Melting in the sun
Last night I took part in the first edition of the National Travel Day organized by Lonely Planet Traveller Middle East and I was thoroughly impressed by both the speakers and the audience and their passion for travel. It always feels great when you’re in the presence of like-minded people and last night was exactly that. There were some great talks ranging from traveling to “off the beaten track” places like Socotra in Yemen to how to climb a mountain or how to write a travel blog.
For my part, I spoke about how to improve your travel photos and bring back images that will be different than what most tourists come back with. If I were to choose just one tip from the 10 tips I was talking about last night, it would be “Find a unique take on a common subject”. Don’t just take the exact same photograph that everybody else takes when they get to a famous landmark. Think of a different angle – get closer (or further away) than everybody else, get lower (or higher) for a different perspective. Do this and you’ll be amazed how different a place you might have seen in a thousand photographs might look like.
As an example, I’ll leave you with this image I took while on a Zodiac boat in Antarctica circling beautiful icebergs. I noticed how the strange shape of the iceberg was pointing upwards and I knew that I had to photograph this against the sun, making the point that this iceberg will probably be gone in a few years melting away as it makes its way North.