24 DIGITAL CAMERA^ OCTOBER 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
Take the road less travelled
Travel photographer Graeme Green recommends ways to take better photos
of landscapes and local cultures on your own international adventures5 | TRAVELt’s always exciting to arrive into a
new place with a camera bag and
a few empty memory cards. But
every unfamiliar location has
a lot to take in and learn about in order to
make the best of your (often limited) time.
I’m currently midway through a six-month
period working in different parts of Mexico.
But whether it’s in Haiti, Japan or Ethiopia,
working as a travel photographer usually
means hitting the ground running and
working in a focused way to get to grips with
a place. Assignments involve early starts,
late finishes, and a whole lot of walking in
between, all to produce a satisfying, creativeset of photos that say something about
a place. Sometimes you have to suffer
a little: in Mexico recently, I was attacked
by an aggressive form of barbed cactus- but I got a few landscape photographs
I liked, so we’ll call it ‘even’ so far.
It pays to do some research ahead of
time and to ask people a lot of questions
once you arrive, so you can start figuring
out a place and how you want to approach
it. Talking to local people gives you a deeper
understanding of a place, providing inspiring
ideas for photos that go beyond ‘surface
level’ holiday photos, as well as helping
you find out practical local information.
It’s also useful to think about what really
interests you and what kind of photos you
want to create. For me, that often means
trying to get beneath the surface of a place,
walking around, picking out moments and
interactions from daily life. For someone
else, it might mean concentrating on
architecture or colours or portraits.
Rather than rush around like a headless
chicken with a camera, work with a sense
of purpose to produce your own personal
take on a place. Those pictures will have
more impact, and they’ll mean more to
you – and anyone else who looks at them.
http://www.graeme-green.comI