself to a high vantage point and shoot the aggressive sky, backlit by a bright sun. If you’re lucky, you may catch a shaft of light bursting onto a building or a boat on a river.
Puddles are great for reflections; the soft, rounded edges of water contrasting with the harder angles of a building or a colourful streetlight. The bright colours of a taxi or bus look great in a panning shot at 1/45sec, as do people walking with umbrellas and raincoats, particularly in windy conditions, and if it gets really bad, head for a café with a big picture window and shoot the life that slides by while sipping a hot coffee.
Your exposures will be longer, but use this to your advantage for shots with movement, daylight traffic trails, people wandering through a scene. After experimenting with longer exposures, look for colour: shop fronts, litter, backlit street signs and neon signs – meter from the surroundings, not the bright object then shut down a stop. Lastly, go in close for details of drips, footprints on the pavement, raindrops running down a windowpane or a long exposure to capture water gushing from a drainpipe.
SHOOTING AT NIGHT
If you’ve done your research, you’ll already know some great spots to head to when the sun starts to dip below the horizon – which in a city will be slightly earlier than in the sticks. Head for fountains, churches, office buildings, late night shops and traffic trails to name a few.
Cities come alive at night, often looking better than in the day. Look for places that have colourful lights or great shadows, reflections or just the scale or a historical must-see. Most of the popular places are likely to be busy with people – normally a bind for a photographer. However, your long exposures, generally measured in minutes, will help blur them into nothingness, perhaps even adding extra atmosphere.
A sturdy tripod, combined with the camera’s self-timer or a remote release, will prevent shake and aid composition. Shoot in Raw mode, it’s easier to correct white-balance and exposure errors later. And if your camera has a noise reduction feature, now is the time to use it. Concentrate on scenes rather than details to start with.
When you look back at your pictures, the scenes will have more memories than details which could have been shot anywhere. Try and get to a location just as the floodlights are turned on, don’t make the mistake of shooting in the middle of the night. Catching some colour in the sky generally looks better than the muddy orange of city lights – and the exposures are less tricky. Set aperture-priority mode and let the camera do the hard part.
Use a combination of the histogram and the review image to check exposure and general composition details. Ensure your front element is nice and clean, free from water droplets etc or you could have problems with flare and ghosting. Holding a piece of card, a book or magazine above your lens is a handy way to avoid stray light or raindrops.
Lastly, before hitting the shutter release double check the scene through the lens. It’s so easy in low-light conditions to miss something that could spoil your image – cars and litter are good examples. Having said that, if it’s something more permanent, such as a wall, take the picture anyway. With digital you’re not wasting anything and you can always remove it later on the computer. The sun has just dipped below the horizon leaving a lovely blue colour in the sky. This is the time to take advantage of colourful floodlights, especially if you are by water.
BERLIN
For some considerable time I had been fancying just heading off to a European city, but which? I have some favourites, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, but I decided to do some research on other less photographed cities. My final choice was Berlin, for its history and architecture. I felt that with all the new construction there, it would offer a great selection of images from historical buildings and iconic landmarks to the ultramodern developments such as the Sony Centre at Potsdamer Platz.
My choice of equipment was crucial, as I’d have to carry it all day in my Tenba backpack, therefore the less weight the better, plus it needed to fit on the aircraft as hand luggage. Just for fun I decided to use film, Velvia of course,and my Pentax 67 Mk II with 55mm, 75mm shift and 165mm lenses. I scan all my stuff at home anyway. From my research I remembered that the interior of the Reichstag, one of the places on my list, was best captured with a fisheye lens, so a 35mm went in the bag too. A lightweight carbon fibre tripod was used with a Linhof Profi Ball head to ensure things were kept nice and sharp.
Of course the success of the images depended on good shooting conditions and being in the right place at the right time. I call this ‘TLC’, and I don’t mean tender loving care, but timing, location and conditions. I bought a good map of Berlin; I find that with a highly detailed map, with a north indicator, the time to be at a particular location can be calculated quite accurately – very important on a one-day shoot.
