Patagonia, the southernmost portion of the American continent, is a land of stunning beauty, unspoilt wilderness and extreme weather. As of recent, it has also become one of the most sought-after destinations for landscape photographers. Having recently read Sean Bagshaw's article about his trip to Patagonia, I wanted to know more, so I asked him to be my guest on the show and to tell us about that remote land.

Sean is an outdoor photographer, digital image developing enthusiast and photography educator based in Ashland, Oregon, where he resides with his wife and two sons. In the 1980s and 1990s he did some rock climbing and mountaineering and enjoyed being expedition photographer because it allowed him to present slide shows to anyone he could corner in a dark room with a projector. Over time he moved away from documentary images and became immersed in the art of photography. Now he photographs mountains instead of climbing them. He spends about a quarter of each year sleeping in his truck or on the ground, stumbling around in the dark, eating bad food and avoiding showers. Twice since 2008 his images have been exhibited in the Smithsonian as winners in the Nature's Best Windland Smith Rice International Awards. His previous career as a science teacher makes photography education a good fit. Sean teams up with fellow Photo Cascadia members leading workshops. He also teaches digital image developing classes, lectures and offers a series of Photoshop video tutorials.

To record the interview, I had to wait for Sean's return from another faraway corner of the earth, Easter Island, so I asked him to give us his impressions of the land of the Moais as well. Double awesomeness!

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We often get emails and messages from listeners who ask us advice on how to take great travel photos, so this week we wanted to record a special episode. We don’t have the usual interview with a guest this time but decide instead to spend some time giving you our best tips to help you get better photos every time you take a trip.

Some examples of the topics we covered include:

1. The importance of a shot list
2. Telling stories
3. The power of one
4. Having a theme in mind
5. Watching your backgrounds
6. Timing and anticipation
7. Don’t be shy
8. Point and shoot

This is an episode packed with useful, practical information, but if you love interviews don’t worry. We’ll be back next week with another awesome guest.

If you found this useful and would love more detail, don’t miss Ralph’s next free webinar, where he will be going much more in depth about his favorite tips for taking great travel photographs.

Duration 45m 41s.

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I have to admit I’ve always been a big fan of my guest for this week’s episode of the podcast, Doug Kaye. I have been following Doug’s work since when he was an IT expert and author, a renowned podcaster, and as of late, an excellent photographer. So it was a great pleasure and honor for me to finally be able to talk to him personally.

Beginning his visual explorations in his father’s wet darkroom, Doug earned a degree in theatrical lighting design at U.C. Berkeley in the ’60s and studied cinematography at NYU’s Graduate Institute of Film and Television in the ’70s. In the ’80s he began a two-decade hiatus from photography, when he started a system-software company that he ran for 18 years. He sold that business in 1996 and decided to work his way down the corporate ladder, service as CTO of four dot-com startups in four years. He retired in 2000, wrote two technology books and started a non-profit podcasting network.

Doug got back into photography in 2008. A trip to Kenya convinced him nature photography wasn’t for him, and Iceland cured him of his interest in landscape. For the past two years, Doug has focused almost exclusively on street photography, even reverting to film on occasion. Doug teaches photography locally in San Francisco and online, and was chosen as an Inception Master in Trey Ratcliff’s “Arcanum.” He leads street-photography workshops locally and in Cuba, which he has visited five times. Doug is the co-host of the All About the Gear podcast on the TWiP network.

I have also been planning to visit Cuba for a long time, but for reasons that are too long to explain here, never made that particular trip. Now, after hearing about it from someone who is an expert about the island country and seeing his photographs of it, I am getting inspired again. I would certainly love to be on one of Doug’s workshops, when I go there.

Duration 26m 24s.

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

Links

* Website

* Workshops

* All About the Gear

* Twitter

* Instagram

* Facebook

Photos by Doug

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In this episode of the podcast, Ralph interviews Ugo about his recent trip to a trio of countries in Southeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia. These countries are culturally rich and diverse and visually stimulating, so we think they should be on every traveling photographer’s radar. Below the fold, you can see some of the pictures Ugo took while there.

We also recommend that you listen to episode TTIM 146 – Matt Brandon and Pete DeMarco in Malaysia, which covers the city of Penang more in depth.

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Madagascar is a fabulous but also very troubled country. Its separation from Africa, millions of years ago, made it into a somewhat isolated an unique ecosystems with animals and plants that can only be found there.

When people came to the island, they started exploiting its vast natural riches and now that ecosystem is on the brink of collapse.

This hasn’t made people’s life easier, as they have to contend daily with poverty, corruption, and environmental degradation. Regardless, they are always keen to smile for the camera.

Our guest for this week’s episode, Pia Parolin, recently returned from a tour of Madagascar and is here to tell us about all the beauty and the contradictions of this country. 

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This week's episode is a special one. During the latest Out Of Chicago Summer Conference, Ugo was the moderator of a panel discussion involving two very well-known travel and nature photographers, Scott Bourne and Deborah Sandidge, in addition to the founder and president of PHLEARN, Aaron Nace, who is also a passionate photographer.

