Travel Photography Tips | Have Some Patience

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Blue Mosque at Istanbul Turkey

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” 

– Paulo Coelho –

Personally  I think Patience is what separates a travel photographer from a tourist. Most tourist will be satisfied if they have taken a picture of themselves standing against a beautiful landmark of any places, they just don’t really bother about the background, along as they can get themselves and the landmark, mosque, building, temple in the frame, I think most of them will be satisfied. I’ve seen this a lot from my traveling experience, just like what I saw it here in front of Turkey most Iconic building which is Blue Mosque.

I saw group of tourist arrived by bus here, they get down, take few pictures in front of the Blue Mosque and in less than ten minutes, they are already on their way to enter the Blue Mosque, maybe they are rushing because they have some other places to visit. About this particular photographs, I spend more than an hour outside the Blue Mosque, to get the right picture and I didn’t enter the Blue Mosque on that same day, the queue was quite long and I’m not rushing since I stay at this Sultanahmet area and decided to get into Blue Mosque the next following day.

The weather was not very good on that day, raining the whole day and I didn’t get a blue sky as I’m hoping for but decided to get out and take some pictures also and I think the rain makes those wet cobblestones pavement much more interesting compared to if it were dry. Those reflections mass it interesting, yes, it is uncomfortable taking pictures when it rains, it is cold and quite hard to compose a great photograph when one hand holding an umbrella, yes I did handhold an umbrella to get this shot because I don’t want my camera to get wet.

There are a lot of people walking here, from Blue Mosque to Aya Sofya and from Aya Sofya to Blue Mosque. Aya Sofya is located just a walkaway behind me. The thing is that I’ve to wait quite awhile to get the right subject to enter the frame, I mean I wanted someone carry a colorful umbrella in the frame.  When it rains here, everything looks so mundane, monotone and can be boring sometimes, so I need something colorful to add a little bit contrast to the scene, so I wait patiently until the right person with the right colorful umbrella enter the scene.

There is nothing technical about the photographs above, the thing is that I wait until I get the right subject to enter the frame, once I found a great spot or angle, all I’ve to do is just wait and only when I got the shot, I move on to another places. How many tourist can spend four to five hours inside Aya Sofya and how many tourist can spend two to three hours inside the Blue Mosque? I can, because I want to  get the right moment, being there is not good enough for me, I need to get the right photograph and I think patience is one of the things that separates travel or ambitious photographer from a tourist.