Travel Photography | It’s Not About The Camera

© 2008 Wazari Wazir | Mabul Island | Sabah | Malaysia North Borneo

I think this behind the scene picture tells more story than the close up picture of the subject, I mean the end result. Here you can see how the photographer interact with the subject and you can see also the person reaction when he is being photograph with his daughter. Travel photography is not for everybody, I mean when it involved human as your main subject, it is not suitable for a “shy guy” because more often than not, you need to interact with local people, unless your main interest is to photograph a landscape, seascape, buildings, landmarks or anything that doesn’t involved humans in your photographs.

Some photographers  may say that, when they see a great portrait of local people in a far-flung place like for an example a portrait of a monk at Potala Palace in Lhasa Tibet, they might say that, they can take the same photograph too if they were there. It was easy to say that than actually doing it. Sometimes the picture may look too easy to capture but we doesn’t know maybe that particular photographer have spent few minutes or maybe an hour just to get to know his subject, make a conversation with them before he took the photograph.

We must remember that human is not a statue, human is not a landmark, they are just like us human being, they deserves to be respected and they deserves to be treat with respect and especially in travel photography where we went to the place that are foreign to us, we should respect the local people there. We must take the time to get to know the people there. Try to strike a conversation with them, get to know them, get to know their family and try to get to know about their life.

Just don’t go around with your camera like you are carrying a machine gun with you and whenever you find the right target, you just shoot without even say hello to them, I believe a strong travel picture is a picture taken at a close distance not when you use super long telephoto lens.

If you take the time to see or visit some of the best travel photographers blog, you will notice that, most great travel photography whenever  involved human being is when the picture is taken at a close distance, it’s like you were there in person watching that happen.

Travel photography is about getting to know other people culture, it’s about getting to know how other people live their lives, it ‘s about making connection, bridging the gap, it’s about getting close to the people and their lives.

About the camera equipment, you really don’t need state of the art camera equipment to get start, simple basic camera equipment will do the job, what really matters is to brush our PR skills, we need to learn how to interact well with strangers, it’s about having good public relation skills.

Lets say if you travel with your friends and you have Professional Camera equipment, while on the other hand your friend just have simple entry level camera with just standard kit lens but he is equips with  great personality, easy to make a conversation with strangers, have great sense of humor, I personally believe that your friend will have far better picture than you are when it comes to people photography, because your friends know how to win peoples heart. It is their most expensive “equipment” money can’t buy.

The person taking the photograph above wearing the red T-shirt is a friend of mine, his name is Osmand Danny, he have great personality that I envy the most, I’ve seen he spent almost an hour talking with the local people here in Mabul Island before he took the photograph of that person and the result is outstanding, when a strangers is comfortable with you, it really shows in the photograph.

Having a great set of camera equipment is good, it help you captures a much better photograph but having great camera alone is nit gid enough, we must have other skills and when it involved travel photography, having a great personality pr communication skills is a bonus and it is something that money can’t buy, it must comes from within.

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