Love to capture photos while traveling the world or near your home? Ready to improve your photography techniques? Join award-winning photographer Kyle Adler for a special online workshop on the basic principles of travel photography. We’ll cover how to plan your travel with an eye toward photography, how to pack, a few simple technical matters, and general approaches to various genres including landscape, cityscape, portrait, night photography, street, sports/action, food/beverage photography, etc. The session will be kept small so we can be interactive. This workshop is suitable for all photographers from beginners through enthusiasts to semi-professionals and professionals. Hope you can participate in this rare opportunity to learn a wide range of practical travel photography techniques in a concise 75-minute format!
Some places are magnets that draw us back again and again. I’ve made at least a dozen visits to New Orleans and each time, I find something new. It’s an iconic US city that also defies easy categorization. Home to unique and cutting-edge forms of music, cuisine, and culture, it is also steeped in a grand historic past that evokes France, Spain, Africa, and the Deep South of the US. Quite simply, there is no other place like New Orleans, and nowhere else do travel photographers find more charismatic subjects. Here are a few of my favorite images from a recent visit to NOLA, along with a few words about what they depict and how they were made.
Aside from Paris, I can’t think of any other city that has influenced the cocktail more than New Orleans. Here I captured my older daughter enjoying a classic NOLA libation during dinner on our first night in the Big Easy. I used only natural light and selected a large aperture to soften the background. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Buy this photo
It’s boozy, vomit-filled, sophomoric, touristy, overpriced, and downright awful, but Bourbon Street is a part of the landscape and is worth a quick walk-by. At night, its neon assault can almost seem romantic. This shot was handheld using a high ISO setting and a small aperture for greater depth of field. Buy this photo
The lovely Spanish colonial architecture of the French Quarter cries out to be photographed. I made this shot of a wrought iron balcony using a telephoto lens and enhanced the color vibrancy during post-processing. Buy this photo
It’s the tiny cheap eateries as much as the temples of haute gastronomy that keep New Orleans at the top of the list of cities for dining. Be sure to grab some po’ boys, beignets, or muffulettas at these humbler places, and bring your camera to catch some of the action. This image of workers in a po’ boy shop was shot from the hip, street photography style, using a high ISO to allow for a quick shutter speed. Buy this photo
New Orleans is rightly famous for its jazz, which seems to seep through every crack in the pavement of the city and can be heard in places humble or elevated. None is better than the iconic Preservation Hall. As with many performance venues, this hall allows photography without flash, but it is always better to ask permission first and to be discrete during shows. Use a fast lens and high ISO setting to allow a fast shutter speed. Buy this photo
A short trip outside of the city quickly reminds you that New Orleans is a part of the American Deep South. This image was shot from an airboat plying the bayous of Jean Lafitte National Historic Preserve. I metered the exposure on the lush vegetation lining the waterway so as to avoid overexposure from the bright reflections. Buy this photo
I captured this image of an alligator seeking the sun on an overcast winter’s day by framing tightly around the gator and its reflection. In post-processing, I cropped to emphasize the symmetry of reptile and reflection and converted the image to black-and-white, while increasing its contrast a bit. Buy this photo
I’m a big fan of food photography, especially when the plate is as strikingly beautiful as this one served at Brigtsen’s Restaurant. I framed the shot tightly with a fast prime lens and a wide aperture to reduce the depth of field. Buy this photo
Wherever we travel, we should make images that bring out a sense of place. This image of my daughters strolling in the Garden District works because it captures the iconic symbols of this neighborhood–the stately mansions and live oak trees–while being a bit playful and framed in an unexpected way. And as I’ve said many times, remember to capture your travel companions in some of your shots. Buy this photo
Have you visited New Orleans with a camera in hand? Please share your experiences. Where do you like to visit and what do you like to shoot?
Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Iconic Moroccan scene: No visit to the Sahara Desert would be complete without experiencing a dromedary ride across the sand dunes. Ever try to photograph while clinging on for dear life atop the lurching single hump of a dromedary? I have. The best advice for shooting in situations like this one is to preset your camera to a very fast shutter speed in order to freeze the motion, use your camera’s or lens’s stabilization feature, and capture a few bursts of many shots in quick succession. You’re unlikely to get any award-winning photos while traveling on camelback, but using these tips you can at least capture some of the adventure of the experience.
My wife and I recently returned from a lovely adventure traveling through Morocco.
OAT’s Morocco Sahara Odyssey itinerary took us from the administrative capital
of Rabat to the ancient cultural capital of Fez, to the thrilling and
otherworldly Sahara Desert including a stay in a luxurious private tented camp
nestled among the sand dunes, into the High Atlas Mountains, then on to the
quintessential overload experience for all the senses that is Marrakesh, and
finally to fabled Casablanca. Throughout this adventure we had the
opportunity to meet and learn from local Moroccan people of diverse backgrounds
and trades. Morocco is a special
destination for photographers of all levels: whether you’re shooting with 40
pounds of professional gear (and the backache to prove it) or just using your
phone’s camera, this is an adventure that will engage your creativity to capture
sweeping desert landscapes, street scenes among the vibrant and bustling souks,
ancient cityscapes, lovely portraits, and exotic wildlife.
Our Moroccan adventure began in the capital city, Rabat. Rabat boasts
a twelfth-century mosque and minaret that would have been the world’s largest
had they been completed.
When strolling through any city I’m
always on the lookout for interesting patterns of color and texture. This bustling urban scene impressed me with
its repeating pattern of blue taxicabs framed by manicured palm trees and
whitewashed buildings.
From Rabat we traveled to
ancient Fez, with its rich Moroccan cultural legacy.
At a souk (marketplace) in the old part of Fez, a vendor prepares thin
layers of dough for cooking. Many
photographers expect Morocco to be a challenging destination for portraiture
because some of its people hold to traditional beliefs and would prefer not to
be photographed. We found this to be
only partly true. As in any other
country, in Morocco one should always ask permission before shooting closeup
photos including any person. But in
today’s Morocco, particularly in urban settings, people have smartphones and
are quite accustomed to being photographed.
Your trip experience leader can act as a local “fixer,” helping
introduce us to the people we meet and translating for us to help pave the way
for photography. But with or without a
local guide, the traveler who makes an effort to get to know their subject
first is likely to be rewarded with a richer understanding of the local culture
and some lovely portraits by which to remember its people.
Traditional
leather dyeing process at a tannery in Fez.
The tannery staff take pride in continuing to employ natural methods as
opposed to the chemical processes used by most modern tanneries. As we looked down on the dyeing vats from the
roof of the tannery’s adjacent four-story shop building, I was struck by the
stunning array of vibrant colors. I used
a moderate telephoto lens to compose the image and underexposed the shot by one
stop to concentrate the saturation of the colors.
