The Touring Photographer
by William Lulow
I have often written about making images while traveling and I have had another opportunity for doing just that in the last week or so. When you are touring, going from place to place, sometimes on your own and sometimes with others, it’s relatively impossible to concentrate on the kinds of images you might like to make if you were just by yourself, with no particular agenda. If you are touring with another person, couple or group, you have to keep up with other people’s schedules. This means that you cannot literally focus on the subjects that would interest you if you were alone. Not only that, but when you are going from place to place, you often have hotel reservations or planes to catch that would prevent you from just staying in one place and waiting for the light to change.
Photography is different from other arts in that you are often capturing what’s actually in front of the lens at any given point in time. What you see is literally what you get. But, it can be altered somewhat in post-production. While on this latest foray into the countryside in Maine, I was able to make some interesting images:
This picture was made on a fairly cloudy day where the light was really flat. It was enhanced a bit in post-production to render the colors a bit more as they were rather than how the camera saw them. You can tell a bit about the light by the white sky – no clouds and no blue color.
Here’s another shot:
This is a monochrome image made in South Portland, Maine, a taste of Americana! It is often difficult to render detail in bright sunlight and shade at the same time. So I masked the stone wall and lightened up the house while reducing its contrast a bit to reveal more detail.
When you have to take what mother nature gives you, it’s difficult to make great pictures when the weather doesn’t cooperate, which it often does not. Traveling photographers must learn to find images that work even when the environment is contrary. Here is one example:
I will often shoot original Black&White when the weather doesn’t permit really nice, vivid colors. I look for texture and composition to make interesting images. Here, an alley way in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
I also concentrate on color when and where I find it. This can be effective when the subject is actually colorful as in this image of lobster buoys on a wall in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
Another thing I often do is to isolate a subject so that the weather doesn’t affect it. Here, using the element of reflection, I can create a photograph that has some interest:
All these images prove that you can make compelling photographs when the weather doesn’t make it easy. You just have to be aware of other elements that help to create good photographs.
Another element could be sheer viewer interest. Here the Pilot boat peeling away from the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor ferry as it gets underway on the trip across the Bay of Maine.
So, in the constant search for more graphic and interesting images, weather need not play such an important part. Many of us feel as if we are documenting the world as we see it anyway.
