The Travel Photo Essay

The Travel Photo Essay

by Mark Edward Harris
Released September 2017
Publisher(s): Routledge
ISBN: 9781315514994

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Book description

Successful travel photographers have to wear more hats than perhaps any other photographic genre. In a single travel photo essay they are at times architectural photographers, food photographers, music photographers, car photographers – the list encompassing every possible type of photography.

The Travel Photo Essay teaches the reader the necessary techniques to create cohesive professional travel stories, using images that go far beyond "I was here" photographs. From the establishing shots to the equipment list, this book discusses the techniques and concepts necessary to create professional looking images in various genres, including portrait photography, landscape photography, wildlife photography, food photography, documentary photography, sports photography and more. Covering issues such as lighting, writing, workflow and the travel photography market, award-winning photographer and writer Mark Edward Harris explains how to marry photos with words, telling a cohesive story through a series of photographs.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Table of Contents
  6. About the Author
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction
  9. 1 The Concept
    1. What Is a Travel Photo Essay?
    2. Developing the Idea
    3. Freelance Pitching
  10. 2 Building Blocks of the Travel Photo Essay
    1. Establishing Shots
    2. Portraiture
    3. Environmental Portraits
    4. Traditional Portraits
    5. Open Shade
    6. Classic Cropping Points
    7. Detail Shots
    8. The Closing Shot
  11. 3 Compositional Elements and Key Concepts to Master
    1. Composition: Big Picture Thinking
    2. Rule of Thirds
    3. Natural Frames
    4. Silhouettes
    5. Cropping
    6. Time of Day
    7. Shooting Contre Jour
    8. Night Exposures
    9. Time-Lapse
    10. The Extra Element
    11. Astral Projection
    12. Exposure Compensation
    13. Shake, Blur, or Out of Focus?
    14. Proper Tripod Use
    15. Longer Lens, More Shake
    16. Lowlight Without a Tripod
  12. 4 Getting Technical
    1. Be Ready to Hit the Ground Running
    2. The Equipment Checklist
    3. Know Your Camera: Full-frame and Cropped Sensor DSLRs and Mirrorless Cameras
    4. Jpeg Versus Raw
    5. The Exposure Triangle
    6. Taking Control of Your Depth of Field
    7. Shutter Speed
    8. Motor Drive
    9. Filters for the Digital World
    10. Lenses: Wide Angle, Normal, Telephoto, Macro
    11. Wide Angles
    12. Normal Lenses
    13. Telephotos
    14. Macros
    15. Low Light: High ISOs Versus Flash
    16. Transporting Your Equipment: Camera Bags and Backpacks
  13. 5 Lighting on Location
    1. To Flash or Not to Flash, That is the Good Question
    2. Fill Flash
    3. Light Modifiers
    4. Getting Creative with Artificial Lighting
    5. Understanding Kelvin Color Temperatures: Why Proper Color Balance Matters
    6. Mixed Light Sources and Color Temperature
    7. More Power
    8. Speedlights: Ultraportable Flash Units
    9. Monolights
    10. Separate Power Packs and Strobe Heads
    11. Continuous Lighting for Hybrid Video
    12. A Final Word on Artificial Lighting
  14. 6 The Travel Photo Essay: A Brief History
    1. Felice Beato
    2. Edward Curtis
    3. W. Gene Smith
    4. Gordon Parks
    5. Mary Ellen Mark
    6. Sebastiao Salgado
    7. David Alan Harvey
    8. Cristina Garcia Rodero
    9. A Final Thought
  15. 7 Case Studies
    1. The Shot List
    2. Arizona Road Trip
    3. Los Angeles
    4. Los Angeles (Personal Project)
    5. Cheyenne, Wyoming
    6. Switzerland
    7. Brazil (Personal Project)
    8. Vietnam
    9. The Two Koreas
    10. Iran
    11. Portraits of Vietnam
    12. The Way of the Japanese Bath
    13. Alaska’s Call of the Wild
    14. North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom
  16. 8 Wearing the Many Hats of the Travel Photographer
    1. Portrait Photography
    2. Wildlife Photography
    3. Landscape Photography
    4. Food Photography
    5. Automotive Photography
    6. Fashion and Beauty Photography
    7. Documentary Photography
    8. Street Photography
    9. Sports Photography
    10. Underwater Photography
    11. Tabletop Photography
    12. Architectural and Interior Photography
    13. Aerial Photography
    14. Music Photography
  17. 9 The Written Word
    1. The Marriage of the Pen and the Camera
    2. Giving a Story Context and Instilling a Sense of History
    3. The Magazine/Newspaper Travel Section Pitch
    4. Inspiration
  18. 10 Getting the Most Out of Our Digital Files: Workflow and Post-Processing: Workflow and Post-Processing
    1. Camera Setup
    2. Every Bit Matters
    3. Color Space
    4. Picture Style
    5. Monitor Calibration
    6. Importing and Processing
    7. Converting to Black and White
    8. Keywording
    9. Photoshop
    10. File Naming Protocols for Travel Imagery
    11. Storage: Your Personal Archive
    12. Outsourcing Storage
    13. Printing
    14. Digital Darkroom Inspirations
    15. Further Reading
  19. 11 The Travel Photography Market
    1. Travel Photography Business Tools
    2. Getting Assignments: Pitching Travel Story Ideas
    3. Advertising Photography
    4. Stock Photography
    5. Presentation: Paginating a Travel Photo Essay in Book Form
    6. Exhibiting Your Work: Themed Shows
    7. Departing Thoughts on Our Journey
  20. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Travel Photo Essay
  • Author(s): Mark Edward Harris
  • Release date: September 2017
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9781315514994