Narrative

Many of the most memorable travel photos tell a story, or at least suggest one to the viewer. Take this into consideration when deciding which elements to place at the centre – and indeed the edges – of your photo. The key here is to force the viewer to get involved in interpreting the picture. Make them ask questions. ‘Where are they going?’, for example, or ‘What is that used for?’

This may be achieved simply through showing activities or objects likely to be unfamiliar to the viewer, or by including elements of uncertainty, contradiction or incongruity. For example, draw attention to a detail that looks out of place, an ambiguous facial expression or gesture, or use a partially obscured perspective.

People

Some of the most evocative travel shots are actually portraits – capturing places through faces, so to speak. Obviously there are any number of ways to take a portrait shot, but if your aim is to capture the spirit of a place, consider how you’re going to achieve that. Perhaps the person is engaged in an activity or showing a gesture or facial expression that conveys something about the local lifestyle.

One advantage of portraits is the potential to immediately engage the viewer with the image, particularly by focusing on the eyes through use of positioning, camera angle and lighting. In turn, the direction of the subject’s gaze or gesture can be a useful tool in directing attention to a particular detail or more generally into the rest of the scene.

If photographing people, you obviously have the choice of deliberately arranging, or simply capturing things as they occur naturally. Either can be powerful. Capturing people deliberately gazing head-on at the camera, for example, can be a fantastic way to engage the viewer, bringing them literally face to face with the subject.

Another tip here is to look out for visual echoes – recurrences of color and shape that strengthen the connection between the person and their surroundings. For example, a gesture may echo the shape formed by part of the landscape, or a piece of clothing echo the natural coloring.

Light

You don’t need any people or even a story if you have amazing lighting. Generally speaking the best time to shoot is either early morning or late afternoon. Those are usually the times of day when the light is softer, still providing enough warmth to bring out the richness of colours without being overly aggressive, and also generating shadows which provide contrast and depth. In urban areas, dusk can also be a good time, due to the combination of natural and artificial lighting.

Space

The range of an image can have a big impact on the effect or mood it creates. Think about what kind of feeling you want to convey about the place, and experiment with different ranges and perspectives to see how this is best captured. Think about where to position your viewer in relation to the image – surveying from above and beyond, or right in the thick of things?

In the simplest expression of this, a calm and peaceful place may be best captured in a wide-range landscape, while a chaotic, bewildering place may be better conveyed through a narrower, more limited vision – suggesting the whole through the parts.

Final words

Most photographers will tell you the single most important thing you can do is experiment. Try out new effects, exposures and angles. When you find a subject that interests you, shoot it in as many ways as you can. Look at the shots, decide which ones work and which don’t, and try to put your finger on the reasons for this – was it the lighting, composition, or maybe something about the colors? The more you do this, the more you’ll develop an eye for those perfect shots.

Before you think you’re finding a great deal on the newest model, look at the next few older ones in the series. Whether you choose Nikon or Canon, the glass will outlive many many camera bodies. You have to hold and feel them in your hands. Personally, I never really liked the smaller plastic DSLR’s, so I always went with older model prosumer bodies made of magnesium allow (Canon XXD series).  The thumb wheel (not sure what the proper name for it is) makes it so much easier to quickly change the settings.  On the Canon Digital Rebel series camera bodies, there is no wheel.

You have to remember, any older model dslr you can still purchase right now was amazing and mind blowing when it first came out, just a few years ago. Keeping up with the latest and greatest tech doesn’t make you a better photographer. Sure, they are tools – and newer features/technological help tremendously.  What lenses should you get?  That’s a whole other story.  For basic, starter, and cheap lenses… get the 50mm f1.8 (about $80-130 depending on Nikon or Canon).  I only know Canon, because that’s what I use.  There is nothing wrong with Nikon, or Pentac, or Olympus either!  You should try both, and see which button layout you like the most, and feel more comfortable with.  It won’t take long to test them out in a local store, and decide for yourself.  I went with Canon because I had a lot of friends also with Canon, and knew we could easily swap, trade, buy, sell, and/or borrow gear from one another.  I always saw that it was easier to buy used gear that was more readily available if I went with one of the main dslr manufacturers, Nikon or Canon.  Canon glass is a little bit cheaper than Nikon, from what I’ve seen too.  Just a tiny bit.  Another lens that is pretty standard is the 18-55 IS or VR lens.  This will cover a decent wide angle to mid zoom range for landscapes and portraits.  Once you get into the higher end lenses, the costs begin to surpass even the prices of the camera bodies themselves, as it should.  Bodies come and go, but good glass is forever (or at least until you drop it, and it breaks).  Don’t think you can’t make amazing pictures with basic starter and kit lenses.  Just look online, and you’ll see millions of folks already doing so.  I have been using my 18-55 IS lens and 50mm f1.8 lenses for almost 7 years now, and still use them to this day, along with my higher end L lenses.

