The Traveling Image Makers

This is the question that Matt Moreland tried to answer in an article I recently found while browsing the Web, titled "10 Ways to Save Money as a Freelance Travel Photographer". I though Matt's suggestions would be useful to anyone who loves to travel and can't count on a lavish budget, so I asked him to be a guest on the show.

Matt Moreland is a travel and lifestyle photographer from Toronto, Canada. After travelling to Peru to hike Machu Picchu he spent 3 months living out of a Jeep across Canada and the Western United States. His appetite for road trips and photography has him currently working on a number of ad campaigns for major car brands such as Land Rover and Toyota. He is currently planning his next adventure, an extended East Coast road trip through Canada and the US in the fall with his dog Lucy.

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To say that my guest for this episode of the podcast, Luca Bracali, is a travel photographer would be too limiting, for he is also an expert TV director and a true explorer, having been to the North Pole, amongst other truly remote locations.

My interest in Luca's work and personality, and the reason why I invited him to be a guest on the show, was sparked mostly from his commitment to the preservation of the environment and the deep respect and love he has for the Earth, its nature, and its people.

Luca Bracali has travelled to 138 countries, is the author of eight books and the winner of eight prizes in international photographic competitions. Since 2008 he is a member of APECS (Association of Polar Early Career Scientists) for his contributions about the environment published in the media. In 2009 he was the only reporter to reach the geographic North Pole on skis. In 2010 Bracali debuted in the world of fine-art photography and his pictures have been on display, as solo exhibitions, in museums and galleries in Rome, Sofia, Kiev, Odessa, Copenhagen, Akureyri, Montreal and New York. He directed 150 shows for the Italian TV network RAI 1 and was a guest on over 40 programs and daily news aired on RAI networks as an explorer and documentary filmmaker. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge named after him the 198,616th asteroid discovered. Three of his latest reportages have been published on National Geographic.

Besides environmental issues, we discussed the special challenges photographers have to face when shooting in extreme climates, what it takes to be a TV director, ancient art as inspiration, and other topics.

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A few weeks ago, when I asked Ron Clifford to be my guest on the podcast, we discussed what topics we could converse about and he quipped that we could mention his distinction of being a “bipolar” photographer.

At first, I thought he was referring to having visited and photographed both the Arctic and the Antarctic, but what I discovered during the interview is that Ron had been suffering for years of bipolar depression.

I think it was very brave of him to mention this and to tell the story of how travel and photography helped him overcome his condition.

This is what Ron says of himself:

I am an artist, coach, and creative mentor with a unique ability to help unlock the creative ninja that lives inside every person. You could say I really do is explore my world through the connections my camera helps me create – and to help others overcome roadblocks and see blind spots along their own creative journey.

I have the best job in the whole world.

I love to shoot in Nature, especially the landscape and wildlife photography. Recently I have been very fortunate to be able to build my portfolio of images from the extreme regions of the planet. Both the Arctic and Antarctica. Along with my passion for the natural world, I love to photograph people and I remain a very active portrait photographer. I always say,

“Do what you can’t help but do“

and for me that is to explore the natural world, photograph the people in it and teach others to do the same.

I believe we only truly reach our potential when we learn to help others. To lift each other up. We were made for community and family and in a certain way, that’s what I do. I build community and strengthen bonds through the experience of photography. Nothing can compare to getting involved in building up another person’s real life.

I don’t want to brag, however, just so you know, I have been featured in the top 1% most endorsed Canadian Fine Art Photographers on Linkedin, (Spring 2013) – and I am the Most Followed photographer and most followed male on G+ in Canada with nearly 3 million followers. Even publications like National Geographic, PhotoExtract Magazine, and the “Plus One Collection have granted me the pleasure of contributing to them.

I believe we are created to be creative, that our creativity is not a special endowment or fleeting feeling, it is who we are. We each have unique strengths and gifts to use in this world and I believe that God has provided me with my talents to help me be in touch with what He desires… His Creation, His Community.

Having been tutored by Ron in one of his courses, I can definitely attest to that. He’s a natural born educator and I think this quality show clearly in this interview. If you want to know what drives Ron to help others on their creative journey, I encourage you to listen to it.

Duration 36m 05s.

If you liked this episode, please tell us in the comments below, or leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you!

Music for this episode: “Zanzibar” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Links

* Website

* Google+

* Facebook

* Genesis, The Cinema Show

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Is technology killing our empathy?

This is the question Jacquelyn Quinones asked during her recent TEDx talk in Paris. This is a question that we, as travel photographers, should ask ourselves every day.

Technology lets us travel fast and almost always comfortably to remote places. It enables us to take thousands of photos of people from different countries and alien cultures. It invites us to share those photos on the Web with our followers. But in the end, aren't many photographers treating their subjects as if they were animals in a zoo? What is the story behind the portrait of a woman from the farthest reaches of Borneo? Where is the respect? Where is the empathy?

I discussed these topics with Jacquelyn in a conversation that was, for once, devoid of geekery and totally focused on how we can change our approach to technology for the better.