Deborah is known for unapologetically post-processing her photos to give them a unique look, using long exposures and other techniques that do not always result in realistic images; Scott also sits on the advisory board of Skylum, a company that produces powerful photo processing applications like Luminar and AuroraHDR and PHLEARN's catalog includes many courses about pot-processing.

Thanks to the availability of very affordable tools and education for post-processing, it is not surprising that people are sometimes pushing the boundaries of an art form that was for a time (and it still is in the mind of large numbers of people) very much tied to the concept of a faithful, or at least plausible, representation of reality.

We asked the panelists for their take on this often debated topic and what ensued was a lively and stimulating discussion that also touched other topics, like the role of education and tools in shaping the current trends in photography. As the panel went on for about 90 minutes, we split the recording in two parts. This is the first part; the second one will be published next week.

Apologies for the audio quality, which is not at the usual level of quality. The microphones in front of the stage picked up a bit of background noise, but we think it's still intelligible and the contents of the conversation, which are what really matters, are too good not to share.

We would also like to thank Chris Smith and the staff at Out Of Chicago for giving us the opportunity and the means to record this. If you've never been to Out Of Chicago, you should definitely attend it and we'll certainly be there again next year.

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Ken Kaminesky is a veteran commercial travel photographer, Fujifilm Global Ambassador, writer, consultant, and entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience in the photography industry. His work has been featured worldwide in numerous commercial and editorial publications, including the New York Times and on the cover of National Geographic. His passion for travel and the incredible landscapes and people he encounters along the way are the inspiration for his popular blog, and the other publications he writes for.

Throughout his travels, Ken seeks to capture images and stories that will inspire and motivate people to step out their front door and embrace adventure. As one of the founders and tour leaders at Discovery Photo Tours, he gets the chance to share his love for travel and photography with avid photo enthusiasts from all over the world. Savouring art, food, history, and culture with tour groups in places like Africa, Jordan, Italy, and Iceland is one of the most rewarding aspects of his work.

His favourite place in the world is always his next destination. He believes that each place has a unique story that will inspire others, which he aims to capture in his images.

Ken was previously our guest on episode TTIM 56 – The Business Of Photography with Ken Kaminesky. Back then, our conversation was mostly about the business side of travel photography. This time, it was about more adventurous and romantic topics, including African wildlife and safaris.

Last year Ken went on a scouting trip to Tanzania. That trip resulted in his company, Discovery Photo Tours, offering a VIP photographic safari experience this coming August and September. You might want to check that out, if you are ever thought of being in the middle of one of the most exciting wildlife spectacles in the world: the Great Migration that every year compels millions of wildebeest and zebra to traverse the plains of the Serengeti, crossing the border from Tanzania into Kenya.

We talked with Ken about his memories of this experience and we picked his brains for tips on getting the most of such an experience, for choice of equipment to camera settings.

Duration: 53m 03s.

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Nigerian-born Lola Akinmade Åkerström’s photography and travel writing are characterized by vibrancy and hope. Graduating with a Masters (MSc) degree in Information Systems from the University of Maryland with a minor in Geography, she specialized in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for 12+ years and her affinity for the geosciences and maps meant she was born to travel.

She is the 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award recipient.

Her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, National Geographic Channel, several in-flight magazines, New York Times online, amongst others.

Some of her articles and photography have been syndicated on MSNBC, Slate, Yahoo, New York Daily News, Chicago Sun Times, Huffington Post, and Time Warner.

Her latest book is Lagom, The Swedish Secret of Living Well.

Lagom sums up the Swedish psyche and is a way of living that promotes harmony. It celebrates fairness, moderation and being satisfied with what you’ve got. It’s not about having too little or too much but about fully inviting contentment into our lives.

Duration 51m 28s.

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Our guest for this episode of the podcast defines herself as a photographer, a philosopher, a writer and a wanderer.

Stefania Boglioli is also a blogger, a visual story teller and a travel companion with a passion for sharing her journeys and her perspective with fellow curious travellers.

She was born in Italy, but spent many years in Africa before returning to Europe to continue her work. She changed career path more than once and lived many lives.

She is either out exploring and taking photos or locked up in her home studio researching, writing and planning her next chapter.

Ugo caught up with Stefania to mainly talk about her second home, Kenya and its incredible variety of scenery, wildlife, and people.

Ugo and Stefania will be leading a photo tour of Kenya in the Spring of 2020.

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Björn Moerman is often referred to as “the flying photographer”; combining his passion for aviation with a photography hobby that got out of hand. 

As an airline captain for a large Middle Eastern airline, he visited over 85 of the worlds countries so far and always comes home with exciting stories and freshly taken images from around the world. Bjorn is from Belgium but has been living in Dubai for the last 16 years. 

Today he mainly shoots Aviation and Travel photography but rediscovered the world of street photography when he picked up his first FUJIFILM camera in 2012. A year later, he switched 100% mirrorless and became an official X-photographer for FUJIFILM Middle East in 2014. Whenever he is not traveling, he can be found skimming the markets and streets of Dubai, looking to capture those fleeting moments of life. 