I hope this post has helped – a final bit of advice, is to read read read the reviews online of whatever you’re interested in buying.  You can save SO much money by buying camera bodies use, and that are at least 3-5 years old.  Usually they depreciate in value down to about 25-40% of their original price, in a short matter of years.  Buy what you can afford, and don’t bite off more than you can chew until you know you are serious about photography.

PS: I’ll be updating our gear list with everything we use here at Arena Creative for our stock imagery, if you are looking for additional recommendations.

Imagine if only you didn’t have to worry about nailing the sharpest focus in-camera?  What if you could actually mess around with the depth of field or focus afterwards, during editing?  LYTRO is a company that promises that this technology is not that far off.  This is revolutionary, for the world of photography.  Many times traditional autofocus systems can fail, or suffer from what we call “user error”.  It happens to the best of us, sometimes.  Click on different areas of the photo above.  Double click on a spot to zoom in.  Isn’t that cool?  If this is the future of photography, then I’m pretty impressed.  What does that mean for general amateurs and snapshot shooters?  There will be just one less thing holding them back from creating technically sound images.   How long before Canon and Nikon jump on board with this type of technology?  It’s probably safe to say that they’re already working on it.  Wait until shaky camera phones with slow, crappy lenses get this technology.  This type of tech can definitely be a game changer someday; noteworthy enough to keep your eye on.

I got a huge kick out of this funny photoshopped image of a large telephoto Canon L lens mounted to what looks like an M-16 military issue machine gun – it was recently posted by Adorama on their company facebook page wall.  In photography, we know that sometimes the machine gun method (automatic bursting) will pan out for you, especially when shooting moving subjects.  Also a lot of times as photographers, talking to our friends, might say, “Yeah, I actually am shooting a baby later today” or “I’m planning on shooting some engaged couple later”, only to get a confused reaction from them.  Then you have to explain yourself, “Not with a gun, silly… I’m photographing them”.  Talking amongst fellow photographers, you don’t get that reaction.  It still sounds funny sometimes.  I think later I’m going to go shoot my two dogs.  LOL with a camera!

This simple image got me thinking once again about photo hunting.  Traditional game Hunting and photography can sometimes cross paths, and inter-mingle with one another.  There are a lot of really kind hearted people that will get all suited up to go hunting for deer, go out in the woods, wait patiently with their super-telephoto lenses and DSLRs, and hunt their prey my photographing them, instead of killing them with guns or bows.  Venison is delicious, but I don’t think I could ever kill a deer unless it was a last resort, and my survival depended on it.  They remind me so much of a cross between big cute dogs and little horses.  I’m not knocking hunting, but I’m definitely no country boy.  I’ve lived on a farm for a few weeks in Northern West Virginia with relatives, and I saw how country living was definitely am amazing way of life.  There is no noise, no stress, everyone is friend; but there is definitely a lot of hard work  to be done when you have a farm with any sort of livestock or crops to maintain.  When it comes to hunting, I would definitely prefer the photography method.  Photography hunters say it is just as gratifying to them.  Sure, they don’t get to eat the meat, but they also don’t have to go through the trouble of lugging a bloody animal carcass back home on the roof of their car or in the back of their pickup truck, hanging it to bleed it out, and then butchering the meat.  We live in a part of the world where food is widely available at most supermarkets, even venison or rabbit when it’s in season.  If you’re a hunter, definitely consider trading a couple of your rifles for some higher end camera gear – you might be pleasantly surprised in the similarity of the experience.   Bullets and ammo are not exactly cheap, either.  You digital camera costs nothing more than the electricity it takes to charge up the batteries.  Here is a short youtube clip demonstrating hunting with a camera instead of a gun.  This man in the video below calls the elk using a technique referred to as bugling, and he then captures the animal with his digital camera.  With photo hunting, instead of hanging a taxidermied animal head on your wall, you can hang up a variety of nice prints instead.