Our
intrepid group poses wearing traditional Moroccan turbans at the caravansary,
an ancient rest stop along the trade route where camels were fed and sheltered
on the ground floor while their people were taken care of on the upper floors. It’s always fun to capture some shots of the
entire group while traveling. Here, I
used a wide-angle lens to include everyone along with the surroundings, a
technique referred to as an environmental portrait. The trick when photographing people through a
wide-angle lens is to keep the lens exactly level to the ground rather than
pointing it up or down, which causes unflattering distortion.
After
spending several days in Fez, we traveled through the Middle Atlas Mountains
into the Sahara Desert. The stark,
otherworldly features of the desert were a highlight of the trip. Far from being a desolate and lifeless place,
the Sahara is teeming with flora and fauna and home to some of the friendliest
people we’ve met.
Traveling
through the Middle Atlas Mountains between Fez and Erfoud, we stopped to view Barbary
apes in their habitat in a cedar forest within a national park. Tips for better wildlife photography include
using a long telephoto lens to allow shooting from a safe distance so as not to
endanger you or your subject, selecting a high ISO setting and a fast shutter
speed, and grabbing a burst of many shots so as to increase the chances of
walking away with at least one really good one.
Meet Moha,
whose father many years ago found ground water just below a seemingly lifeless
patch of land in the Sahara Desert and decided to plant there. Moha, shown here with his granddaughter, took
over the farm from his father and now tends to more than 150 date trees. He showed us his entire impressive operation. When making portraits of two people, it’s
best to wait for them to relax and then to catch the moments when they are
interacting with each other and not the camera.
I used a wide aperture setting (small f-stop number) to soften the
background, which helps emphasize the people in the foreground.
Hiking to the top of a massive sand dune
near our tented camp to enjoy happy hour, I captured this landscape photo of a
Saharan sunset. Not all landscapes need
to be photographed using a wide-angle lens.
In this case I wanted to compress the apparent distance between the
far-off layers of dunes, so I used a moderate telephoto lens. Underexposing by one stop helped concentrate
the colors in this scene.
Sand surfing down from our perch on the
dunes. Because this photo was shot in almost
total darkness well after sunset, I had to boost my camera’s ISO sensitivity
setting. This allowed the use of a small
enough aperture (high f-stop number) to keep the whole scene in sharp focus and
a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action.
Spectacular night sky in the middle of
the Sahara Desert featuring a brilliant Milky Way and a meteorite above rolling
sand dunes. Because our private tented
camp was situated in a remote spot among the dunes, I had only to walk a few
steps from our tent to find a dark-sky location for night photography. Today’s cameras are much better at capturing
nighttime scenes, but there are still some complexities in getting your shot:
use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release to keep your camera
stationary, employ a wide-angle lens to include more of the sky, focus manually
so that the stars appear sharp, and select a fast ISO setting and wide aperture
(small f-stop number) to allow a shutter speed of no longer than twenty seconds.
A longer exposure risks that the stars will move during your shot.
This region of the Sahara is known for
its Gnawa musicians. Originally from
Sub-Saharan Africa, their ancestors escaped slavery and migrated north,
bringing ancient folk traditions with them.
Today pre-Islamic and more modern musical forms are integrated into their
performances. The famous photojournalist
Robert Capa once said, “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close
enough.” This is not universally true
but it’s certainly a helpful reminder when shooting portraits that we shouldn’t
be afraid to get really close to our subjects—assuming we have their permission
and we’re not disrupting their activities.
I used my go-to portrait lens, a moderate (85mm) telephoto prime
(non-zoom) lens with a very wide aperture (very low f-stop number) to be able
to get this closeup without disturbing the performance. The wide aperture allows a faster shutter
speed to freeze the motion and also softens the background so that the
drummer’s features are emphasized.
We had a chance meeting with Aicha as
she carried a tree she planned to use for firewood through the alleys of the
village of Tinjdad. Our wonderful trip
experience leader Mohammed broke the ice by asking Aicha some questions about
her life and her activities that day.
She had quite a few questions for us, too, and found the interaction to
be very amusing. With her permission I
made this delightful portrait that expresses her wisdom and curiosity about the
people she has just met.
En route from the Sahara to the ancient and
chaotic city of Marrakesh, we visited several villages and met some of their people.
An eleventh-century
village and fortress that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For village scenes, I find it’s helpful to
look for a while without the camera and wait for an interesting visual story to
come to mind. Only then do I choose the
right focal length lens to tell the story.
There are many ways to photograph an historical place, so be sure to
find a story that has meaning to you.
In the
village of Asfalu, Ahmed and his wife Leila welcomed us into their home. I love this portrait of one of their daughters,
13-year-old Nouhayla. After getting to
know each other, she agreed to pose for the photo and I suggested we move into
the courtyard outside their home where there was an uncluttered
background. The background is at least
as important as the foreground subject when composing a photo, so don’t be shy
about moving your subject.
Marrakesh
is a place unlike any other. Its ancient
souks inhabit the narrow alleys of the medina (old city). Jemaa el-Fnaa Square, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site in the heart of town, bustles day and night with thousands of visitors
from near and far.
We enjoyed
coffee at a café atop a nearby building and were afforded a panoramic view at
sunset over Jemaa el-Fnaa Square. Any
camera yields great results when photographing a scene this vibrant and
lively. Just choose a composition that
speaks to you and fire away. I do
recommend checking that the horizon line is level while composing your shot, as
it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of the scene and to shoot
with an uneven horizon.
One of
countless thousands of vendor stalls along the labyrinthine alleys of Marrakesh’s
medina. I was intrigued by the array of
identically shaped jars, each with its own vibrantly colored contents. To ensure the lines of the shelves were not
distorted, I used a medium telephoto lens and shot from slightly further
back. Wide-angle lenses have the effect
of distorting parallel lines unless great care is taken when composing the
photo.
A few
travelers from our group used our free time to hike among the hill towns of the
Imlil Valley in the High Atlas Mountains.
We were afforded glorious views of nearby villages as we trekked along
the narrow trails. This scene of a
village at the base of the mountain appeared around a bend in the trail.
A beautiful
tagine (Moroccan stew) served at lunch during our hike. We were amazed by the flavor and appearance
of this dish, especially given our location at a tiny rooftop café in a remote
mountain village. Capturing photos of
food is rarely easy and certainly was a challenge in dazzlingly bright
sunlight. I moved the tagine under a
canopy, positioned a black placemat behind it, and shot from an oblique angle
to bring out the contrasting colors and textures in the dish. During post-processing, I cropped a bit more
tightly and darkened the background to make it completely black.
Leaving
Marrakesh behind, we traveled to Casablanca, our final stop before returning home.