I managed a good selection of places on my list, using a combination of buses, the U-Bahn (the Berlin underground) and taxis, which were surprisingly inexpensive, including the Brandenburg Gate,Charlottenburg Palace, the Dom (cathedral), Potsdamer Platz, the avant-garde Berlin Sculpture, the Reichstag, the Nikolai Quarter and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with my daylight images of the Brandenburg Gate, but I planned to stay later to catch dusk as it fell so I went back for another go. Some of the modern buildings, particularly the Sony Centre at Potsdamer Platz, looked stunning at night. Yes, I must admit it was a long old day – but having the plan and a good map really helped and the images were well worth it.
AROUND THE MEDITERRANEAN
One of the best locations to head for to guarantee a whole spectrum of colour and detail is the marketplace – not just tourist markets but the markets where the locals go to buy their everyday supplies. Fruit, fabrics, pottery, clothing, packaging, spices, the list of possibilities is huge so it would be worth allotting a decent block of time to do them justice.
It will probably mean getting up early, but on the plus side, it will be cooler and you may even get a few shots of the guys setting up stalls. Set your gear up so you can react to what you see; multi-pattern metering, using aperture-priority mode with a single superzoom. In all the frenetic activity, messing about with settings and lenses will be a pain.
If you are not sure which superzoom would be best for you, we’ve got some ideas; turn to page 110 for our independent test of nine of the latest models on the market. On the way back from the market, look for new subject matter: painted doors and houses, colourful rooftops against a cobalt blue sky, examples of the typical local architecture, car number plates, taxi signs, road and shop signs. Don’t forget the natural world, the plant and animal life, trees, birds and insects.
Even the clothes people are wearing can make interesting viewing and great memories. Watery spots, such as marinas, rivers and the seaside, make for great images. You’ll need to take a longer lens to fill the frame. Look for colourfully painted boats, sails and fishing pots – use the sky or buildings to make colourful backgrounds. If you are on the beach, look for towels, windbreaks and smaller items such as parasols, suncream bottles and exotic cocktails on tables.
SHOOTING CANDIDS
Anywhere you find local people will offer opportunities aplenty for great candids: markets, shopping centres, beaches, squares, bazaars and coffee shops. But it’s not just people, it’s their surroundings, clothes, expressions and behaviour. Remember though, behaviour that is so different to us is just the norm for them so expect a few strange looks when y you’re photographing it. Your level of bravery will dictate your approach.
It’s worth having a good walk around your location beforehand to get a feel and to make a mental note of some suitable targets. Set your camera for instant action, so continuous focus, one of the autoexposure modes and pattern metering. A big DSLR, with a 300mm f/2.8, will stick out like a sore thumb – so go easy on gear. Ideally a one-lens-does-all would leave you to concentrate on just getting your shots.
Some pros use a small bag, such as the Lowepro SlingShot AW, to drop their camera into to relax the locals. Wear clothes that reflect the colours and styles around you, but keep colours low key. Don’t hang all your gear around your neck on show, try to blend in. A café or bar near a square where you can observe and shoot while seated is less obvious or use the shadow of a tree or building to hide in while snapping away.
For the more brave among us, wander with your camera and try talking with your subjects. In a market, for example, buy something and ask if you can take a few shots while the stallholder bags it for you. This approach lends your images a more personal feel. Use a zoom for the mixture of head shots and environmental portraits you’ll see around you. There is a sneakier alternative, shooting from the hip or with the camera around your neck using the dynamic focusing mode – it is a more risky approach but a few wasted shots cost nothing with digital.
COPING WITH HARSH LIGHT
Harsh, midday light lacks atmosphere, well in the traditional sense, it’s rather twodimensional, sterile and stark. All you need though is to find the right subject matter. Shoot in Raw mode and set your camera to give the highlights in the frame a little longer exposure time using ‘+’ exposure compensation and/or bracketing – once highlights in digital images have burnt out, they’re lost forever.
Of course, you could just shoot a range of images of the same scene and amalgamate them later or create a high dynamic range (HDR) image. In terms of subjects, look for more graphic elements in architecture, shapes, lines and shadows; architecture is perfect for this.
