12 Days Of Christmas, Day 7

I’ve always wanted to incorporate more travel photography into my work. Let’s face it, travel and food go together like peas and carrots, or salted caramel and chocolate brownie. In fact, there are very few aspects of photography which don’t interest me. On a recent trip to Ludlow in Shropshire, I made a point of getting some travel photography shots of Ludlow, to begin practising a travel photographers eye.

My Take On Travel Photography

This is my general approach to travel photography.  If something moves me or grabs my attention then it must be worth paying attention to. Rivers, mountains, stone buildings, animals and log cabins are typically what gets my attention. On the whole, I like there to be an anchor to the shot.  I somehow struggle to show a story if there’s no context, putting me into the shot. Having a campfire, a person sitting on a rock, horses standing in the field or maybe a Canadian Rocky Mountain Goat perched on the edge of a rock face, all helps me create. I suppose what I’m fumbling around my words to say is, I need a character for the shot. A protagonist you might say. Sometimes the character is simply incredible light.

A Taste Of Something New

Something I’ve been feeling increasingly in 2018 is that I’m not learning much in post-production. Shooting and editing the same things, in the same way, is a dangerous place to be. You don’t want to stay there too long. That’s why personal projects are so important. It’s amazing when clients want to commision you to create new styles, but 99% of the time it’s because they’ve seen your personal work, where you developed new skills.

Personal Perspective

Travel photography is no different from any other form of photography where your personal perspective guides the final image. I took my time with this shot in post. I’m not interested in capturing the data as is, the final image has to feel the way I did when I looked through the lens at the river. Each of us sees differently and our perspective, emotions and a whole host of other things affect that picture in our mind. In my commercial work, I don’t do a huge amount of post-production so it was great to take my editing knowledge and now apply it with new eyes.

This was taken with my Canon 80D with the Canon 18-135mm EF-S f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens. You can get this shot with just about any camera. The secret ingredient is to shoot with intention.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I’ll see you back here very soon.

JT