Taking Good Travel Pictures Needs Thinking and PlanningPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Here’s your chance to show off your travel photographs for the entire world to see. Go to the bottom of this Royal Orchid Holidays page and open “Let’s Share Your Beautiful Moments with THAI,” and send in your photographs. Who knows, this may be your start to becoming a professional photographer.
But first, let me tell readers a few things I learned about taking good photographs.
Have you ever watched Japanese tourists? They step down from their tour bus, pose in front of a monument, and begin clicking away with their cameras. And what are they using? Cheap instant cameras. Rarely will one of them have an expensive Nikon or Canon.
“Don’t let the Japanese mislead you,” explained photographer Robert Stedman when I mentioned this to him. “Most of the Japanese do have expensive cameras; they're just the amateur versions. The difference between professional amateur cameras has become blurred, too. Today, many ordinary pocket snapshot cameras are 8 mega pixels. That's far bigger that the camera I started out with years ago. Most professional digital SLR cameras are 12 to 23 mega pixels these days. That's big enough for a A3 print.”
Traveling with Robert is a lesson in taking good pictures. He looks at colour density and shadows and shades, and he insists the price of the camera is not the important thing. “The price of the camera isn’t the issue,” he said. “The person behind the camera is what counts.”
We got on to the subject of film vs. digital cameras. I recall years ago I had a story idea I thought would do well with National Geographic. I went to see the editor in Washington, D.C. I was certain he would accept my story. I had spent several months wandering aboard copra boats around the South Pacific and had, what I thought, were some excellent photos on four rolls of film.
“Our photographers might shoot that many pictures on one spot," the picture editor said. He was helpful, before turning me out, and explained the National Geographic policy on photography. That was a few years ago, before digital cameras, but I'm sure the rules still apply today. On average, one out of every 200 photographs submitted by a contributor is selected by the editors. If 30 photographs are needed to illustrate a story, that means the photographer should submit at least 6,000 photographs.
Times have changed. It cost money before to buy film and then have it developed. With the new digital cameras, photography is now free, except for the price of the camera. “No one uses film anymore,” explained Robert. “It's dead, gone and buried. Really, I wouldn't even mention film to your readers. The digital camera gave people the ability to shoot and see their photos immediately on a computer...and everyone has a computer. They can also email them. Besides easy viewing they can make adjustments with software. So film is useless. Only a few die hard romantics still shoot with film but their numbers are insignificant.”
Most people who travel like to take pictures. Travelling with a camera gives the traveller a purpose. Travellers who have cameras seem to get up earlier, go to more places and see more than the average tourist. It pays off.
But what about the quality of the pictures?
“Taking good pictures is not merely clicking a shutter; it's thinking and planning each shot in advance," explained Mike Yamashita, a noted Japanese-American photographer and a good friend. I was in Singapore when Mike was on an assignment with National Geographic. The magazine had flown him there first class, with a first class seat for his cameras.
Mike was covering a feature story on Singapore and was concentrating on the architecture. The mental process that he went through, planning and thinking about his shots before he went out into the streets, seemed as strenuous as the marathon runner doing his 40 kilometres. But the results are what counted and Mike came up with some prize-winning shots of Singapore.
Working with a professional photographer can be quite exciting and rewarding and we can learn from them. In the course of several other assignments that we did together, I had some long discussions with Mike about photography. He's convinced that good photography is a state of mind. You have to think pictures to shoot good ones.
Mike, I'm certain, is right. But as a result of thinking pictures, photographers live in a world all their own. Sometimes they have to be oblivious to the world around them. How else would combat photographers get the pictures that they do? They appear to be inured to human suffering. Yet, their feelings are deeper than we might imagine. I pointed this out in a chapter titled Traveling with Photographers in my latest book “The Education of a Travel Writer.”
