As you can see from my website, I love to travel, and I love to take photos. Combine the two and you have my perfect job – travel photography.
If only somebody would pay me to do it I’d be as happy as the proverbial pig.
Maybe one of the reasons I don’t get paid for it is I’ve never been able to work out exactly what travel photography is.
I was recently sent a link to a travel photo competition. The instructions were “anything to do with travel”. Great, thanks, that narrows it down.
Does it mean any photos you take while you’re travelling? If so, one person’s travel photography would be another’s home snaps. Maybe it’s photos that show somebody travelling – planes, trains, automobiles sort of thing?
If it’s iconic destinations, are you only allowed to submit them if you don’t live there. I have many, many photos the Opera House, Bondi Beach, koalas and kangaroos, Sydney Harbour, etc. They were taken at different times of the day, in different weather, over many years and some are very good if I do say so myself. But I lived in Sydney. Does that mean they aren’t travel photos?
There are some amazing photos that won the competition. The winning photo was of a ceremony in Thailand, taken by a Thai photographer. Maybe he had to travel to another part of Thailand to take it, or maybe the competition judges would have had to travel to get to Thailand. I don’t know.
The winning photos did tend to be of non-western places, so maybe that’s it – if it’s a photo of somewhere that’s considered “exotic” it counts as travel.
Last Australia Day Doc and I travelled out to the coast at Port Kembla – around 5 minutes away from home. It was overcast and often drizzling, with intermittent patches of sun. We went to take some photos, so using the criteria of “I had to leave my house to get there” and “most people wouldn’t set foot in Port Kembla if you paid them so that makes it exotic”, here’s some of my travel photography.
And a disclaimer – I like Port Kembla. It has some of the most fascinating contrasts of industry, residential and greenspace you will find anywhere, with a working port, ocean beaches and Lake Illawarra. And pelicans. Lots and lots of pelicans.
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