Consider heading indoors to capture bright shafts of light pinpointing shoppers in undercover souks and bazaars or the colourful light through the stained glass window of a church. Meter for the highlights and send the surroundings into mysterious shadow. You could also try more modern architecture; office blocks or public buildings can make interesting abstracts. Try including people in the shot for a sense of scale. Camera manufacturers give us plenty of tools to help cope with harsh lighting; bracketing, histograms, image review screens and incredibly advanced metering systems. Even the budget Canon EOS 400D has a 35-zone metering system.
Experiment for more creative effects. Break some rules, for example, deliberately use the wrong WB setting for interesting colour casts, overexpose for a high-key effect, play with your colour and saturation settings and remove the lens hood for some interesting flare effects. The key is to exploit digital's flexibility and instant feedback to the full.
SANTORINI
Domed churches, bold colours, interesting architectural design, narrow cobble-stoned streets, not to mention fantastic food and sunshine, are all packed into the little Greek island of Santorini. My photographic safari started at 5am in the village of Fira to catch the first light on the amazing geometric shapes of the architecture backed by the Mediterranean Sea. After a couple of hours, the sun had become too harsh and had lost that gorgeous morning warmth so I went back to the hotel for a quick breakfast before heading out again to explore the nooks and crannies of the neighbouring village of Oia. Pronounced ‘Eah’, Oia is the most famous of all Santorini’s villages.
It is known throughout the world for its quiet life and fantastic sunsets, and is certainly the most beautiful and picturesque village on Santorini. As I wandered up and down the narrow whitewashed streets, images jumped out. A bright, blue painted door against a yellow wall; a blue flowerpot full of red geraniums sitting in a window edged in red. Details like these appear everywhere.
The whitewashed buildings presented a metering challenge and trying to see the image on the display of my Canon EOS 5D was nigh-on impossible. So I resorted to reading each image’s histogram, making sure the highlights weren’t burning out. I also used a polarizer to cut down the glare off the walls. It was early evening and the streets were filling up with tourists heading for the famous view of the sunset.
The best place is from the castle, so I got there nice and early to stake my claim. With the sunset images safely stored on my card and as the last remnants of light filled the sky, I realised that I hadn’t eaten so I stumbled into the nearest restaurant to go over the day’s results. After a few days, I caught a flight to Athens, picked up a hire car and drove five-hours to central Greece to photograph the 500-year-old monasteries perched high atop the granite rock formations of Meteora. There’s just so much to shoot here, but that’s another story…
THE LONG HAUL
It is impossible to think of going to somewhere like Australia and not photographing the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Uluru or to New York and missing the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State building. It is these places that sum up a country in an instant, not shooting them is a photographic crime.
Three key words for you: research, research and research. Use all the resources available to you to get the most from these icons. The net, guidebooks and others who’ve been and experienced the sights personally can give you valuable
insights: travel blogs are well worth a look too. But, at the end of the day, you will bowl up with the thousands of other
tourists and shoot similar shots to the guy next to you and it’s in the lap of the gods when it comes to light.
Being able to get on location a little earlier will pay dividends, not just in terms of light, but avoiding all the masses too. You may even get your tripod up.You may only get one shot at bagging something decent. So concentrate on composition and trust your camera’s meter. If you’re shooting Raw, any slight hiccups can easily be adjusted in your processing software. You may even want to use one of your camera’s scene modes if things do become really frantic. Have your lenses close at hand so you can swap in a jiffy – a rucksack like Lowepro’s Slingshot is ideal for this.
Lastly, you can’t beat local knowledge for getting that little extra special something. Consider using a local guide for a one-to-one tour. You are likely to get to places you wouldn’t normally see and experience. Ask your hotel to recommend someone.
SHOOTING CULTURE
The everyday lives of these distant lands is captivating to us, yet so ordinary to our subjects. But this means images are all around us – it’s these sights, smells and sounds that are the inspiration for our images. You will see images on every corner, key photographic subjects include people, details, clothing, cuisine, religion and architecture. The best way to really see and photograph a culture is to get under its skin. Experience it at grass roots level and see the real country. Try to use local transport and guides.