The Hassan
II Mosque in Casablanca is the world’s third-largest mosque, accommodating
105,000 worshipers. Only the mosques in
Mecca and Medina are bigger.
Photographing very large and tall buildings poses a challenge. To include the whole structure a very
wide-angle lens is required, but if the camera is tilted up or down even a
little bit, the lines of the building are distorted. Here I used an ultrawide lens but ensured the
camera was kept exactly level to the ground to minimize distortion.
We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.
Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo
Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.
To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo
Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.
A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo
A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo
Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.
To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo
The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo
It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo
My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo
Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo
Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.
Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
Iconic Moroccan scene: No visit to the Sahara Desert would be complete without experiencing a dromedary ride across the sand dunes. Ever try to photograph while clinging on for dear life atop the lurching single hump of a dromedary? I have. The best advice for shooting in situations like this one is to preset your camera to a very fast shutter speed in order to freeze the motion, use your camera’s or lens’s stabilization feature, and capture a few bursts of many shots in quick succession. You’re unlikely to get any award-winning photos while traveling on camelback, but using these tips you can at least capture some of the adventure of the experience.
My wife and I recently returned from a lovely adventure traveling through Morocco.
OAT’s Morocco Sahara Odyssey itinerary took us from the administrative capital
of Rabat to the ancient cultural capital of Fez, to the thrilling and
otherworldly Sahara Desert including a stay in a luxurious private tented camp
nestled among the sand dunes, into the High Atlas Mountains, then on to the
quintessential overload experience for all the senses that is Marrakesh, and
finally to fabled Casablanca. Throughout this adventure we had the
opportunity to meet and learn from local Moroccan people of diverse backgrounds
and trades. Morocco is a special
destination for photographers of all levels: whether you’re shooting with 40
pounds of professional gear (and the backache to prove it) or just using your
phone’s camera, this is an adventure that will engage your creativity to capture
sweeping desert landscapes, street scenes among the vibrant and bustling souks,
ancient cityscapes, lovely portraits, and exotic wildlife.
Our Moroccan adventure began in the capital city, Rabat. Rabat boasts
a twelfth-century mosque and minaret that would have been the world’s largest
had they been completed.
When strolling through any city I’m
always on the lookout for interesting patterns of color and texture. This bustling urban scene impressed me with
its repeating pattern of blue taxicabs framed by manicured palm trees and
whitewashed buildings.
From Rabat we traveled to
ancient Fez, with its rich Moroccan cultural legacy.
At a souk (marketplace) in the old part of Fez, a vendor prepares thin
layers of dough for cooking. Many
photographers expect Morocco to be a challenging destination for portraiture
because some of its people hold to traditional beliefs and would prefer not to
be photographed. We found this to be
only partly true. As in any other
country, in Morocco one should always ask permission before shooting closeup
photos including any person. But in
today’s Morocco, particularly in urban settings, people have smartphones and
are quite accustomed to being photographed.
Your trip experience leader can act as a local “fixer,” helping
introduce us to the people we meet and translating for us to help pave the way
for photography. But with or without a
local guide, the traveler who makes an effort to get to know their subject
first is likely to be rewarded with a richer understanding of the local culture
and some lovely portraits by which to remember its people.
Traditional
leather dyeing process at a tannery in Fez.
The tannery staff take pride in continuing to employ natural methods as
opposed to the chemical processes used by most modern tanneries. As we looked down on the dyeing vats from the
roof of the tannery’s adjacent four-story shop building, I was struck by the
stunning array of vibrant colors. I used
a moderate telephoto lens to compose the image and underexposed the shot by one
stop to concentrate the saturation of the colors.
Our
intrepid group poses wearing traditional Moroccan turbans at the caravansary,
an ancient rest stop along the trade route where camels were fed and sheltered
on the ground floor while their people were taken care of on the upper floors. It’s always fun to capture some shots of the
entire group while traveling. Here, I
used a wide-angle lens to include everyone along with the surroundings, a
technique referred to as an environmental portrait. The trick when photographing people through a
wide-angle lens is to keep the lens exactly level to the ground rather than
pointing it up or down, which causes unflattering distortion.
After
spending several days in Fez, we traveled through the Middle Atlas Mountains
into the Sahara Desert. The stark,
otherworldly features of the desert were a highlight of the trip. Far from being a desolate and lifeless place,
the Sahara is teeming with flora and fauna and home to some of the friendliest
people we’ve met.
Traveling
through the Middle Atlas Mountains between Fez and Erfoud, we stopped to view Barbary
apes in their habitat in a cedar forest within a national park. Tips for better wildlife photography include
using a long telephoto lens to allow shooting from a safe distance so as not to
endanger you or your subject, selecting a high ISO setting and a fast shutter
speed, and grabbing a burst of many shots so as to increase the chances of
walking away with at least one really good one.
Meet Moha,
whose father many years ago found ground water just below a seemingly lifeless
patch of land in the Sahara Desert and decided to plant there. Moha, shown here with his granddaughter, took
over the farm from his father and now tends to more than 150 date trees. He showed us his entire impressive operation. When making portraits of two people, it’s
best to wait for them to relax and then to catch the moments when they are
interacting with each other and not the camera.
I used a wide aperture setting (small f-stop number) to soften the
background, which helps emphasize the people in the foreground.
Hiking to the top of a massive sand dune
near our tented camp to enjoy happy hour, I captured this landscape photo of a
Saharan sunset. Not all landscapes need
to be photographed using a wide-angle lens.
In this case I wanted to compress the apparent distance between the
far-off layers of dunes, so I used a moderate telephoto lens. Underexposing by one stop helped concentrate
the colors in this scene.
Sand surfing down from our perch on the
dunes. Because this photo was shot in almost
total darkness well after sunset, I had to boost my camera’s ISO sensitivity
setting. This allowed the use of a small
enough aperture (high f-stop number) to keep the whole scene in sharp focus and
a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action.
Spectacular night sky in the middle of
the Sahara Desert featuring a brilliant Milky Way and a meteorite above rolling
sand dunes. Because our private tented
camp was situated in a remote spot among the dunes, I had only to walk a few
steps from our tent to find a dark-sky location for night photography. Today’s cameras are much better at capturing
nighttime scenes, but there are still some complexities in getting your shot:
use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release to keep your camera
stationary, employ a wide-angle lens to include more of the sky, focus manually
so that the stars appear sharp, and select a fast ISO setting and wide aperture
(small f-stop number) to allow a shutter speed of no longer than twenty seconds.
A longer exposure risks that the stars will move during your shot.
This region of the Sahara is known for
its Gnawa musicians. Originally from
Sub-Saharan Africa, their ancestors escaped slavery and migrated north,
bringing ancient folk traditions with them.
