Travel Photography - what is it?
Clearly google can be used to answer this quite comprehensively, and different definitions can be found - but here, I’ll keep it simple and say what travel photography means to me. I shall also use some real life examples from a visit to Bhutan, hopefully they will help to make the concept clearer.
The aim of travel photography for me is to give a “sense of place” and when I travel I try to capture images that encapsulate the People, Culture and Environment of the location. And that’s it, really. I may throw in some food images, but I tend to think that comes under the “culture” heading - local food, local culture. So - People, Culture, Environment - I try to focus on those three categories.
To dig a little further, my aim when I take my own shots is to capture an image that is highly reflective of the location, an image that I look at later and think “yes, that captures XXX…and could not really have been taken anywhere else..” I shall try to illustrate that with some examples below
If you are interested, there is an excellent book on travel photography that I refer to constantly - Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Photography
This book covers all aspects of Travel Photography from choosing the right gear to earning money from your passion
OK, back to my own images and thought processes. Let’s start with “people”.
I look at the two images above and they scream “Bhutan” at me. There’s no way I’d have got these shots in Glasgow, for example. The clothing, the prayer wheels and the group of women - very Bhutanese imagery. Granted, you may see similar in other Himalayan Kingdoms, but as travel images for Bhutan, I’m pretty happy with these ones. There’s a fit here for both the People and Culture categories, but I’ll plump for People and give separate examples of “Culture” below…
Bhutanese culture is heavily steeped in Buddhism and these two images are typical images from the country. Prayer wheels can be seen in Temples and elsewhere and the sight of a monk striding across a flagstone courtyard gives a good sense of what to expect to see, should you visit the country. Something I would recommend, by the way - Bhutan is a wonderful place to visit. Another element of local culture you will see everywhere is Prayer Flags…
So…prayer flags…everywhere! The different colours each have their own significance, their own meaning and they are clearly an important part of Bhutanese culture - and should be respected as such. From a photographer’s perspective, they offer a wonderful opportunity to capture an essential element of local culture.
For those interested in the colours…
White is for good fortune
Blue is for health and long life
Yellow is for victory over difficulties
Red is for fulfilling wishes
Green is for compassion
Last of the three categories - Environment. I accept that “environment” can be a pretty broad term. When I look at this category I am thinking of images that reflect the surroundings you will find yourself in when you visit a location - in some cases, that may be a cityscape or even street photography, such as in a modern metropolis like Tokyo. But here, in Bhutan, you have mountains, rivers, paddy fields - and the occasional landslide, as evidenced in the final pic.
The image of the landslide was taken on my route back from Punakha over the Dochula Pass towards Thimphu. WE encountered a recently-blocked road and the traffic slowly backed up - the drivers of the cars, buses and trucks got together to clear the road, with the few tourists, myself included, helping where we could. All in, a wonderful experience of travel in Bhutan - it’s often moments like this, spontaneous and unplanned, that form the highlights of a trip to a new destination.
Well, many thanks for reading the blog - please do follow me on Instagram for more images from my travels!
You can find more of my snaps on the Portraits of Asia website and if you want to see me in full action mode, there’s a Youtube channel - any subscriptions/likes would be massively appreciated!
Until the next time, Travelling Fatman xxx