I’m trying to stop giving unsolicited advice; it’s always undervalued and rarely followed.

But regularly a fellow photographer or a friend (sometimes both at once) is about to head off somewhere and I find myself repeating the same ideas as we discuss their forthcoming trip .
Not so much advice, really, just a few thoughts. Once more here won’t do any harm, surely?

Some thoughts on travel photography,then…

Multiple caveats: this is entirely personal; It’s what works for me, it may not work for you. Then again, it might be of some use.
You could perhaps establish an equally valid working method by adopting the exact opposite of what I suggest.

Travel alone.
Do not try to make photographs while doing something else or attempting to make someone else happy.
If you are traveling to make photographs make sure that is what you do. Either you do it or you don’t. Avoid half measures.
If you’re going to do it, do it properly.
Make yourself available to your subject. Be 100% present.

Take time.

If you are not available or don’t have time, try at least to incorporate those limitations into the way you tell your story.
Be honest, even about your frustrations.

Do not pretend to know more about your subject than you really do.
You know little about yourself, less about those closest to you.
How do you expect to know anything about an alien culture where you are just passing through, hardly able to speak the language?
You are your ignorance. Turn it into curiosity and turn that curiosity into images.

Do not pretend to be a better traveller than you really are.

Do not think “adventure” is a prerequisite for good “travel” photography.
Ask yourself how many of the photographs that have marked you were of “great events” and how many simply of ordinary life well seen?
Wouldn’t your efforts be better spent working on improving your seeing rather than waiting for a great event?

Go somewhere and then move as little as possible. Excessive movement is a distraction.Do not try to see “sights” or record “events”.
There’s more than enough of interest to be discovered nowhere when nothing is happening. It’s just a question of how you look.

Be prepared to be bored. Boredom leads to fascination.

Go out in the street. Walk. Go to bars and cafés. Buy stuff in local stores. Spend money. Do all this without taking pictures. Smile and talk to whoever wants to talk to you. Continue to walk. Be seen.
Repeat over several days. Do not try to achieve anything specific. Watch the light.

Make notes.
Put into words what is best put into words.
If you can, record video or sound.
Record using whatever form best suits what you are trying to document. Do not try to make a photograph of a sound or a still image of something best described with movement.
Even if your primary goal is to make photographs only, this method will help you see what works as a still image an what doesn’t. It’s intended to stop you trying, as the saying goes, to put a quart into a pint pot.

Pictures that require overly long descriptions are probably not that good and most likely are just illustrations for your notes.
You want notes that add to your pictures, not the opposite (assuming you are a photographer and not a writer).

If you are shooting digital and can review your work regularly, imagine presenting what you have shot. How many times you would have to say “What I was trying to show here was…” ?
If you have to say what you were trying to show you probably haven’t shown it at all.

Do not delete images. Even though you think you know what you are working on you’re probably wrong. You’ll discover that later. Photographing and editing are separate processes.

If it catches your eye, photograph it. even badly, even if you don’t know why.

Remember: wide, medium, close-up. Get them all. Don’t forget the “establishing shot” that shows a global view of where you are.

Examine your work for visual “ticks”. We all have them, habits of composition, exposure, subject matter.

Backup everything at least three times. Do not keep all your data in one place.

Take the minimum amount of equipment possible. It is incredible what you can do with just one 35mm lens.
Using only one or two focal lengths will give a unity to your work. You do not want to have disparate subject matter and all sorts of different focal lengths. Don’t forget you’re trying to make something cohesive.

Work close-up, in the open. There’s nothing more visible than a photographer trying to be discreet. Try to work with people at a distance where you can touch them and converse in a normal voice.

Explain who you are and what it is you are trying to do. Work this out for yourself beforehand.

Try to actually see what is in front of your eyes. Photograph what is there rather than what you wish was there. Photograph it as yourself rather than as if you were someone else. Do not go anywhere because a photographer you admire did good work there before. That’s already been done. Annex new territory. Peer under stones. It’s when you (think you) don’t see anybody else’s work in your own that it starts to be interesting; even then it will be derivative.

Do not take pictures to please an imaginary client. You won’t be true to yourself and you can’t be true to them because they don’t exist. Please clients when you’ve got them.

Remember we live in a post-exotic world. The fact of leaving you own environment is no longer any sort of achievement. Anyone can go anywhere now. Everyone has a camera.
You need to justify your journey with purpose, opinion and ideas.

The photograph illustrating this post is taken from a commissioned story on a rural hamlet in Romania. You can see the entire story here. All the pictures were taken during a single, ten day, stay, within a radius of no more than a couple of kilometers. Most of the images were made walking up and down the one street that ran through the settlement. By the end of the trip I think I had been invited into at least 80% of the homes, maybe more. That’s what I mean about not moving.