Today pre-Islamic and more modern musical forms are integrated into their
performances. The famous photojournalist
Robert Capa once said, “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close
enough.” This is not universally true
but it’s certainly a helpful reminder when shooting portraits that we shouldn’t
be afraid to get really close to our subjects—assuming we have their permission
and we’re not disrupting their activities.
I used my go-to portrait lens, a moderate (85mm) telephoto prime
(non-zoom) lens with a very wide aperture (very low f-stop number) to be able
to get this closeup without disturbing the performance. The wide aperture allows a faster shutter
speed to freeze the motion and also softens the background so that the
drummer’s features are emphasized.
We had a chance meeting with Aicha as
she carried a tree she planned to use for firewood through the alleys of the
village of Tinjdad. Our wonderful trip
experience leader Mohammed broke the ice by asking Aicha some questions about
her life and her activities that day.
She had quite a few questions for us, too, and found the interaction to
be very amusing. With her permission I
made this delightful portrait that expresses her wisdom and curiosity about the
people she has just met.
En route from the Sahara to the ancient and
chaotic city of Marrakesh, we visited several villages and met some of their people.
An eleventh-century
village and fortress that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For village scenes, I find it’s helpful to
look for a while without the camera and wait for an interesting visual story to
come to mind. Only then do I choose the
right focal length lens to tell the story.
There are many ways to photograph an historical place, so be sure to
find a story that has meaning to you.
In the
village of Asfalu, Ahmed and his wife Leila welcomed us into their home. I love this portrait of one of their daughters,
13-year-old Nouhayla. After getting to
know each other, she agreed to pose for the photo and I suggested we move into
the courtyard outside their home where there was an uncluttered
background. The background is at least
as important as the foreground subject when composing a photo, so don’t be shy
about moving your subject.
Marrakesh
is a place unlike any other. Its ancient
souks inhabit the narrow alleys of the medina (old city). Jemaa el-Fnaa Square, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site in the heart of town, bustles day and night with thousands of visitors
from near and far.
We enjoyed
coffee at a café atop a nearby building and were afforded a panoramic view at
sunset over Jemaa el-Fnaa Square. Any
camera yields great results when photographing a scene this vibrant and
lively. Just choose a composition that
speaks to you and fire away. I do
recommend checking that the horizon line is level while composing your shot, as
it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of the scene and to shoot
with an uneven horizon.
One of
countless thousands of vendor stalls along the labyrinthine alleys of Marrakesh’s
medina. I was intrigued by the array of
identically shaped jars, each with its own vibrantly colored contents. To ensure the lines of the shelves were not
distorted, I used a medium telephoto lens and shot from slightly further
back. Wide-angle lenses have the effect
of distorting parallel lines unless great care is taken when composing the
photo.
A few
travelers from our group used our free time to hike among the hill towns of the
Imlil Valley in the High Atlas Mountains.
We were afforded glorious views of nearby villages as we trekked along
the narrow trails. This scene of a
village at the base of the mountain appeared around a bend in the trail.
A beautiful
tagine (Moroccan stew) served at lunch during our hike. We were amazed by the flavor and appearance
of this dish, especially given our location at a tiny rooftop café in a remote
mountain village. Capturing photos of
food is rarely easy and certainly was a challenge in dazzlingly bright
sunlight. I moved the tagine under a
canopy, positioned a black placemat behind it, and shot from an oblique angle
to bring out the contrasting colors and textures in the dish. During post-processing, I cropped a bit more
tightly and darkened the background to make it completely black.
Leaving
Marrakesh behind, we traveled to Casablanca, our final stop before returning home.
The Hassan
II Mosque in Casablanca is the world’s third-largest mosque, accommodating
105,000 worshipers. Only the mosques in
Mecca and Medina are bigger.
Photographing very large and tall buildings poses a challenge. To include the whole structure a very
wide-angle lens is required, but if the camera is tilted up or down even a
little bit, the lines of the building are distorted. Here I used an ultrawide lens but ensured the
camera was kept exactly level to the ground to minimize distortion.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
A big part of the joy of travel is learning about the local food and drink. For the travel photographer, local culinary specialties represent a cornucopia of image possibilities. In this post, we’ll look at some food images and discuss a few tips and tricks to make delectable photos of the victuals we meet while traveling. Warning: Do not read this post while hungry.
When photographing plated food, it’s best to get in close. Shoot straight down or at a slightly oblique angle, and always check your background to ensure it is as uncluttered as possible. Be aware of your focal point and depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) so that the most important part(s) of your image are sharp.
For this photo of a cheese plate in Burgundy, France, I got in close to the subject and chose a small aperture to ensure all the different cheeses were sharply in focus. Buy this photo
Don’t forget that specialty drinks are also a big part of local culture. For example, in Argentina the deep love of mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a local infusion, becomes almost a religious practice. This image of the mate service engages all the senses with its bright colors, contrasting textures, and suggestion of the smell and taste of the drink. To capture a sense of the Argentinian obsession with mate, I shot this image of the serving of the drink with all its components. I wanted to include some of the environment around the mate tray as well. The scene was lit with natural light, which further saturated the bright colors.
Always be on the lookout for local dishes that are unusual or exotic to our own sensibilities. This image of the local Peruvian specialty cuy, or guinea pig, has sold well on American and European stock photography sites because the main ingredient is so unfamiliar to our palettes. I love the saturated colors and the humor inherent in the guinea pigs holding peppers in their mouths. The ocher wall makes a lovely background to offset the colors of the dish. To capture this image of Peruvian cuy served during a home-hosted lunch, I got in close as the hostess held up her dish, ensuring that the ocher wall behind was all that was visible in the background. I chose a wide aperture to slightly blur one of the guinea pigs and the wall. I used natural lighting with just a kiss of off-camera flash to accentuate the highlights.
Sometimes it is the ingredients rather than the final dish that are most interesting. While on a shore excursion on the Greek island of Rhodes, my family saw these beautiful octopuses hanging to dry in the sun. After photographing them, we ordered a plate of grilled octopus. We very nearly missed the sailing of our ship, as the taverna’s cook took her time to grill the dish, but it was absolutely worth it!
Obviously, natural light was the way to go with this image. I wanted to get in close, but not too tight, so that the lovely Rhodes scenery would be partly visible behind the drying octopus. I used a medium-wide aperture to slightly soften the background. Buy this photo
What’s even better than food images? Portraits of local people making or serving the food! Here’s a shot of a server holding up a tray of Istanbul’s best baklava. The background is a bit cluttered, but I like this image for its blending of the beautiful dessert tray with the pride of the man serving it.
