Travel

Learning goal

You will be able to explain why the photos from a trip so often look like the frames everyone who goes there takes, and recognize the basic approach of travel photography, which tells about a place, its people and its culture together. You will tell the proof shot that says "I was here" apart from frames that carry the atmosphere of a place; you will try out how getting up early and staying late, looking at details, and slow travel that spends a few days in the same neighborhood build a sense of place; you will grasp the importance of researching a place's cultural context, its traditions and its local sensitivities about photography before you go; and you will learn to ask permission with respect from people whose language you don't know. At the close, you will find the track devoted to telling a journey through photography.

The question

You are at the best-known viewpoint of an old city famous for its stone houses. It is noon; the sun is right overhead, drowning the white stones in a blinding brightness. Around you are dozens of people, most of them in front of the same railing, photographing each other with the same dome behind them. You join the line too and take your own frames: the dome, the railing and a slightly hazy sky.

When you get home there are two hundred photos on your phone. When you search the city's name on the internet, on the first page you see hundreds of frames almost the same as yours. None of yours carries the courtyard where you had breakfast that morning, the smell of spices at the market, or the smile of the old woman who showed you the way. How do we get past tourist photos? In this lesson we will talk about what travel photography that tells about a place looks at.

Context

A proof shot is a frame that documents that you went somewhere, usually taken in front of a famous building: "I was here." These frames are valuable as a personal memory, but they usually don't tell about the place; the same building has been photographed from the same angle millions of times. Travel photography, on the other hand, tries to show a place's own atmosphere, the people who live there and their everyday life together.

This genre sits where several genres you met in earlier lessons cross: the light of landscape, the candid moment of the street, the lines of architecture and the connection of the portrait. The difference is that all of them serve a single question: what does this place carry that is like no other place? This lesson introduces the first ways of asking that question; whoever wants to follow it further has their own track waiting.

Simple explanation

Why isn't the postcard frame enough?

The best-known angle of a famous building is the image of that building already in everyone's head. When you shoot from that angle too, you don't tell the viewer anything new; you only repeat an image they know. On top of that, these places are visited at the most crowded hours of the day, often with the harshest light. The midday sun flattens the stones, erases the shadows and fades the place's color.

Sense of place is the quality of a photo that makes the viewer say "this isn't another place, it's exactly here." This feeling usually comes not from the famous building itself but from the life around it: the goods on a street seller's stall, the shape of the door knockers, laundry in a courtyard, someone opening their shop in the first light of morning. You don't have to drop the famous building altogether; showing it from inside local life, through a gap in a door or from behind a market, moves the familiar image into a new context.

How is a sense of place built?

The first way is to change the hour. At sunrise or sunset famous places empty, the light softens and local life begins: bakeries open, children go to school, shopkeepers raise their shutters. Getting up early and staying late lets you catch both the light and the place's real rhythm. Looking at details helps too: local food, handicrafts, signs, hands and textures say things a big frame can't.

Slow travel is getting to know a place by staying a few days in one place instead of rushing around many. Going back to the same café every morning, walking through the same market twice, walking down the same street at different hours, both make you part of the place and let people get used to you. The photographer who is a stranger on the first day becomes someone who is greeted on the third; and the photos change accordingly.

How are people and culture respected?

Cultural context is a place's traditions, beliefs, everyday rules and attitude toward photography. In some places of worship photography is forbidden, or unwanted in certain areas; in some communities photographing women, children or religious ceremonies is a sensitive matter. Researching these before you go and following written or spoken warnings on site is the way both to show respect and to avoid an unwanted argument.

To ask permission from someone whose language you don't know, a smile, a questioning look toward the camera and the person, and a small nod are often enough; respecting a hand gesture that means "no" is just as important. The othering we saw in Lesson 16.3 is even closer at hand in travel: it is easy to photograph local people, especially if their skin, clothing or way of life differs from yours, like a decoration of the scenery or an oddity. Showing them inside their own work, their own homes, as people as ordinary and as real as you, is the respect of travel photography.