Some of the best places you can get lens recommendations from online are the top photography forums.  Check out the links at the end of this post.  Utilize your fellow photo gearheads on Twitter and Facebook, too.  Talk to your photography buddies, or any professionals you might know.  Ask them their opinions, and learn how they came to the conclusions they made on which lenses best suited their needs.

Try not to EVER rush into a lens purchase.  These aren’t pieces of gear you want to impulse-buy at all.  While you might end up with a great quality lens, you might be buying more than you need.  You’d better do your homework, unless you want to be like a clueless sucker walking into a car dealership, not knowing what the difference is between a Camaro or an Impala even is.  Salesman have one goal – to sell.  They will convince you that you need the best of the best, unless are smart enough to realize what you yourself personally need.  Salesmen could care less about saving you money.  Do auto repair shops try to convince you that you need more than you need?  Yes, almost always.  Do electronics stores try to sell you a warranty on anything you want to buy from them?  Of course, they do.  Don’t be a sucker.  Be an educated consumer, and save yourself some time and money.  It’s a pain to have to sell photography gear after you realize you’ve purchased something you don’t really use very much.

When I realized I needed a longer zange telephoto zoom lens, my initial goal was to pick up something basic and cheap.  My first 70-300 was garbage, made by Tamron under the name of Quantarray.  I picked it up second hand on craigslist for a whopping $55 and was actually impressed with the performance of it for the price, when I first got it.  As I went on, I began to realize that the thing had more purple fringing (CA / chromatic aberation) than any lens I had ever owned.  It would have suited a hobbyist just fine, or someone that didn’t care as much about good quality images.  It was capable of producing quality images, but the amount of mistakes you had to fix in post processing basically made it not even worth shooting with.  Now I have an L series 70-200 f4 (non-IS) I bought on ebay, along with a bing.com cashback rebate. There are always rebates and deals online, if you are internet savvy enough you should be able to find them.  When you zoom the aperture is fixed – I love it. Instead of the aperture changing from f3.5 to f5.6 throughout the zoom range, the L series Canon lens has a fixed aperture.  The ultrasonic auto focus is amazingly fast, and way more accurate than a lit lens. The quality of the images are unmatched compared to my older low end lenses, and the CA is so low that it’s just about non-existant. You definitely get what you pay for, when buying glass. Some kit glass is amazing, just having a few limitations. You just need to learn the limitations and invest your dollars wisely, according to the type of photography you do the most.

Uh, oh… I’m about to drop the “U word”.  USED!  Compare prices between new and used for everything you’re interested in buying, when it comes to photo gear.  Every piece of photographic equipment I have everpurchased was previously used.  With the exception of my nifty fifty, which is just about the same price new or used at around $80 USD.  I was the second owner on the rest of my gear, about 75% of it was used only briefly.  Seeing that photography is the type of hobby that many take up only to soon realize they dumped a bunch of money into something they either stink at, or just can’t afford, then that means there are a lot of regretful buyers out there trying to find a way to unload their expensive gear.  My first camera was a second body for a wedding photographer which was lightly used, and in mint condition.  My most recent camera body had just 4000 clicks on the shutter when I bought it, and not a scratch or nick on the exterior.  Both of those purchases saved me enough to buy another camera lens brand new, if I wanted to.

Once you get familiar with some of the more popular pro lenses, so many out there that will make you drool.  There are just way too many good lenses to buy, and never enough money.  If I bought what I “wanted” I could easily blow $10,000-$15,000 or more on glass.  If I bought what I really needed, well then I probably already have what I “need” for the type of work that I do.  What you’ve got to respect about Canon lenses is that genuine Canon glass hardly ever depreciates; L series lenses, especially.  My friend just sold his 70-200 f2.8 I about a month ago for what he bought it for, back 6 years ago.  Amazingly low depreciation.  Glass is always a good investment, and sometimes it helps to borrow or rent before you drop a ton of money. Low end Canon kit lenses like the 18-55 IS and the 55-250 IS, for example, have definitely depreciated in the used market over the past few years.  The 50mm f1.8 (the cheapest decent quality prime lens you buy) always seems to stay pretty solid around $80 new or used.