Often a street vendor, cook, or restaurant server will be reluctant to have their portrait made but will be happy to pose with their wares. For this portrait of an Istanbul baklava server, I chose a wide-angle lens and got in very close to the food tray to emphasize the baklava while including the server in the composition. Just natural light and balanced fill flash were used as lighting. Buy this photo
Street markets are a wonderful source of travel images. They tend to be bright, colorful, exotic, and characteristic of the location. Be aware that some vendors will expect you to buy something if you want to photograph their wares.
I like the contrasting colors in this shot of Istanbul’s ancient Spice Market. Buy this photo
Nearly every culture around the world has its own version of barbecue, and in my broad and diverse travel experience, it’s all good. Here’s a photo of whole branzino (Mediterranean sea bass) fish being grilled topside by the captain of our small wooden sailing ship on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It was nearly completely dark, so I lit this image using light from the burning coals and a touch of flash. A relatively high ISO was required to balance the low natural light with the need for a small enough aperture to keep the whole subject in focus.
Whole fish on the grill aboard a gulet yacht in Turkey. Buy this photo
Sometimes a local cuisine is all about diversity, such as the Dutch-Indonesian specialty rijsttafel (rice table). Some presentations of rijsttafel in Amsterdam involve over a hundred different tiny plates, each containing a different food preparation. To capture this tapestry of tastes, I stood on the bench and shot obliquely onto the table top, including as much of the spread as I could.
Indonesian rijsttafel served in Amsterdam. Note that in restaurants at night we have little or no control over the artificial lighting, which can sometimes lead to an unnatural color cast on the food. Shoot in RAW format so you can adjust the color balance during post-processing when you get home. Buy this photo
I grew up in New England, and after traveling to more than 100 countries around the world I can say with authority that few meals can beat a good old-fashioned New England clambake with lobster. To capture this iconic image, I shot up close and directly toward the lobster, using a normal lens with a medium aperture. This allowed most of the meal to be sharply focused, but with some falloff in sharpness toward the edges in order to emphasize the Maine event. The contrasting colors between lobster, clams, and corn make for a pleasing composition.
A lobster clambake in Maine showcases the contrasting colors and textures of this delicious meal. Buy this photo
As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this image of French haute cuisine. The gloriously prepared and plated fish course at Paul Bocuse’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant made a fun subject because it is whimsical and artistic at the same time. The available lighting was soft and subdued for artificial light, so no flash was needed. I shot some closer compositions of just the plate, but preferred this one with some of the table setting included.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
We’re recently returned from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland. Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh. The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere. I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.
The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle. In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two. This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival. To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting. You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work. Buy this photo
It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin. Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.
Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO. Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions. Buy this photo
I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula. There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery. A photographer’s paradise!
St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula. To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky. Buy this photo
Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets! On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning. Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a Sixth Century monastery.
To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting. In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light. Buy this photo
We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way. You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes. This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.
Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter. I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow. I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall. Other compositional elements include the sheep in the field and the dramatic clouds in the sky. Buy this photo
At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750. Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind. Buy this photo
On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images. Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter. For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself
This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field. Buy this photo
Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic. Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream. All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.
Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park. Buy this photo
The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses. It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.
The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains. A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one. Buy this photo
We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two. These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.
At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO. Buy this photo
My essential portrait lens:
We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel. The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind. During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake. I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.
There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld. Buy this photo
Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin. The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period. To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level. Buy this photo
The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953. This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer. Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic. Buy this photo
After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland. This image was shot along the Royal Mile.
Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives. This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background. Buy this photo
Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine. This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.
Have you visited Ireland? What did you find most memorable? Any tips on photographing this enchanted place? Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.
Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo
Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.
To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo
Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.
A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo
A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo
Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.
To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo
The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo
It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo
My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo
Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo
Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.
Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
Some places are magnets that draw us back again and again. I’ve made at least a dozen visits to New Orleans and each time, I find something new. It’s an iconic US city that also defies easy categorization. Home to unique and cutting-edge forms of music, cuisine, and culture, it is also steeped in a grand historic past that evokes France, Spain, Africa, and the Deep South of the US. Quite simply, there is no other place like New Orleans, and nowhere else do travel photographers find more charismatic subjects. Here are a few of my favorite images from a recent visit to NOLA, along with a few words about what they depict and how they were made.
Aside from Paris, I can’t think of any other city that has influenced the cocktail more than New Orleans. Here I captured my older daughter enjoying a classic NOLA libation during dinner on our first night in the Big Easy. I used only natural light and selected a large aperture to soften the background. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Buy this photo
It’s boozy, vomit-filled, sophomoric, touristy, overpriced, and downright awful, but Bourbon Street is a part of the landscape and is worth a quick walk-by. At night, its neon assault can almost seem romantic. This shot was handheld using a high ISO setting and a small aperture for greater depth of field. Buy this photo
The lovely Spanish colonial architecture of the French Quarter cries out to be photographed. I made this shot of a wrought iron balcony using a telephoto lens and enhanced the color vibrancy during post-processing. Buy this photo
It’s the tiny cheap eateries as much as the temples of haute gastronomy that keep New Orleans at the top of the list of cities for dining. Be sure to grab some po’ boys, beignets, or muffulettas at these humbler places, and bring your camera to catch some of the action. This image of workers in a po’ boy shop was shot from the hip, street photography style, using a high ISO to allow for a quick shutter speed. Buy this photo
New Orleans is rightly famous for its jazz, which seems to seep through every crack in the pavement of the city and can be heard in places humble or elevated. None is better than the iconic Preservation Hall. As with many performance venues, this hall allows photography without flash, but it is always better to ask permission first and to be discrete during shows. Use a fast lens and high ISO setting to allow a fast shutter speed. Buy this photo
A short trip outside of the city quickly reminds you that New Orleans is a part of the American Deep South. This image was shot from an airboat plying the bayous of Jean Lafitte National Historic Preserve. I metered the exposure on the lush vegetation lining the waterway so as to avoid overexposure from the bright reflections. Buy this photo
I captured this image of an alligator seeking the sun on an overcast winter’s day by framing tightly around the gator and its reflection. In post-processing, I cropped to emphasize the symmetry of reptile and reflection and converted the image to black-and-white, while increasing its contrast a bit. Buy this photo
I’m a big fan of food photography, especially when the plate is as strikingly beautiful as this one served at Brigtsen’s Restaurant. I framed the shot tightly with a fast prime lens and a wide aperture to reduce the depth of field. Buy this photo
Wherever we travel, we should make images that bring out a sense of place. This image of my daughters strolling in the Garden District works because it captures the iconic symbols of this neighborhood–the stately mansions and live oak trees–while being a bit playful and framed in an unexpected way. And as I’ve said many times, remember to capture your travel companions in some of your shots. Buy this photo
Have you visited New Orleans with a camera in hand? Please share your experiences. Where do you like to visit and what do you like to shoot?
Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
A big part of the joy of travel is learning about the local food and drink. For the travel photographer, local culinary specialties represent a cornucopia of image possibilities. In this post, we’ll look at some food images and discuss a few tips and tricks to make delectable photos of the victuals we meet while traveling. Warning: Do not read this post while hungry.
When photographing plated food, it’s best to get in close. Shoot straight down or at a slightly oblique angle, and always check your background to ensure it is as uncluttered as possible. Be aware of your focal point and depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) so that the most important part(s) of your image are sharp.
For this photo of a cheese plate in Burgundy, France, I got in close to the subject and chose a small aperture to ensure all the different cheeses were sharply in focus. Buy this photo
Don’t forget that specialty drinks are also a big part of local culture. For example, in Argentina the deep love of mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a local infusion, becomes almost a religious practice. This image of the mate service engages all the senses with its bright colors, contrasting textures, and suggestion of the smell and taste of the drink. To capture a sense of the Argentinian obsession with mate, I shot this image of the serving of the drink with all its components. I wanted to include some of the environment around the mate tray as well. The scene was lit with natural light, which further saturated the bright colors.
Always be on the lookout for local dishes that are unusual or exotic to our own sensibilities. This image of the local Peruvian specialty cuy, or guinea pig, has sold well on American and European stock photography sites because the main ingredient is so unfamiliar to our palettes. I love the saturated colors and the humor inherent in the guinea pigs holding peppers in their mouths. The ocher wall makes a lovely background to offset the colors of the dish. To capture this image of Peruvian cuy served during a home-hosted lunch, I got in close as the hostess held up her dish, ensuring that the ocher wall behind was all that was visible in the background. I chose a wide aperture to slightly blur one of the guinea pigs and the wall. I used natural lighting with just a kiss of off-camera flash to accentuate the highlights.
Sometimes it is the ingredients rather than the final dish that are most interesting. While on a shore excursion on the Greek island of Rhodes, my family saw these beautiful octopuses hanging to dry in the sun. After photographing them, we ordered a plate of grilled octopus. We very nearly missed the sailing of our ship, as the taverna’s cook took her time to grill the dish, but it was absolutely worth it!
Obviously, natural light was the way to go with this image. I wanted to get in close, but not too tight, so that the lovely Rhodes scenery would be partly visible behind the drying octopus. I used a medium-wide aperture to slightly soften the background. Buy this photo
What’s even better than food images? Portraits of local people making or serving the food! Here’s a shot of a server holding up a tray of Istanbul’s best baklava. The background is a bit cluttered, but I like this image for its blending of the beautiful dessert tray with the pride of the man serving it.
Often a street vendor, cook, or restaurant server will be reluctant to have their portrait made but will be happy to pose with their wares. For this portrait of an Istanbul baklava server, I chose a wide-angle lens and got in very close to the food tray to emphasize the baklava while including the server in the composition. Just natural light and balanced fill flash were used as lighting. Buy this photo
Street markets are a wonderful source of travel images. They tend to be bright, colorful, exotic, and characteristic of the location. Be aware that some vendors will expect you to buy something if you want to photograph their wares.
I like the contrasting colors in this shot of Istanbul’s ancient Spice Market. Buy this photo
Nearly every culture around the world has its own version of barbecue, and in my broad and diverse travel experience, it’s all good. Here’s a photo of whole branzino (Mediterranean sea bass) fish being grilled topside by the captain of our small wooden sailing ship on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It was nearly completely dark, so I lit this image using light from the burning coals and a touch of flash. A relatively high ISO was required to balance the low natural light with the need for a small enough aperture to keep the whole subject in focus.
Whole fish on the grill aboard a gulet yacht in Turkey. Buy this photo
Sometimes a local cuisine is all about diversity, such as the Dutch-Indonesian specialty rijsttafel (rice table). Some presentations of rijsttafel in Amsterdam involve over a hundred different tiny plates, each containing a different food preparation. To capture this tapestry of tastes, I stood on the bench and shot obliquely onto the table top, including as much of the spread as I could.
Indonesian rijsttafel served in Amsterdam. Note that in restaurants at night we have little or no control over the artificial lighting, which can sometimes lead to an unnatural color cast on the food. Shoot in RAW format so you can adjust the color balance during post-processing when you get home. Buy this photo
I grew up in New England, and after traveling to more than 100 countries around the world I can say with authority that few meals can beat a good old-fashioned New England clambake with lobster. To capture this iconic image, I shot up close and directly toward the lobster, using a normal lens with a medium aperture. This allowed most of the meal to be sharply focused, but with some falloff in sharpness toward the edges in order to emphasize the Maine event. The contrasting colors between lobster, clams, and corn make for a pleasing composition.
A lobster clambake in Maine showcases the contrasting colors and textures of this delicious meal. Buy this photo
As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this image of French haute cuisine. The gloriously prepared and plated fish course at Paul Bocuse’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant made a fun subject because it is whimsical and artistic at the same time. The available lighting was soft and subdued for artificial light, so no flash was needed. I shot some closer compositions of just the plate, but preferred this one with some of the table setting included.
We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.
Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo
Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.
To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo
Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.
A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo
A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo
Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.
To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo
The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo
It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo
My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo
Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo
Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.
Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
A big part of the joy of travel is learning about the local food and drink. For the travel photographer, local culinary specialties represent a cornucopia of image possibilities. In this post, we’ll look at some food images and discuss a few tips and tricks to make delectable photos of the victuals we meet while traveling. Warning: Do not read this post while hungry.
When photographing plated food, it’s best to get in close. Shoot straight down or at a slightly oblique angle, and always check your background to ensure it is as uncluttered as possible. Be aware of your focal point and depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) so that the most important part(s) of your image are sharp.
For this photo of a cheese plate in Burgundy, France, I got in close to the subject and chose a small aperture to ensure all the different cheeses were sharply in focus. Buy this photo
Don’t forget that specialty drinks are also a big part of local culture. For example, in Argentina the deep love of mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a local infusion, becomes almost a religious practice. This image of the mate service engages all the senses with its bright colors, contrasting textures, and suggestion of the smell and taste of the drink. To capture a sense of the Argentinian obsession with mate, I shot this image of the serving of the drink with all its components. I wanted to include some of the environment around the mate tray as well. The scene was lit with natural light, which further saturated the bright colors.