Visual evidence

The next day you get up before sunrise. The viewpoint is empty; but you go not there but down into the narrow streets behind it. In the corner of a stone courtyard, the door of a small bakery is open; inside, a dark-skinned, middle-aged baker, their hands dusted with flour, is sliding dough into a stone oven. You stand at the door, show the camera and look as if asking; with a nod, the baker invites you in.

Inside the bakery it is dim, the only light the orange glow of the fire and the bluish morning light filtering through the door. You photograph the baker facing the fire, their face and floury hands lit in orange; the warm brown of their skin deepens in the firelight, and there are small reflections of the flame in their eyes. At the back, through the gap in the door, the tip of the dome appears in the morning light: the famous building is no longer the center of a postcard, but the background of a baker's morning. After the shoot you buy a loaf of bread and show the photo on the screen; the baker writes down a phone number and asks for a copy. The next morning you stop by the same bakery again; this time you are met with a greeting at the door.

Common mistakes

Summary

A tourist photo usually repeats the angle of a famous building that everyone knows; travel photography, on the other hand, builds a sense of place by showing a place's own atmosphere, people and culture together. Changing the hour, looking at details, choosing slow travel that stays a few days in one place, and showing famous buildings from inside local life are the ways to escape the postcard. Researching cultural context before going, asking permission with gestures from people whose language you don't know, respecting a "no," and photographing everyone, however different their skin and life are from yours, as a real person inside their own life, is the respect of travel photography.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will look at your own city, or a place you go to, with a traveler's eye.

1. Photograph the best-known place in the city you are in, first from the angle everyone shoots, at noon.
2. Go back to the same place when the sun is near the horizon, in the first hour of morning or the last hour of evening, and show it from inside local life, through a gap in a door or from behind a stall.
3. Take five detail frames that tell about that place: a food, a handicraft, a sign, a hand and a texture.
4. Take a portrait of someone whose language you don't know, or whom you don't know, asking permission with gestures; if they agree, show them the photo, and if not, thank them and walk away.

Check yourself

• Which of the frames you chose show something that couldn't be photographed anywhere else?
• In the frames where you show the famous building, is local life visible too?
• Do the local people you photographed stand not like a decoration, but inside their own work and in the color of their own skin?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is a frame taken in front of a famous building that says "I was here" called?

• A) A proof shot
• B) Sense of place
• C) A candid moment
• D) An environmental portrait

2. In travel photography, where does a sense of place usually come from?

• A) Only from the famous building itself
• B) From a high ISO
• C) From the everyday life and details around the famous building
• D) From a wide-angle lens

3. What should you do before taking photos at a place of worship?

• A) Turn on the flash
• B) Hide behind the crowd
• C) Nothing; everyone is shooting
• D) Research the rules in advance and follow the warnings on site

4. You asked a seller whose language you don't know for permission, and they said "no" with a hand gesture. What should you do?

• A) Photograph them secretly from far away
• B) Thank them, walk away and respect their decision
• C) Insist
• D) Photograph them when they turn their back

Answers

1. A — A proof shot documents having been somewhere; it doesn't have to tell about the place.
2. C — A place's own life, details and people build the sense of place.
3. D — Knowing the cultural context is the way to show respect and avoid an unwanted argument.
4. B — Respecting a "no" is an inseparable part of asking permission.

Summary card

• A proof shot is a memory; travel photography tells about the place.
• Sense of place: everyday life, details, people.
• Change the hour: get up early, stay late; slow travel.
• Research cultural context in advance; follow the rules.
• Ask permission with a gesture, respect a "no"; photograph everyone inside their own life.

Bridge to the next lesson

If you want to master telling a journey through photography, Track R11 · Travel moves through seven lessons, stretching from a light bag to research before you go, from asking permission without the language to avoiding clichés, from turning a journey into a story to protecting your photos on the road. In the reading order, on the other hand, we move from the bakery's morning to the city's night. When the sun sets and the streetlamps, shop windows and car headlights come on, the frames on your phone come out either blurry or dark. How do you photograph city lights? The next lesson talks about night photography, the tripod, the blue hour and the long exposure.