Professional photographers, as I pointed out in my book, can be difficult to work with. I remember Willy Metler, a Swiss photographer I was on assignment with in Russia. He knew the restrictions, yet he snapped pictures of everything and anything, including the things we were not permitted to photograph. He wouldn't listen to reason. Finally the police arrested us and it looked like at least a couple of years in prison.
Eventually, after days of harassment, we were escorted to the Czech border and allowed to leave. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, until Willy took out his recently returned camera and started snapping photos of the guards as they were about to release us at the border. Incredibly, they gave Willy their best smiles and posed for him.
When we see photographs in newspapers and magazines, we rarely give a thought to how the photographers took them. Ever look at that photo of a steel worker high on a skyscraper? He’s looking up, staring at the camera; beneath him is a terrifying view of the street far below. That street worker is looking up at the photographer, the man behind the camera who is above him.
I learned one thing about National Geographic. They rarely turn away a writer or photographer with an idea. But don’t be fooled. They do have their reasons, the picture editor told me when I was trying to peddle my copra boat story.
Shortly after the war, a bearded Norwegian arrived in the office, saying he was going to build a balsa raft and float across the Pacific. He was sent from one office to another, while all the editors had a good laugh. Build a raft and float the South Pacific? He had to be insane.
National Geographic lost its story of the century. The man who they turned away was Thor Heyerdahl and the balsa raft was the Kon Tiki. After that, rarely has anyone with an idea ever been turned away. Perhaps that's why there are so many freelancers around the world saying they are on assignment for the Geographic.
Photographers must be confident, and that comes with experience. I had an assignment once from a New York magazine to cover the wild Quinn's Tahitian Hut in Tahiti. I tried for days to get the right photographs. It wasn't easy. I was threatened by Scandinavian sailors and French Foreign Legionnaires every time I lifted my camera. More than once I had a glass of Hinano beer tossed at me by a long-hair, sarong clad local lady who thought it was fun to throw beer at me. It was worse than combat photography. I just couldn’t get the photos needed for the magazine, until Peter Stackpole came to Tahiti. Peter was a photographer who had started with Life magazine long before the war. He knew the editor who had given me the assignment and the editor had asked Peter to give me a hand.
We went to Quinn's; a passenger ship was in port. The place was unhinged. The walls and floor pulsated. Peter was sure to get his nose broken, I thought, and perhaps lose a couple of teeth.
Defiantly, he showed me where to stand, on a chair, with a remote flash in hand. I looked for a place to run after the first shot. I didn't have to. Peter's technique was astounding. In a short time, he had the rough waterfront girls smiling for their photos, and the seamen flexing their muscles for the camera lens.
Peter shot less than a dozen pictures, no more, and took the roll of film out of his camera and handed it to me. "Now for a drink," he said. He saw that I was worried. "Don't worry," he added, "they'll use them.
That's what I call confidence. The story appeared a few months later and all six photos by Peter Stackpole were used.
I am not suggesting that camera buffs go to Patpong or Soi Cowboy to get some good nightlife photos. There are some things I would leave to the professionals. But don’t hesitate to fire away with your camera on your travels with Thai Airways to any of their 72 destinations around the world; and send them your photos. Let the world see your photographs. See you on “Let’s Share Your Beautiful Moments with THAI.” QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ. Mr. Stephens. I think your readers might be interested in Singapore Marathon 2009 this December 9th. They have time to get into condition. This is a truly unique marathon experience. After seven successful runs, the race's participation is now 50,000 strong, of which 2,700 are overseas runners from 52 countries. The course makes its way from the start point on Esplanade Bridge, adjacent to the magnificent Esplanade; runners make their way by Marina South and run through the Central Business District, past impressive skyscrapers, to the East Coast Park where the entire stretch is shaded by trees with beachfront views, before returning to the city. And then to the finish line at the Padang, past City Hall, the exact location where Singapore declared its independence four decades ago. It’s quite an event. Robert Stedman, Singapore
A. Dear Robert. Thank you for the information. You have me thinking about joining the race. ––HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
