Shoot to Thrill

The key to great holiday photos to enjoy the experience and let the photo reflect the moments, people and places that made your travels so memorable. Here are five basic tips to help you return home with photos that show everyone else what a great time you had.

1. Get closer – To some people this is obvious and to others it’s the exact opposite of what they expect. A wide angle lens will allow you to get up-close and involved in any scene, while bringing in details and context from all around you. The best travel cameras have 24mm wide angle, and if you own an SLR or Digital SLR then you can go even wider.

2. Know your subject – Don’t be one of those tourists who jump of the bus and start snapping at anything that doesn’t move. Let the beauty of the scene capture you before you capture it. The insight you gain into the people and history of a place will become your primary focus in the photos. Your main objective with the camera is to reveal the charms of your subject.

3. People are special – Photos of people you meet on your travels will your memories more vivid, because it is the people that make places different. Many scene are enhanced with the artful presence of local people or happy travellers. But, never take someone’s photo without asking them first. Language is no barrier to getting permission; just hold up the camera and smile and wait for them to smile back.

4. Little things matter – even the simplest of cameras these days has a macro function, usually a button with a flower on it. This is worth some experimentation before your next holiday, as close up photos of craftwork, produce or wildlife can enhance your collection and really bring home the colour of a destination.

5. Tell a story – the difference between a good photo and great photo is context. A picture can tell a thousand words, so let your camera do the talking. A wide angle lens makes this task easier too, by including more of the background even when you fill half the frame with your main subject. A photo of a cow can be interesting, but a cow walking down an alley-way shopping for a T-shirt is even better!

Irresponsible Travel

Who is responsible for Travel?

It’s hard to imagine how burning tonnes of fuel in a jumbo jet en-route to a holiday in Thailand’s hill-tribes could qualify as Responsible Travel, and yet the RT branding applied to many adventure holidays are designed to make you think you might even be saving the planet. If you were a little confused about the true intention of Responsible Travel then you’re not alone, issues of greenhouse gases aside the cultural impact of thousands of tourists on the once remote villages is impossible to ignore.



Some companies have demonstrated a desire to find answers to what levels of tourism is harmful to local communities, and what styles of travel impact the least. But the eagerness to fund such research has been replaced with the desire to make more profit. A few years ago there were only two companies running hill-tribe adventures in 1990, catering for just 5 groups a year. Today there are over ten of them, and the big names are operating 52 departures a year – that's a new group of people every single week.

It’s turns out it’s very difficult to assess the footprint left by travellers, and a tour operation in one part of Thailand bears very different impacts to a tour elsewhere in Thailand. It’s an inexact science that demands diligent research to find even the most tentative of answers. Unfortunately the motivation to understand these impacts has been trampled underfoot along with the very cultures that are being marketed to travellers.

A few years ago I travelled to the UK to meet one of the better known organisations that champion the cause for responsible tourism. It was a one-man team, based in an outer suburb of London with a computer desk jammed next to the bed. The fellow wasn’t all that interested in talking about how he assessed the RT value of a company or its tours, given that he has a real job elsewhere in London only travels abroad once a year. Instead he showed me the revenue model for his website and it seemed obvious to me that the priority for handing out awards bore a striking correlation to the amount of commissioned being paid out.

The take-home message is simple; next time you see a company promoting their awards in responsible travel ask yourself who is handing them out and why.

The meaning of the words “Responsible Travel” have been so consistently abused in recent years that they have lost almost all value. It’s easy to imagine a game of buzz-word bingo being played out in managerial meetings across the country, as travel operators seeking to expand their market grasp at straws for something to differentiate their product.

The irony is that even those companies who got into the concept in the early days have all but abandoned the genuine philosophy in favour of aggressive brand association and marketing – they spend millions of dollars on appearing to be green while tossing a few pennies at charities in order to stay legitimate.

The very nature of travel is in direct conflict with both cultural responsibility and reducing greenhouse emissions.

Skin Deep

Today I learned a lesson in why racism is such an issue in Australia. If you're white then you have no place judging people by their colour. If you're a recent migrant however, the rules are a little different.

I was appauled to see two dark African men get involved in an incident in Footscray today. A white pedestrian was hit by a parking car, but the outrage of the victim was greeted with violence from the dark skinned by-standers who had nothing better to do.

Had the pedestrian been a fellow immigrant then the attitude of the idle onlookers may have been different. The key to the racial nature of the African men was their repeated use of race in their abusive language.

When the victim started taking photos of the scene, in case required for a legal defense, the forementioned by-standers got violent. When police finally arrived they didnt act to determine the culpability of the attackers, they instead interogated the pedestrian for inciting trouble.

White police officers have been well trained to avoid stereo-typing the public, so they intentionally ignored the full scope of facts. Despite pleas to verify the events with a credible witness, the account of the dark skinned attackers was the only corroboration headed by police.

The police had to overlook a fair weight of obvious fact to come to the wrong conclusion, and between them they seemed more concerned to avoid filling out paperwork than arresting two thugs who beat a defenceless man. Dishonesty and violence is part of every community, but we expect better from our police.

I had seen this pattern once before, while eating a kebab in Carlton. I witnessed a car run a red-light and nearly kill two of the occupants in another vehicle in the impact. The owner of the kebab shop came out after he heard the noise. He hadnt seen the incident but quickly took sides for the fellow middle-eastern man, and even tried to influence my opinion on what happened.

So it seems that racial factors can be subtle in general, but profound in application. Why would a kebab man defend a drunken-driver? Had a police-man asked me that question I would not have an answer, I just know that he did. And so it was today that the police wanted to know *why* two dark skinned by-standers would attack a white-man for "no reason". Once again, I just know they did.

Alas that was not good enough for the police today, they got the wrong end of the stick and failed to protect a man who had been beaten and attacked.

Ignorance takes many forms, and so does racism. Neither are the privilege of the white.

Cover Me

This month I have to say goodbye to a lovely little girl in China, but soon she'll be seen all over the world.



I don't acutally know her name although we have met twice. I took her photo on my first visit to Ping'An, a small town in the Longji Rice Terraces about two hours north west of Guilin. She is the daughter of a Zhuong family, one of the ethnic groups that populate the cool climes of these hills and grow rice.

She's important to me because I picked her smiling face and happy wave to represent my photography tours. It has been her face that graced our website and helped show potential travellers what joys awaits them in China should they join us on a photo tour.

On my second visit to Ping'An we saw her again, and gave her a copy of this photo. It was a special moment and the shy little girl was very surprised. Her mother was delighted however and we took a few more photos of the family so we have something to give them on our next trip.

But this lovely little girl can no longer appear on my photography website, and cannot be used in my travel writing. I have sold her to Travel Indochina for their next China brochure. While I will miss seeing her face when I visit my website, it seems likely that a great deal more people will be blessed with her smile once the new brochure comes out.

It's a great policy to make return trips and share the photos from our previous students, but in this instance their is a little more joy to share. The plan is to visit the school and ask about what they might benefit from. The Zhuong people are different to the neighbouring Yao, for they freely offer themselves to photographers. The Yao harass tourists for photos in exchange for money and are frankly annoying to excess. I am keen to reward the people of Ping'An for their kindness and demonstrate a direct benefit.

The little girl on the Travel Indochina brcohure will live on my bookshelf alongside a Cheetah mother in the Masai Mara (Peregrine Africa brochure), a golden Buddhist statue from Hanoi (Peregrine Asia brochure), and the Samburu people of northern Kenya (Geckos worldwide brochure).



And in case you're wondering, my photography tour website will be enhanced by a photo of the Great Wall of China. It's a lovely photo, but second to our young friend in the rice terraces.