On Travel and Trophy Images

The best thing about traveling as a photographer is that everything is new. The worst thing about traveling as a photographer is that it has all been done before. Traveling will always be a balance of reconciling those two things. How do you look at a landmark that has been viewed and photographed a million times before and come home with something that is your own? It’s easy to turn travel photography into a technical exercise. Here is a list of landmarks, the must photograph spots in any given city, and when we contain ourselves to that list, photography becomes a technical game rather than a creative one.

Take the image below of the Hong Kong skyline from Victoria’s Peak. Let’s be clear that I love this image- there is nothing wrong with this image, I have it displayed in my house. Honestly it wasn’t an easy image to get- it took me multiple hours (a very crowded tram car ride to the peak, securing my spot at the front of the overlook an hour before sunset, waiting for the lights and sky to reach the perfect dynamic range), a lot of luck (the sunset colors just happened to complement the city lights below), and to top it off, it’s a handheld exposure at 1/30th of a second shot while wearing a wiggly baby in an Ergo, so honestly its a miracle it is sharp. But its a trophy shot. And really a participation trophy at that. Anyone with a decent amount of skill could have taken it. I have had multiple photographers look at my website and tell me they have the “same” picture. There is nothing about that image that is mine, other than the fact that I was the one pressing the shutter.

Yet we take these images everywhere we go. They’re the big game shots, the ones you hang up to show off your skill as a sharpshooter, to show where you’ve been, rather than to express an artistic vision. But that leads me back to the question of, how do you look at something that has been photographed a million times before and make a shot your own? Can it even be done? I’m not advocating different for the sake of different, just like I’m not saying not to take the trophy shots. The travel images I have taken where I can legitimately say- this right here, this is mine, I managed to say something about where I was in a way that meshes with who I am. The image that looks like one of my images rather than a postcard, an image that is more art than technical exercise, those are more elusive than a good sunset or a sharp image at 1/30th of a second while wearing a baby in an ergo. Those are the shots you can’t plan for no matter how much you try, they’re the ones you have to be there for, be in the moment, willing to look past the landmarks.

They’re elusive and we can’t plan for them, and yet when I look at the (very small) handful of images that I believe fall into this category, there are a few things they have in common. They’re almost always taken with a Fixed lens camera (not just a prime lens, but a literal fixed lens- either a Fuji X100 series camera or a Leica Q series. There is freedom in limitations). They’re often photographed in “crappy” lighting or weather conditions (mid-day, harsh light, anything other than the traditional sunrise/sunset). This is partly because I have a tendency to preplan those “good” light times for the trophy locations, buy maybe also because making a good image in crappy light is already a bit of a creative push. They are also all shot in locations that are not my everyday locations but not so new as to be overwhelming. None of this is a formula, just patterns. Noting patterns within your own work is one of the best ways to increase your “luck” rate.

Poetry

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