Traveling for thousands of miles without money, paying for food and accommodation with nothing but your photography. It sounds like a great adventure, but also like a scary task full of challenges. Australian photographer Edwina Robertson did it. She recently finished her 3-month trip around the most rural and regional areas of Australia. She dove for 27,000 kilometers (17,000 miles), trading her photography for food and accommodation. Her dog Jordie was her only companion, and she shared with us some photos and details of this amazing journey.
How your photography can help you travel for free
Have you dreamed of traveling the world with the help of your photography? I must admit it sounds like a dream come true. Chris Hau is living this dream and photography has earned him some free trips. He shares the story about how it all started, that can get you inspired to try this yourself.
Photographer Spotlight: Q&A with Nick Bondarev – Northern Culture and Travel Photographer
Next in our ongoing Photographer Spotlight series is Nick Bondarev.
Nick is a Russian travel and northern culture photographer, film maker and writer. He’s also the owner of Northern Winds, a travel company that offers boutique tours of Iceland, Mongolia and Russia.
Photographer Spotlight: Q&A With Micky Wiswedel – Outdoor Adventure Photographer
Next up in our ongoing Photographer Spotlight series we have Micky Wiswedel.
Micky is a Cape Town, South Africa based documentary, travel and outdoor adventure photographer.
His work has been featured by Red Bull and Outside Magazine. He is the winner of the 2016 Red Bull Illume photo contest in the Wings category and he is currently working with free solo climber Matt Bush.
Photographer Spotlight: Q&A With Peter Hoang – Rock Climbing and Adventure Photography
Every once in a while you come across a photographer who’s work really speaks to you personally. It might be the subject matter, artistic skill, technical perfection or just plane cool photography.
In the upcoming Photographer Spotlight series, we are going to profile the work of a number of photographers along with question and answer sessions.
We hope that their work will inspire you and that you might get a bit of insight into who they are and why they do what they do.
Our first photographer is Peter Hoang.
Peter is an Ontario, Canada based rock climbing and adventure photographer. Ontario isn’t exactly known as a climbing hot spot – but it does have some pretty amazing sport and ice routes and Peter manages to mix his work locally at home with his travels to more exotic climbing destinations.
Peter’s work has been featured by Ontario Climbing, Gripped Magazine and Patagonia and he’s sponsored by Arc’Teryx and WoolX.
How to handle locals who ask you for money when you are doing travel photography
The sun was on the horizon, a perfect orange ball. It was another beautiful sunset in Hoi An, Vietnam and we were out on a photo tour through a local village – taking advantage of the dreamy light. While the group spread out to take photos of people harvesting rice in the paddies, I noticed one of my students walking back toward me. She appeared hunched over in defeat. “What’s going on?” I asked. She replied, “I went to take a picture of a woman and she asked me for money – so I left and didn’t take the photo.” Unfortunately, this is something I’d heard many times before.
While traveling in Asia, it is likely that you will be approached by a local asking for money. As a reader of a travel photo blog, you already know that the more time spent visiting tourist-dense locations, the more often locals will approach you for money. This is because someone, many times before you has handed out money. Thus, establishing the common stereotype that all Westerners are rich and will give away their money. The more tourists continue to give money when asked, the more this stereotype has been reinforced. Unfortunately, it’s now to the point that in order to change this practice, it could take decades.
Seven Essential Gadgets For A Travel Photography Road Trip
Travel photography can be a real pain if you’re not prepared and organized.
Besides your essential camera gear, there are a few thing you might want to pack that may not be immediately obvious – but the best part is you can pick these items up for relatively low cost.
Based on a few of my past road trips, here are my recommendations for five essential gadgets for a travel photography on the road.
How to maintain a healthy romantic relationship as a travelling photographer
As photographers quite often the addiction we have to capturing that next special moment becomes one of the most dominant things in our lives. And while photography is generally a “healthy” addiction in comparison to many of the things we could be doing with our time and money, sometimes we can also be blinded by what is truly important in life and forget about those around us. While we are off chasing that magical sunrise or sunset in some faraway place, our partners in life may be left behind wondering when we are coming home, or where exactly we may be.
There’s no better feeling than having that special someone in our life who is supportive of your goals and dreams. But this works both ways – and while that endless journey and pursuit we like to call photography leads us all to some incredible experiences, it’s the experiences we have when not pointing the camera at pretty scenes that truly matter in life. Here are 5 tips for maintaining a healthy romantic relationship as a travelling photographer to ensure a healthy balance with the things that matter most in our lives.
Field Backups With the My Passport Wireless Pro – A Review for Travel Photography
If you’re a travel photographer or just someone who wants to keep your photographs safe and secure while you’re in the field, one of your biggest challenges is copying and backing up your travel photographs and travel video as it’s captured.
My top three travel photography backup challenges are:
- Copying camera photo and video files to a portable hard drive – preferably without the necessity of a laptop computer.
- Copying photos and video to a cloud-based storage solution – again preferably an automated process and without a laptop computer.
- Securing my data while travelling in case my backup hard drive is lost or stolen.
To simplify this task, I decided to try out a 3TB WD My Passport Wireless Pro (more info here). In theory, the WD My Passport Wireless Pro, with a built-in USB port and SD card reader is perfectly suited for this task. However, in practice, it doesn’t quite manage to live up to it’s potential.
In this article, I will take you through my setup of the WD My Passport Wireless Pro for travel photography and travel video and my recommendations on the suitability of using this drive for backups while on the road.