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It's not a secret that I believe writing is an essential skill for travel photographers. I discussed this in episode 21 with Jens Lennartsson, especially with respect to how travel writing can help photographers make a profit and sell their work to magazines and websites more effectively.

So when I learned about Great Escape Publishing and their programs for aspiring travel writers, I contacted their director, Lori Allen and asked her to come on the show and talk to us about it.

Great Escape publishes myriad books, report, online programs and guides on getting paid to travel. They also host live events around the world where you can try each of their ideas first hand. Their upcoming travel writing workshop in New Orleans will be their 133rd live event with expeditions in Mexico and Tanzania still to come this year and adventures in Botswana, Namibia, Thailand, Cuba and Jordan in 2017.

If you ever thought of getting into travel writing and using it to make your photography more saleable, but you don't think you have the necessary skills, I encourage you to listen to my interview with Lori.

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I have been wanting to interview Jay Patel for quite some time, but Jay is a rather busy person, what with having to manage a photography business that is expanding in various directions, running a popular website, traveling, and on top of it all, being the father of a large family.

I finally managed to corner him in between trips to Iceland and Hawaii and of course wanted to know all about the land of fire and ice and his adventure chasing puffins and waterfalls. We also talked about what it takes to photograph the wilderness and I managed to extract from him some elements of his secret recipe for making a living out of photographing nature.

Another topic that is close to my heart and to Jay's is that of conservation and we couldn't help but dedicate some time to exploring ways in which photographers can help saving our planet.

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Sometimes we are so taken up with the latest camera or lens, with pixel-peeping, and with learning the latest and greatest blending technique for Photoshop that we lose sight of some of the things that really matter when doing photography. I personally think that the greatest benefit that travel photography affords us is the joy of being there in the moment. If this is spoiled by having to fiddle with the complicated controls of the latest camera we bought, that we didn't have the time to familiarize with and that we carried inside a heavy backpack to reach our destination, then it's maybe better to stay at home.

I discussed this topic with Viktor Elizarov, who has made simplification is mantra.

Viktor is travel, landscape photographer and educator from Montreal, Canada. For years Viktor has worked as a designer in a range of areas from graphic design and web design to multimedia design and broadcast design. But in the last decade, he made a transition to photography. He runs the popular travel photography blog, Photo Traces, where he shares his experiences as a travel photographer and also teaches the different aspects of travel photography.

Duration 33m 20s.

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It is always a great pleasure for me to converse with Karen Hutton. There is never a dull moment and she has so many stories to tell! For this episode of the podcast, I asked her to collect her best memories from her recent trip across Europe and from her "artists' retreat" in Provence.

Karen Hutton is an International Landscape and Travel Photographer, Artist, Speaker, Author, Educator, Voice. She has over 2 million followers on social media; with over 11 billion views of her photographic work. She is a Professional Fujifilm-X Photographer and has been featured in Talks at Google, Photo Plus Expo and on Stuck in Customs, TWiP, Macphun Software, Forbes.com, The Grid, Rick Sammon’s DPE Podcast. Karen lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. You can find her at Karenhutton.com.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact topic of our conversation, because we talked about so many things, but I think the central theme of it was the many ways of finding one's voice through art and of discovering one's true self by traveling.

Somehow, we also found the time to explore more geeky topics, like photo equipment, software, the Internet and social media, so there's a little bit of everything for everyone in this interview. Enjoy!

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If you've been following this podcast for some time, you will have certainly noticed that one of the recurring themes here is that of giving back, of using photography to effect some real change in the world and to benefit the communities that we visit when we travel.

This was the central point of Episode 25 with John Butterill, of Episode 14 with Anna Tenne, and of Episode 13 with Ralph Velasco.

I was very happy then, when I contacted Darlene Hildebrandt, asking for an interview, and she told me about her involvement with the people of the El Limonal community in Nicaragua. We immediately agreed that our conversation would be focused on that and, more in general, on the various ways in which travel photographers can do more than just come, snap some pictures and leave.

Darlene is the creator of Digital Photo Mentor. She has been a professional photographer for over 26 years, and photography educator since 2011. Darlene provides valuable articles on her site, has a free ebook, and offers online photography courses, as well as photography travel tours. Her next tour is to Nicaragua in November where you can participate in giving back to the communities there by working with the locals, and a kids photography group.

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Raise your hand if you don't know Martin Bailey. Besides being a great nature and wildlife photographer, a fantastic educator and Arcanum master, a keen traveler, a prolific author, and an X-Rite Coloratti member, he's also the host of one of the longest running photography podcasts, having been continuously on the air for 11 years.

Fueled by his passion for nature and travel, and a tireless desire to share his knowledge and artistic vision, Martin is a popular international tour and workshop leader, helping photographers from around the world to see and capture the wonders of this awesome planet we call home.

It was therefore a great pleasure and honor for me to be able to interview Martin for my podcast and I am confident you too will appreciate his insights, if you listen to this episode.

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