When you stick to buying glass that is made by your camera manufacturer (ie: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax) you generally don’t have to worry about older lenses not working with the newer Camera bodies that come out. I’ve heard that some older off brand lenses will stop working with updated Canon or Nikon cameras. Who needs the hassle of having to replace gear that they know works, but doesn’t work with their new upgraded body? Not that there aren’t some good quality off brand lenses, but usually when you stick to your manufacturer, it will turn out better in the long run.

Great sites for lens reviews and research:

Canon POTN Forums and Fred Miranda Forums are definitely my favorite places to talk gear and to read reviews online.
(these are also great places to buy or sell used photography equipment)

Canon POTN Forums
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/

Fred Miranda Forums
http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/

Imaging-Resource
http://www.imaging-resource.com

DPreview
http://dpreview.com/

Lens Hero
http://www.lenshero.com

Lenshero is a pretty helpful type of site that helps “suggest” what type of lens you are looking for, according to your needs.  It allows you to enter in the lenses you already own, as well.  Remember that the site is set up in a way to drive affiliate sales to Amazon.com products, similarly to many other online review sites.  That doesn’t mean you can’t make your purchases elsewhere.

Has microstock devalued the industry? Sure it has. What once was a $500 photo sale has now turned into a $5 or even 50 cent photo sale.  But in general, the internet as well as digital photography have devalued the industry.  There are even websites being set up where people are posting links to our images, to download for free. One idiot buys them, and then shares them with the rest of the dishonest people that actually take part in the plundering and looting.  There’s really no stopping it, either.  There are contributors that can live comfortably off of a microstock income in many countries around the world.  Do you think these ones give a crap about devaluing the stock industry? Definitely not; they’re probably making a better living than they ever could before.

Traditional and old school photographers can sit around and whine about how much it sucks, or they can adapt to market trends.  Or, stay out of stock altogether.  Sure there’s still a market for macro stock, mid-stock, and rights managed. I personally dabble in a little of each.  Yes it’s nice when I make a photo sale for $400, but honestly if I relied just on those types of sales I wouldn’t be making enough to pay the bills.  Those sales for myself are few and far in between, compared to microstock sales, which are steady and in general, pretty reliable. Overall, the numbers for the rights managed and macro stocks are on the decline.  Getty was smart to acquire istockphoto (and they even recently bought stockxpert from Jupiter) so obviously they are trying to gain back their market share whatever ways possible.

Stock is only just one tiny corner of this incredible industry.  I started as a graphic designer, and even in that field it’s the same way.  You can focus on all sorts of corners of the creative industry…just pick one you enjoy doing the most, and obviously one you can pay the bills with.  If you can juggle a variety of things without trying to heat 6 pans on 4 burners, then go for it.  There are a lot of ways to make money in this business.  We can’t change how the market is, but we can fortunately pick and choose which areas we want to try and compete in.

It never ceases to amaze me…lately whenever I’m traveling every soccer mom, teenager, and senior citizen is rocking a DSLR of some sort.  If not a DSLR, then a state of the art point and shoot.  The technology is here, and it’s getting cheaper.  It’s so available, there is going to be a lot of competition in the future.  Thankfully for us there is a heck of a lot more to know in this business than just buying a camera and pressing the shutter.  BUT then comes the internet and google…where you can learn anything you want in a matter of minutes.  Maybe we’re all screwed

How long do you personally feel this microstock wave will last? A lot changes have happened in this business.  Agencies have come and gone, and there have been some buyouts and mergers.  I’ve been selling microstock for just 4 years now (EDIT 02-13-12: 7 year now) and there have been changes galore.  The question is…how long will this microstock wave last? Will it continue the way it is for years to come, or will it eventually get to the point where it’s not even worth the time?  What do you guys think?  If anyone is reading this – I’d love to hear your predictions.