Avoiding travel photo cliches takes research

We've all seen the iconic travel destinations photographed from the same angle, with the same focal length lens a million times. Hell there's probably tripod pock marks in the spot where a plethora of travel photographers have set up to take a photo before us.

Take this shot above. It's the eyes of Buddha at the Swayambunath Stupa on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal and it is decidedly a cliche. The exact same eyes have been photographed from the exact same angle countless times before, and surely will continue to be for as long as it is beautiful. And how do I know? Just do an internet search for Swayambunath Stupa and see how often this picture comes up. No wonder it's never been licensed!

So before you go somewhere on holiday (or on assignment) you need to find out what has been done before. The internet makes this easier than ever. Just type in a famous location from your upcoming holiday destination into your favourite search engine and you'll come up with pictures galore. If you don't find out what else is out there the chances are the cliche shot is the first one you yourself would grab. Why? Because we're all so unoriginal? No, because often the cliche shot is taken from the best angle so we naturally fall into that trap. Unless we get on the internet and see a trillion examples of what not to photograph.

Firstly take a walk around and see if there is another angle you can shoot it from. Whether it's a better angle or not is kind of irrelevant in this particular mission. Remember you're looking for something different. Chances are that the cliche shot is taken from the best angle but it ceases to be your best option when everybody else has photographed it before.

So walk around and see what you can see. In the case of Swayambunath the cliche shot is the one which is closely focussed on the eyes so I switched to a wide angle and then to a vertical format to show the surroundings of the stupa.

By including the shadow of a pagoda in the foreground I wanted to show that there are other buildings around it. The quintessential Asian pagoda style also gives a feeling for the Buddhist culture that is represented in this Tibetan enclave.

After I tried the vertical I then switched back to a horizontal format. Again this is similar to the shot at the top but I have gone a little wider to show that the eyes of Buddha are not just on the one side but all four sides of the golden, square part of the stupa.

Also by coming around to the side and getting some side light I have brought out the texture of the surface, as opposed to just the golden colours.

Are these images better than the cliche? Depends on your taste I guess but whether they're better per se or not the main thing is that they present a different view of a popular place. They're the shots where people will say to you 'oh I always wondered what it was like on the other side of that monument' or 'I've never seen it photographed from that angle before.'

In a world where millions of people with millions of cameras travel everywhere on the planet and photograph the hell out of it standing out is a hard task. One way to do it is to find out what everybody else is photographing and still photograph the same thing but in a totally unique way. To be able to do that you firstly need to find out how everybody else has photographed it and then do something unique and interesting. When you start doing that you'll become known as the go-to person for unique images of popular destinations.

Monday's links moved to Twitter

Hi there everybody,

I just wanted to let you know that our regular Monday Links post has been shifted over to Twitter. Only it doesn't just happen on a Monday but pretty much every day. As soon as I stumble across a site I think you'd all like I put it up. So if you want to come and follow me just click here and you'll get those links. And it will automatically let you know when I update my blog as well.

Just today I've put up a couple of links - one to an article on what to look for when hiring a wedding photographer ( I know a bit OT but I thought it was a great piece) and another on the value of Copyright and the Licensing of images.

Go click on the Twitter link and join in.

People and wide angle lenses - you gotta get close!

I went to a photographic exhibition last Friday night. It was a great chance to get out and see some work by some amateur photographers from various places around the world. There were some really nice pictures but one thing really jumped up and bit me in the butt.

The vast majority of pictures with people in them - as in pretty much all of them except for a couple - looked like this one above.

In other words they were shot with a wide angle lens where the people were a long way away from the camera and there was absolutely no interaction whatsoever between the people and the photographer. Indeed there was no sense that the people even knew the photographer was there.

Which is all fine and good but the majority of the captions indicated that they were supposed to be photographs of people, which they weren't. They were photographs of a scene in which there happened to be some (tiny) people somewhere in the frame.

Now when I say that there needs to be some interaction between the subject and the photographer I'm not asking you to get people to look at the camera, smile and give you the proverbial peace sign. But I like to look at an image and know that there was some connection between the subject and the photographer.

Take this shot here. Now none of these people are looking at the camera. But you just know that they know that I'm there.

How do you know? Because I'm so close to them with a wide angle lens that they couldn't help but know I'm there. But it's still an environmental portrait because you can see the beach and everything around them.

Now granted both shots were taken for a commercial photo shoot (for Quicksilver cruises in Port Douglas) but you'll have to forgive me because it was the only two images I could find where they were both taken of the same group of people, in the same place, within a few minutes of each other but illustrate the point I wanted to make!

The point being this. If you really want to get over the shyness of photographing people then you have to make it fun. The subject of your photos has to feel honoured to be photographed. And they're not going to feel that way if you photograph them from a long way away with a wide angle lens so that they're hardly visible in the picture.

So get in close to people and say hello. Make some connections, break down some barriers. Once you've got past the smile and peace symbol stage they'll ignore you and then you can take some intimate, engaging portraits that will resonate with your viewers, and will make your subjects happy that they agreed to be photographed.

And if all that sounds a bit hard? Stick to landscapes. No need to have to interact with anyone. :)