Moraine Lake, Canada -- June 2001

Nikon F4s, Nikkor 24mm f2.0, Kodak Royal Gold 200

Recent emails about travel photography reminded me how much I love travel photography myself. As you all know, family circumstances over the last few years dictated that Gail and I could not travel far from home. This picture was taken on our trip to Canada in 2001. It was our last trip out of the country, and it has already been almost 5 years ago. Fortunately, Gail and I have done some extensive traveling since the late 80's, and I've taken LOTS of pictures. I'll always have those pictures to jog the old memory. I'll need to scan some good ones to post here, but all in due time.

This is Moraine Lake, which is right next to Lake Louise. We decided to stay here for a few nights instead of at the busier and more touristy Lake Louise. This lake is frozen until late Spring/early Summer, so we actually delayed our trip until the Moraine Lake Lodge was open for the summer. Here, you can see that the lake was still half frozen (but melting fast). By the time we left, just days later, the lodge was getting ready to launch their canoe rental service for the summer. This trip was taken before digital cameras were practical, so I chose to carry my Nikon F4s with 3 manual focus prime lenses, 24mm, 35mm, and 85mm.

So I guess the bottom line is that I'm posting this picture to make a point. Just because the trend on FPCF has been towards discussions of photographic composition and design, doesn't mean that other forms of photography are not interesting to us. In fact, our discussions about composition and design principles are directly related to all types of photography, including travel photography. If one of us happens to go on a vacation somewhere, I fully expect our forum to be bombarded by marvelous pictures of interesting places. We just happen to be focusing our visions locally, because it's natural and convenient, and there are endless areas to explore in our own backyard.

In fact, I would say that "travel photography" is not so much a particular skill to learn, but I would submit that travel photography is merely an extension or continuation of your own photographic vision to where ever you happen to be at the time. In order to make good travel photos, you still need to meet the same criteria that you would need for any "genre":

1) A thorough knowledge of your equipment and medium
2) An understanding of composition and design
3) An understanding of lighting and exposure
4) An understanding of post-processing techniques and skills
5) A personal vision or "eye", or style, developed over time through practice, and trial and error

Thanks for reading.

--Warren