A Case Study in Travel Photography- Snake Den

   The last few nights I have been watching an online course of travel photography. I have really enjoyed it picked up a few tips. The course covers everything from equipment to composing a photo to what to look for when telling the story of a place through photos. The course is taught by a National Geographic contributor. He is funny and knows his stuff.

   The two most important things I have learned so far are the horizon and what makes a great photo. First the horizon, Although the rule of thirds works in photography, it is not set in stone. If the foreground is the most interesting part of the photo, make the horizon near the top. On the other hand, if the sky is the most interesting part, such as a lightning bolt or a rainbow, or even a cool cloud formation, then have the horizon near the bottom of the photo.

   What he looks for in a great photo are light, composition, and sense of moment. Light is obvious. You need good light for a good photo. Composition is also pretty obvious, how you set up the photo. Basically what your camera sees and what you want the viewer to look at.

   Sense of moment is the tricky one. It means capturing a moment. A facial expression, a plane flying through your photo, maybe even a whale breaching ( I wish!). Something that wasn't there before and won't be there forever.

   Now, the truth is, if I ever got a dream job working for Nat Geo or Outside Magazine, it would be really hard for me. First off, I would find multiple aspects boring. For example photographing food in fancy restaurants or architecture in an old motel would bore the snot right out of my nose. Another very important part of travel photography is photographing the people and culture of a place. Not only does that not really interest me, but it would be very difficult for me to go up to strange people and ask their permission. I am too shy for that.

   Without question, my strong suit is photographing wildlife and scenery. I could do that all day everyday. If I ever get to go on my dream African Safari, I would be in heaven shooting lions, birds, and elephants. But most of those trips also spend a day in a Masi Village. I would consider that such a waste of a day I could be in the bush.

   Anyway, I went to Snake Den Farm tonight to practice some of the stuff I learned. Snake Den is a working farm but it is owned by the state. People are allowed to walk the trails. It is the best place n Rhode Island to see sparrows in the fall. Since my Sigma 150-600 lens is in the shop because I'm an idiot, tonight seemed like a nice night to play around. My goal was to "tell the story" of Snake Den through photos. The cool thing about this game is you can do it anywhere you go. I picked Snake  Den because of the human element of it being a farm. But I might go other places to "tell its story". The cool thing is, anyone can do this anytime and anywhere.

   Before I get to my photos, this isn't a 'brag" piece. In truth, I failed. Only the photos with bees, give a sense of moment. Though many of the other photos have two out of three going for them (Light and composition) they don't have a moment caught in time. Take the farmhouse, I could have taken the photo forty times and it would look exactly the same. If someone would have walked out the door, or a dog was begging to go in, it would have forever been immortalized and I would have caught a moment

   Lastly, other than a couple sunflower photos, I only took one picture of everything I looked at, I tried to force myself to see what the camera was seeing. I wanted the best angle before I pressed the shutter. Again, I failed. I missed a couple of shadows. The sky looked different in a couple photos than I thought it did.

  All these mistakes are okay. Better now then when I go on my next vacation. If I can train my eye to see things and photo ops, maybe, just maybe, I'll have a story to tell from places I visit, and not just photos of its birds.