Do you love travelling? or you love photography? You can do both and still getting the excitement of the travelling experience and seeing the world through our lenses is another great satisfaction we can ever imagine.
You can travelling to beautiful and exciting destinations all around the world, eat delicious food, meet different people, and see some of the best views that nature has to offer.
While you get on travelling, you can make money from the entire adventure by selling your photo stocks, not only that but you will be getting paid to travel by some sponsors who knows what you are doing and ask you to go in some place of the world.
Someday you take a few photos of your morning coffee and sunrise, the next day you take videos of the locals in a special parade, then later you get invited to watch someone’s grandmother make mole – and sample the results, of course. Next week you’re going on a river cruise of the Amazon, and you’re already planning your great Alaska adventure.
The great thing is, it’s all paid for via your traveling photographer business. Due to amazing digital technology, it’s entirely possible for one person to run a profitable and exciting traveling photography business these days. You just need to understand how it works, whether it’s for you, and how to make money.
What Is Traveling Photography?
Traveling photographer’s job is to take photos and possibly a video that record the things that make an area unique, or they may instead be traveling for an event that they are contracted to photograph such as a game, graduation, or a wedding.
For example, on any given gig you’ll take pictures of various landscapes, the people, note how the culture is different, the customs that they have, and their unique history. You can depict all of this in your photography. Anyone who documents a local area or agrees to travel to a location-based photo shoot is a traveling photographer.
Travel Photography for Pros and Amateurs
The genre of traveling photography is popular with both amateur and professional alike, with much inspiration derived from magazines such as National Geographic with their photographers like Steve McCurry and Renan Ozturk. Steve McCurry’s most famous photo was made while reporting on the war in Afghanistan, and his photograph entitled “Afghan Girl” appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1984.
You can travel and take pictures while traveling, or you can travel to a location to take pics of something specific like a religious ceremony or another event.
Wide Flexibility
Traveling photography can translate into many format styles of documentary photography. Most shooting will be under natural conditions with ambient lighting of a wide variety of indoor and outdoor subjects. Landscapes, people, culture, customs, fun and emotional events, and history are what the photographer frames as his or her subjects. On the commercial side, tourist attractions, hotels, resorts or anything to do with merchandising travel will often be the topics.
Requires Wide Range of Skills
Traveling photographers must possess a wide spectrum of photographic skills because of the wide variety of the subject matters, which likely encompasses not only portraits and landscapes but also wildlife, architectural, reporting and events. One day you may be taking pictures of mountain scenery and the next food at a five-star restaurant.
As a travel photographer, you need the necessary skills to photograph basically everything. Patience is essential as well as being well versed in the technical aspects of shutter speed, depth of field, and lighting.
Traveling photography has been popular with tourists ever since cameras were built for amateurs. The famous Kodak Brownie introduced the concept of the snapshot and was very portable. Now with the advent of smartphones, photography is more convenient than ever. Many tourist attractions today are placed in photogenic areas to entice the public to come and take pictures.
Destination Events are More Common
Due to the love of traveling, there are more destination events than ever before. Because of that, there is more call for photographers who will travel to the location. If you’re willing to do that, you can also schedule extra time before and after any event you are supposed to take pictures at so that you can enjoy the local sites on your own – and yes, photograph them for sales elsewhere.
Pros Look in More Places
While popular with amateurs taking selfies, the tourist site isn’t where the professionals usually want to concentrate their efforts. Serious photographers want to capture a sense of culture with an image that conveys a story. Also, a photo of that nature is more marketable for the professional.
Choose the Unbeaten Path
A pro would research their destination and look for the unbeaten path that a travel agency would steer people away from. They did not go through all the effort to get there just to get the “cliché” shot. They would rather have portraits of the local people instead of tourists.
Many times, pros will use themselves or a traveling companion to be their subject but not in a “selfie” manner. They will want to analyze a scene and critique it in their mind to work with the composition, keeping in mind where the photo might be used. Then they will ask themselves how it can be made to look better.
Be Friendly
People of different cultures are a big part of what traveling photographers try to capture. The photographer will want to make an effort to befriend and engage the locals and build connections, with the chance of gaining ideas and locations to shoot. Having a friendly rapport will help people open to you and perhaps gain you friends who’ll make the trip even more rewarding.
Traveling photography requires that you not only have photographic skills, but also the ability to communicate with people to make them feel comfortable and trusting. As well as that, business and marketing skills are needed.
This means that a person who wants to be a traveling photographer needs to be well-rounded in their knowledge. But don’t let that scare you away; there isn’t anything here that you cannot learn.
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