Alongside my digital equipment, I packed a few film cameras for our recent trip across the Canadian North East. Shooting and processing film is, for me a very different beast to shooting with digital gear. Click through the image link for some film shots from the trip…
Part two of a late summer drive through North Eastern Canada. Starry nights, lake vistas and cottage life. Click through the picture for more…
Part one of a late summer drive through North Eastern Canada. City wanderings, a visit to the sea bed and some fortuitous weather planning. Click through the picture for more…
A wander around some junk and secondhand stores is, I hope, about to lead down a rabbit hole of learning and discovery…
I’ve been exploring Munich recently and I’ve finally had time to start pulling together some images into a bit of a story line. First up: a chilly recconnaisance wander up and down the River Isar at the end of February. A big walk in very tiny temperatures…
Following on from my trip to Umbria at the start of the summer, I was pleasantly suprised to be heading back in the direction of the Mediterranean September for a few days in September. The weather was turning in the UK and a packed few days of travel photography, vineyards and rosé, sounded perfect. And the compressed schedule of only three days and two nights would add an extra challenge to my photography requirements too.
Here are the highlights from a fantastic few days in Provence.
Now that summer’s definitely over, I’m taking time to write up some of the travel photography I’ve been lucky enough to cover this year. I’ve written the commissioned texts and they’re published along with my images from the trips. So, I thought I’d delve deeper into the photography side of each trip and give a little more insight into how I approach each location.
First up are some highlights from a June trip to the Umbria region in Italy.
I’ve been fortunate recently to be sent to various international locations to capture and document some fantastic travel destinations.
As glamorous as that sounds, there are some serious practical implications to consider. Packing for a full itinerary must take into account expected (and unexpected) weather conditions, itinerary changes and various activities in one day, and that goes for your own clothes as well as camera kit.
Itineraries on all the trips I’ve been on have been packed, and guaranteed to ensure that, as a journalist you will see and experience the full gamut of activities, sights, sounds and flavours that a destination has to offer. It’s up to me as a to capture the essence of the trip, and to document it all with a concise set of images that support my written copy. Hopefully resulting in an article that is as close as possible to final publishing content. In my opinion, some scrappy notes and a dump of phone pictures probably wouldn’t cut it!
It’s safe to assume that itineraries will change, food breaks will be later than expected, and that option to pick up other kit on a return trip to the hotel? That might not happen if any number of unforeseen circumstances come into play. So, I am, gradually, learning to pack lighter and lighter, and take only what I need on these assignments. I’ve developed a simple approach to reviewing and assigning a score to what I use. It’s become a standard post-trip exercise in refinement and pragmatism. Here are is my kit from the last two trips from the last trip to Thailand and the same image used as a visual mark-up for next time.
As you can see, there are staples, things have/haven’t made the cut, and things that I won’t be taking next time. And, of course, this is all assuming that I am checking luggage (see * below for what gets checked in to the holdg).
Green indicates necessities. The things I take, and always use?
Amber: Less used, but incredibly handy for location and/or brief specific content:
Finally, in red, the things I carted there and back and barely used. Techically I could’ve done without so they’ll be way down the packing list next time.
Filters are becoming more location specific. Earlier in the year I was in Umbria and with sunrise around 5am, there was ample time to filter and balance a morning sky as it changed with sunrise. In October in Thailand, sunrise was much closer to the rest of the work day. Also, being so close to the equator the sky goes from amazing morning glow to sunsrise in about 20mins flat. So, for efficiency, I went for 7 bracketed images of each view. This gave me more scope for angles and locations in the limited time, and I now have a selection of options in processing.
And one last thing that proves it’s worth every time: My Canon G1X mkII. I never used this “on-the-ground” on the trip, but it’s my default, just-in-case travel camera. It shoots raw so it’s a back up camera, it’s less obtrusive than the 5D if need be, and, it’s the camera I unpack and have at my feet every time I get a window seat (which is pretty much every time). You never know when that clichéd wingtip shot could come up with the goods…
And there you have it, that’s my hand luggage. Bulky items get checked along with the obligatory bag of cables, chargers and power adapters. I think a future post will be about the kit I’d love to take, but gets left behind for various reasons. Do you think I’ve missed anything? What are your go-to travel kit choices and recommendations?
I’m finally able to share the new that one of my scottish landscape images from last year was awarded a Commendation in The Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year 2016 competition.
Congratulations to all the winners and fellow commendees. Do go and checkout the full results and amazing images at www.slpoty.co.uk
Interestingly, I shot this images with Canon G1X MkII on the return leg of a hike where I was had already got what I thought were some good shots of some very scottish weather. As soon as I saw the sunlight hitting the snow fence and with the storm clouds in the valley below, I knew it would make a great black and white image. I converted the RAW image to black and white in Adobe Lightroom CC and applied some selective dodging and burning to recreate the picture I had in mind when first saw the fence in the sun.
So kudos to my Canon G1X MkII, it’s small enough to come everywhere with me, and the quality of the RAW files makes it a powerful tool to have on the waistband of my backpack whenever I’m out in the mountains.
On the off chance that you’ve come here to find one of my older blog posts, you’ll be pleased to know that my original blog isstill up and running over on blogspot.
Some of the side-projects that started on that blog are still on-going, I’ll just be updating things like Free-lensing, Infrared Fungus and stranger photographic endeavours on here in the future.