Where safe, walk the streets, and photograph kids at play. But get down to their level for a more personal viewpoint. Capture the seemingly idyllic way the locals use their copious amounts of ‘free’ time – time we spend our whole lives working to create. Your telephoto lenses and servo-focus modes will serve you best here. For more up-close and personal portraiture, ask. If you can’t speak the language, a simple gesture will get your meaning across. Sometimes paying your subject – in cash or with a small gift – may help, but ask a local guide’s advice as you don’t want to offend. Use the surroundings to give your portraits a sense of location.
Be ready with your camera and work quickly and with a smile too – it’s a universally understood gesture. Details are a great way to experience and remember a place; colours and unusual packaging in supermarkets, café food and the more bizarre sights such as street entertainers and artists. And let’s not forget a country’s religious heritage – places of worship and the associated iconography, statues and customs, but be respectful and observe local etiquette.
SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Once you have your standard shots in the bag, it’s time to experiment and get an alternative view. The key for the keen
snapper is to really work around the subject. Don’t just bang off from the same spot as everyone else. Move around, swap lenses, add a filter, play with whitebalance settings and look for more creative compositions.
Obvious suggestions are to turn up early and stay out late for the stunning light at these times, but why not shoot in bad weather with brooding skies? Or find out what a colourful subject looks like in mono? Zoom bursts, second-sync flash and grainy, high ISO shots should make it onto your list of experimental shots.
Alternatives are shooting with weird and wacky lenses such as the Lensbaby, a pinhole or Holga body cap lens for your DSLR. You could go the whole hog and take a toy film camera such as a Holga or a Lomo. Their cheap crappy lenses create a unique effect and you can also mess with multiple exposures by not winding the film on a full frame or even cross process your film on your return.
ALAN NOVELLI – AIRLINE PILOT AND KEEN PHOTOGRAPHER
“Most of us will carry our camera equipment with us on board instead putting it in the hold. You are allowed one piece of hand baggage which must not exceed 56x45x25cm. Weight allowance depends upon each airline. There are metal-framed baskets at security to check your bag meets regulations.
“As was always the case, no sharp objects, flammable or dangerous substances are allowed. Recently added is the restriction of liquids, creams, gels and pastes. These can be carried on board in containers less than 100ml or 100g each. They must be placed in a small clear, resealable plastic bag that must be presented to security for inspection. “When taking my gear, I pack resilient photo equipment into my main luggage, the rest into a small padded holdall as carry-on. Don’t pack film in your main luggage, as the intensive scanners may well damage it. Contrary to popular belief, the relatively low-power hand baggage scanners will really not harm your film.”
SAFARI: RAINFOREST, QUEENSLAND
After the hustle and bustle of Sydney the twohour flight north to Cairns provided a welcome break and the chance to plan the photo delights that lay ahead. On arrival at Cairns, we picked up our luggage and the camper van that was to be our home for the next two weeks. We’d just got time to drive the 30 miles or so north before nightfall to Port Douglas, which was to be the first stop on our journey.
The main reason for coming up here was to see and photograph the Daintree National Park, possibly the world’s oldest existing rainforest at around 110-million years old. After a late evening recce we were up well before dawn the next day to photograph the old jetty buildings at Island Point. While waiting for the sun to rise, I was standing behind my tripod when a chap came along and we struck up a conversation about my Noblex panoramic camera. It turns out he was the official photographer with a kayaking expedition leaving Port Douglas to go up the coast to Cape York and then across to Papua New Guinea. These Aussies certainly know how to travel!
After a welcome breakfast we set off into the National Park really excited at the prospect of getting into the rainforest. Although a natural rainforest, the parks service has provided many tracks and trails for easy access into its heart. I’d planned to make images of the dense trees and foliage and within a few hundred yards there were photo opportunities all over the place. The huge palms and buttressed giant fig trees were amazing.
The dense foliage blocks out most of the harshness of the sun’s rays and provides a soft, even light on the forest floor so I could quite easily shoot for most of the day. We had to watch out for the bugs though, as back in the camper van at lunchtime, Jenni, my wife, noticed my shirt was soaked with blood under one armpit. A quick look revealed a leech happily clamped to my skin enjoying a meal of his own!
And Don't Forget
- All your power leads and voltage adapters
- Plenty of memory cards
- A cleaning cloth
- Your camera’s handbook
- A spare camera battery or two
- Your tripod mounting plate
- A polarizing filter
- And, of course, your passport
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