Travel Photography: The leading guide to travel and location photography

by Steve Davey

Overview

Footprint Travel Photography is all you will ever need to improve your photography, no matter where the location. The revised and extensively improved second edition, written by leading travel photographer Steve Davey, takes you from the vital preparation and selecting of equipment, to the ins and outs of being on the road.

Broken down by technique and photography style, rather than destination, the layout of this book makes it easy for you to decide what kind of picture you're trying to take and find, at a glance, the right techniques for you - whether you are at a local beauty spot or thousands of miles from home.

Footprint Travel Photography:

- exhaustively covers the technical and practical aspects of travel photography before looking at how to tweak and improve your pictures on a computer, and includes a section for those who would like to make some money out of their hobby.

- has been fully revised and updated to reflect developments in technology, the latest software releases, including Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Creative Cloud and to encompass Steve Davey's new travel and photographic experiences

- emphasises techniques for taking wonderful photos, no matter where you are in the world

- features an extensive inspiration section, giving hints and tips for all picture taking scenarios

- is ideal for all levels, from beginner to advanced

- is packed with stunning pictures and anecdotes from Steve Davey's many travels

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781909268944
Publisher:	Bradt Travel Guides Ltd
Publication date:	11/01/2013
Series:	Activity & Lifestyle
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	85,714
File size:	137 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Steve Davey is a photographer and writer, based in London. Blessed and cursed in equal measure with a low boredom threshold, he has turned travel photography into a way of life as well as a career. Steve is the author and principal photographer of Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die and Unforgettable Islands to Escape To Before You Die, both published by BBC Books. Between them, these titles have been published in 26 language editions. Steve also runs photographic tours to India, Southeast Asia, Morocco and Jordan and photographic courses in London - to find out more about these see his website, www.stevedavey.com.

Read an Excerpt

It is very easy with travel photography to be so blown away by what you are seeing that all creativity goes out of the window. You raise your camera and ‘snap’: you end up with a purely representational photograph that is identical to so many others. I will try to inspire you to create pictures that you are proud of, not just records of the fantastic places that you travel to.

I am a jobbing travel photographer and writer, accepting commissions to go all over the world, almost always with insufficient time. I sometimes have just a few days to capture a place’s essence and produce pictures to fill multiple pages of a book. I have to battle against time constraints, jetlag, bad weather, crowds, equipment issues and a lack of familiarity with the place itself. In this way my professional life often mirrors the experience of the amateur photographer who is

limited by time and budget.

If you have tremendous luck, or unlimited time, then all the elements may come together for a picture: the light will be perfect, the subject laid out before you, without a tourist coach in sight. All you will have to do is take your camera, snap and get a masterpiece. Unfortunately, that seldom happens. Once, when shooting Hong Kong Island, I spent five days struggling against the smog, travelling to the top of Victoria Peak on four occasions to try to get the perfect shot. On my last night I was relaxing in a bar, when the owner told me about a sunrise at the beginning of the week. In his five years in Hong Kong, it was the clearest and most beautiful he had seen. The pictures he had taken out of the window of his apartment on the Peak were fantastic. He wanted to know what I, as a photographer, had thought of it. To my dismay, I had to tell him that this amazing sunrise had occurred the day before I arrived!

On another occasion, I was shooting in Rio. The weather was cloudy and difficult but I kept working and tried a shot from the summit of Corcovado in the

early morning. Shooting into the light, with all of the islands of the bay draped in backlit shadow produced a spectacular image which ended up on the cover of

my first book. It would have been easy to give up and stay in bed that day but my persistence paid off.

What both these experiences show is that, as a photographer, you can’t have perfect luck all of the time and you certainly never have unlimited time. You

have to make your own luck with skill and hard work. This book aims to help you by offering tips, advice and encouragement. I believe that you can always take a

great photo – no matter what the conditions. It might not be the photo that you set out to take or a photo that you would see on a postcard rack but that unique

picture is out there. All you have to do is create it. I often come back from a long trip exhausted, somewhat lighter and leaner, but ultimately more fulfilled and relaxed than if I had just been on holiday. Travel photography is really a way of life: a way of travelling. I have seen more sunrises and sunsets, looked more people from all walks of life in the eye and shaken more hands than I ever would have done as a traveller or holidaymaker. I have climbed more hills and mountains, and then often climbed them again the next day when the weather is better. I often find myself in the middle of the action – running from

bulls, bathing with elephants or pilgrims, swimming with sharks – in a way that would not be possible without photography. Photography has been my

motivation and I have experienced a greater level of enjoyment and involvement because of it. I hope to convey some of the magic of travel photography in

this book and inspire you to get out there to see and embrace the world yourself.