Always be on the lookout for local dishes that are unusual or exotic to our own sensibilities. This image of the local Peruvian specialty cuy, or guinea pig, has sold well on American and European stock photography sites because the main ingredient is so unfamiliar to our palettes. I love the saturated colors and the humor inherent in the guinea pigs holding peppers in their mouths. The ocher wall makes a lovely background to offset the colors of the dish. To capture this image of Peruvian cuy served during a home-hosted lunch, I got in close as the hostess held up her dish, ensuring that the ocher wall behind was all that was visible in the background. I chose a wide aperture to slightly blur one of the guinea pigs and the wall. I used natural lighting with just a kiss of off-camera flash to accentuate the highlights.
Sometimes it is the ingredients rather than the final dish that are most interesting. While on a shore excursion on the Greek island of Rhodes, my family saw these beautiful octopuses hanging to dry in the sun. After photographing them, we ordered a plate of grilled octopus. We very nearly missed the sailing of our ship, as the taverna’s cook took her time to grill the dish, but it was absolutely worth it!
Obviously, natural light was the way to go with this image. I wanted to get in close, but not too tight, so that the lovely Rhodes scenery would be partly visible behind the drying octopus. I used a medium-wide aperture to slightly soften the background. Buy this photo
What’s even better than food images? Portraits of local people making or serving the food! Here’s a shot of a server holding up a tray of Istanbul’s best baklava. The background is a bit cluttered, but I like this image for its blending of the beautiful dessert tray with the pride of the man serving it.
Often a street vendor, cook, or restaurant server will be reluctant to have their portrait made but will be happy to pose with their wares. For this portrait of an Istanbul baklava server, I chose a wide-angle lens and got in very close to the food tray to emphasize the baklava while including the server in the composition. Just natural light and balanced fill flash were used as lighting. Buy this photo
Street markets are a wonderful source of travel images. They tend to be bright, colorful, exotic, and characteristic of the location. Be aware that some vendors will expect you to buy something if you want to photograph their wares.
I like the contrasting colors in this shot of Istanbul’s ancient Spice Market. Buy this photo
Nearly every culture around the world has its own version of barbecue, and in my broad and diverse travel experience, it’s all good. Here’s a photo of whole branzino (Mediterranean sea bass) fish being grilled topside by the captain of our small wooden sailing ship on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It was nearly completely dark, so I lit this image using light from the burning coals and a touch of flash. A relatively high ISO was required to balance the low natural light with the need for a small enough aperture to keep the whole subject in focus.
Whole fish on the grill aboard a gulet yacht in Turkey. Buy this photo
Sometimes a local cuisine is all about diversity, such as the Dutch-Indonesian specialty rijsttafel (rice table). Some presentations of rijsttafel in Amsterdam involve over a hundred different tiny plates, each containing a different food preparation. To capture this tapestry of tastes, I stood on the bench and shot obliquely onto the table top, including as much of the spread as I could.
Indonesian rijsttafel served in Amsterdam. Note that in restaurants at night we have little or no control over the artificial lighting, which can sometimes lead to an unnatural color cast on the food. Shoot in RAW format so you can adjust the color balance during post-processing when you get home. Buy this photo
I grew up in New England, and after traveling to more than 100 countries around the world I can say with authority that few meals can beat a good old-fashioned New England clambake with lobster. To capture this iconic image, I shot up close and directly toward the lobster, using a normal lens with a medium aperture. This allowed most of the meal to be sharply focused, but with some falloff in sharpness toward the edges in order to emphasize the Maine event. The contrasting colors between lobster, clams, and corn make for a pleasing composition.
A lobster clambake in Maine showcases the contrasting colors and textures of this delicious meal. Buy this photo
As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this image of French haute cuisine. The gloriously prepared and plated fish course at Paul Bocuse’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant made a fun subject because it is whimsical and artistic at the same time. The available lighting was soft and subdued for artificial light, so no flash was needed. I shot some closer compositions of just the plate, but preferred this one with some of the table setting included.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Some places are magnets that draw us back again and again. I’ve made at least a dozen visits to New Orleans and each time, I find something new. It’s an iconic US city that also defies easy categorization. Home to unique and cutting-edge forms of music, cuisine, and culture, it is also steeped in a grand historic past that evokes France, Spain, Africa, and the Deep South of the US. Quite simply, there is no other place like New Orleans, and nowhere else do travel photographers find more charismatic subjects. Here are a few of my favorite images from a recent visit to NOLA, along with a few words about what they depict and how they were made.
Aside from Paris, I can’t think of any other city that has influenced the cocktail more than New Orleans. Here I captured my older daughter enjoying a classic NOLA libation during dinner on our first night in the Big Easy. I used only natural light and selected a large aperture to soften the background. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Buy this photo
It’s boozy, vomit-filled, sophomoric, touristy, overpriced, and downright awful, but Bourbon Street is a part of the landscape and is worth a quick walk-by. At night, its neon assault can almost seem romantic. This shot was handheld using a high ISO setting and a small aperture for greater depth of field. Buy this photo
The lovely Spanish colonial architecture of the French Quarter cries out to be photographed. I made this shot of a wrought iron balcony using a telephoto lens and enhanced the color vibrancy during post-processing. Buy this photo
It’s the tiny cheap eateries as much as the temples of haute gastronomy that keep New Orleans at the top of the list of cities for dining. Be sure to grab some po’ boys, beignets, or muffulettas at these humbler places, and bring your camera to catch some of the action. This image of workers in a po’ boy shop was shot from the hip, street photography style, using a high ISO to allow for a quick shutter speed. Buy this photo
New Orleans is rightly famous for its jazz, which seems to seep through every crack in the pavement of the city and can be heard in places humble or elevated. None is better than the iconic Preservation Hall. As with many performance venues, this hall allows photography without flash, but it is always better to ask permission first and to be discrete during shows. Use a fast lens and high ISO setting to allow a fast shutter speed. Buy this photo
A short trip outside of the city quickly reminds you that New Orleans is a part of the American Deep South. This image was shot from an airboat plying the bayous of Jean Lafitte National Historic Preserve. I metered the exposure on the lush vegetation lining the waterway so as to avoid overexposure from the bright reflections. Buy this photo
I captured this image of an alligator seeking the sun on an overcast winter’s day by framing tightly around the gator and its reflection. In post-processing, I cropped to emphasize the symmetry of reptile and reflection and converted the image to black-and-white, while increasing its contrast a bit. Buy this photo
I’m a big fan of food photography, especially when the plate is as strikingly beautiful as this one served at Brigtsen’s Restaurant. I framed the shot tightly with a fast prime lens and a wide aperture to reduce the depth of field. Buy this photo
Wherever we travel, we should make images that bring out a sense of place. This image of my daughters strolling in the Garden District works because it captures the iconic symbols of this neighborhood–the stately mansions and live oak trees–while being a bit playful and framed in an unexpected way. And as I’ve said many times, remember to capture your travel companions in some of your shots. Buy this photo
Have you visited New Orleans with a camera in hand? Please share your experiences. Where do you like to visit and what do you like to shoot?
Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!
On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image. I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.
The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here. No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.
I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.
What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
A big part of the joy of travel is learning about the local food and drink. For the travel photographer, local culinary specialties represent a cornucopia of image possibilities. In this post, we’ll look at some food images and discuss a few tips and tricks to make delectable photos of the victuals we meet while traveling. Warning: Do not read this post while hungry.
When photographing plated food, it’s best to get in close. Shoot straight down or at a slightly oblique angle, and always check your background to ensure it is as uncluttered as possible. Be aware of your focal point and depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) so that the most important part(s) of your image are sharp.
For this photo of a cheese plate in Burgundy, France, I got in close to the subject and chose a small aperture to ensure all the different cheeses were sharply in focus. Buy this photo
Don’t forget that specialty drinks are also a big part of local culture. For example, in Argentina the deep love of mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a local infusion, becomes almost a religious practice. This image of the mate service engages all the senses with its bright colors, contrasting textures, and suggestion of the smell and taste of the drink. To capture a sense of the Argentinian obsession with mate, I shot this image of the serving of the drink with all its components. I wanted to include some of the environment around the mate tray as well. The scene was lit with natural light, which further saturated the bright colors.
Always be on the lookout for local dishes that are unusual or exotic to our own sensibilities. This image of the local Peruvian specialty cuy, or guinea pig, has sold well on American and European stock photography sites because the main ingredient is so unfamiliar to our palettes. I love the saturated colors and the humor inherent in the guinea pigs holding peppers in their mouths. The ocher wall makes a lovely background to offset the colors of the dish. To capture this image of Peruvian cuy served during a home-hosted lunch, I got in close as the hostess held up her dish, ensuring that the ocher wall behind was all that was visible in the background. I chose a wide aperture to slightly blur one of the guinea pigs and the wall. I used natural lighting with just a kiss of off-camera flash to accentuate the highlights.
Sometimes it is the ingredients rather than the final dish that are most interesting. While on a shore excursion on the Greek island of Rhodes, my family saw these beautiful octopuses hanging to dry in the sun. After photographing them, we ordered a plate of grilled octopus. We very nearly missed the sailing of our ship, as the taverna’s cook took her time to grill the dish, but it was absolutely worth it!
Obviously, natural light was the way to go with this image. I wanted to get in close, but not too tight, so that the lovely Rhodes scenery would be partly visible behind the drying octopus. I used a medium-wide aperture to slightly soften the background. Buy this photo
What’s even better than food images? Portraits of local people making or serving the food! Here’s a shot of a server holding up a tray of Istanbul’s best baklava. The background is a bit cluttered, but I like this image for its blending of the beautiful dessert tray with the pride of the man serving it.
Often a street vendor, cook, or restaurant server will be reluctant to have their portrait made but will be happy to pose with their wares. For this portrait of an Istanbul baklava server, I chose a wide-angle lens and got in very close to the food tray to emphasize the baklava while including the server in the composition. Just natural light and balanced fill flash were used as lighting. Buy this photo
Street markets are a wonderful source of travel images. They tend to be bright, colorful, exotic, and characteristic of the location. Be aware that some vendors will expect you to buy something if you want to photograph their wares.
I like the contrasting colors in this shot of Istanbul’s ancient Spice Market. Buy this photo
Nearly every culture around the world has its own version of barbecue, and in my broad and diverse travel experience, it’s all good. Here’s a photo of whole branzino (Mediterranean sea bass) fish being grilled topside by the captain of our small wooden sailing ship on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It was nearly completely dark, so I lit this image using light from the burning coals and a touch of flash. A relatively high ISO was required to balance the low natural light with the need for a small enough aperture to keep the whole subject in focus.
Whole fish on the grill aboard a gulet yacht in Turkey. Buy this photo
Sometimes a local cuisine is all about diversity, such as the Dutch-Indonesian specialty rijsttafel (rice table). Some presentations of rijsttafel in Amsterdam involve over a hundred different tiny plates, each containing a different food preparation. To capture this tapestry of tastes, I stood on the bench and shot obliquely onto the table top, including as much of the spread as I could.
Indonesian rijsttafel served in Amsterdam. Note that in restaurants at night we have little or no control over the artificial lighting, which can sometimes lead to an unnatural color cast on the food. Shoot in RAW format so you can adjust the color balance during post-processing when you get home. Buy this photo
I grew up in New England, and after traveling to more than 100 countries around the world I can say with authority that few meals can beat a good old-fashioned New England clambake with lobster. To capture this iconic image, I shot up close and directly toward the lobster, using a normal lens with a medium aperture. This allowed most of the meal to be sharply focused, but with some falloff in sharpness toward the edges in order to emphasize the Maine event. The contrasting colors between lobster, clams, and corn make for a pleasing composition.
A lobster clambake in Maine showcases the contrasting colors and textures of this delicious meal. Buy this photo
As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this image of French haute cuisine. The gloriously prepared and plated fish course at Paul Bocuse’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant made a fun subject because it is whimsical and artistic at the same time. The available lighting was soft and subdued for artificial light, so no flash was needed. I shot some closer compositions of just the plate, but preferred this one with some of the table setting included.
We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.
Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo
Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.
To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo
Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.
A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo
A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo
Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.
To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo
The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo
It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo
My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo
Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo
Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.
Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
We’re recently returned from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland. Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh. The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere. I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.
The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle. In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two. This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival. To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting. You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work. Buy this photo
It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin. Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.
Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO. Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions. Buy this photo
I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula. There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery. A photographer’s paradise!
St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula. To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky. Buy this photo
Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets! On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning. Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a Sixth Century monastery.
To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting. In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light. Buy this photo
We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way. You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes. This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.
Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter. I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow. I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall. Other compositional elements include the sheep in the field and the dramatic clouds in the sky. Buy this photo
At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750. Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind. Buy this photo
On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images. Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter. For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself
This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field. Buy this photo
Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic. Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream. All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.
Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park. Buy this photo
The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses. It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.
The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains. A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one. Buy this photo
We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two. These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.
At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO. Buy this photo
My essential portrait lens:
We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel. The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind. During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake. I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.
There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld. Buy this photo
Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin. The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period. To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level. Buy this photo
The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953. This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer. Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic. Buy this photo
After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland. This image was shot along the Royal Mile.
Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives. This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background. Buy this photo
Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine. This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.
Have you visited Ireland? What did you find most memorable? Any tips on photographing this enchanted place? Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.
We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.
Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo
Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.
To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo
Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.
A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo
A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo
Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.
To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo
The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo
It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo
My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo
Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo
Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.
Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.
