Australian Photography

TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY: THE ART OF IMPROVISATION

As much as we’re a clan united by a common interest, travel photographers are also a diverse bunch. While there are many who plan their trips around meticulously structured itineraries, right down to ticking off individual shots and locations on a spreadsheet, there are just as many others for who the approach to travel photography is essentially improvisational, catching as catch-can. Although I’ve shot stories from the beaches of Mozambique to the mountains of Kashmir, to the streets of Seoul, the reality for me has almost always been pretty much exactly this: making it all up as I go along.

Improvised or not, for me a great travel image conveys a strong, unique sense of place, a compelling sense of the journey or, ideally, both, bringing a narrative element into the photographer’s movement through time and space.

Shooting and travelling in this way, the joy of the journey is valued not only for itself, but for how it sharpens our photographic eye. And though we often tend to speak in terms of F-stops and leading lines and polarising

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