Travel photography

All too often the traveling photographer, looking at his tour pictures back home, finds that the fond memories he had hoped to preserve on film have faded as rapidly as a winter vacationer's tan. He wishes he had been better at capturing the atmosphere, at evoking whatever it was that made the visited place so captivating at the time -- in short, at bringing the travel experience back alive. The purpose of this volume is to help him do that.

The traveler with the camera faces some special obstacles he does not have to cope with at home. He cannot carry as much equipment. He spends a great deal of time getting to his destination and an equal amount of time getting back. He may be frustrated by the fleeting opportunity, particularly when it is complicated by bad weather.

Yet he can pack a single camera bag with equipment sufficient to cover nearly any situation he will encounter. He can take some excellent pictures en route, from plane, train, or car. And, most of all, once he fully comprehends the sense of the place, he can learn how to communicate that sense fully in his photographs.

Usually the feeling of place and atmosphere is best conveyed by color. Most traveling photographers tend to think in terms of color; there are 97 color photographs in this volume. Yet a black-and-white picture often expresses more of the traveler's sensations than color can, and pages 109-128 show how professional photographers have used monochrome to advantage.

The chapters in this book combine the advice of professionals with examples from their travels, and offer their tips on everything from what to take along and how to handle lighting problems in dark church interiors to what times of day to take certain pictures, and even how to turn bad weather into an asset. How well that advice can be applied is shown by the fact that 20 of the pictures included are by amateurs.