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For the past 5 years, Dancho Hristov has been a working landscape and wildlife photographer based in Sofia, Bulgaria. He first dabbled in photography at the age of 13, starting with an old Zenit film camera. Several years later his interest in wildlife, and in particular birds, led him to his first digital camera, and this is when the adventure began in earnest. For the past 10 years, Dancho has been travelling extensively, mainly throughout Europe, guiding photographers, participating in bird surveys and continuing to explore nature.

Dancho is also the author of the SNAPP Guide to photographing Bulgaria and has received a number of awards in regional landscape and wildlife photography contests. Additionally he plans trips and guides groups in his home country.

Enjoy this very interesting conversation as we discuss everything from what there is to see and do in Bulgaria to the importance of behavior, gear and “hiding out” to capture the best bird and wildlife photography.

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The guest for this episode of the podcast is an old friend of the Traveling Image Makers podcast. We recorded episode TTIM 66 – David duChemin and The Soul of the Camera with him a while back.

David is a world & humanitarian assignment photographer, best-selling author, digital publisher, and international workshop leader. 

Based in Victoria, Canada, when he’s home, David leads a nomadic life chasing compelling images on all 7 continents.

He just reopened for enrollment his travel photography course, The Traveling Lens. You can sign up for it only until January 24.

Ralph and Ugo ask David about his course: How is it structured? What can students hope to learn from it? Why shoot it in Varanasi, India?

They also discuss other, more general topics pertaining to photography and travel, like what it means to be compassionate, how to grab the subject’s attention, being present in the moment, quantity vs. quality, visual inventories, and more.

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During his latest trip to the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, Ralph sat down with naturalist guide, photographer, and native Costa Rican, Dennis Valverde.

He was always fascinated by the animals and the big trees that were around his grandparents’ forest. That interest encouraged him to study the biodiversity of the rainforest in a more formal way. Nowadays he has a 12-years experience as a professional naturalist guide.

Photography is Dennis’ second passion and his interest in it started 6 years ago as a result of his desire to capture the abundant wildlife that he sees every day that he goes out to lead tours.

Dennis is a person with a sincere desire to always help his clients to take the best experience and best photos of the most biodiverse place on earth.

Ralph and Dennis talked at length about the natural, unspoilt beauty of Costa Rica and this is the recording of that conversation.

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This episode of the podcast was scheduled to be recorded months ago. On the day we were supposed to be interviewing our guest, Erin Babnik, she emailed us asking to reschedule, since she was being evacuated from her house in Paradise, California.

Erin Babnik is known internationally as a leading photographic artist, educator, writer, and speaker. Her ambitious and expressive style of landscape photography brings together an unusual integration of adventurous exploration, progressive techniques, and formal education in the arts. In her writing and public speaking, Erin explores topics with a unique blend of art historical, philosophical, and instructional ideas, an approach that has made her one of the most notable voices among the current generation of landscape photographers.

During this interview, Erin recalls those dramatic moments when seemingly she had lost almost everything she owned and talks about how she managed to recover and bounce back, at least in part, from that dire situation, thanks also to the support she received from the photography community.

Hers is also a cautionary tale about the importance of having a good backup strategy. Thanks to it, Erin didn’t lose a single picture in the fire that destroyed her home and she was willing to give us a number of suggestions on how to implement a sensible backup policy.

We also found the time to discuss one of her more recent articles on finding compositional patterns in nature. There’s really something for everyone in this very informative interview.

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My guest for this episode of the podcast is my long time friend Andy Bitterer. Me and Andy have a lot in common, but one thing that truly sets us apart from many other travel photographers is that we both still have a full-time job–doing stuff other than photography–that keeps our families well fed. We take photos in our spare time, but photography is our true passion and our side job, so we try to practice it as much as possible. That often means exploiting every business trip we take for opportunities to visit new places and create new images.

Andy Bitterer is an award-winning freelance photographer from Hamburg, Germany. As a frequent traveller around the world, Andy focuses mostly on travel and nature photography, but his interests also include event, portrait, architecture, and fine art photography. His work has appeared online and in print, from news websites and corporate intranets to book and music CD covers, magazines, and various marketing collateral.

I have been wanting to interview Andy for a long time, to ask him how he manages to make work, photography, and family travel coexist peacefully and productively. Of course, with him being a very busy guy who is often on the road, it took some time before we could find the time to record an interview, but we finally succeeded. If you too are doing photography as a side job, you might be interested in listening to this episode.

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Scott Bourne is President of US Operations at Skylum Software (Formerly Macphun,) an Olympus Visionary and a professional wildlife photographer, author and lecturer who specializes in birds. He was one of the founders of This Week In Photo, Founded Photofocus.com and is co-founder of the Photo Podcast Network.

Scott is a regular contributor to several photography related blogs and podcasts and his photography has appeared in more than 200 books and magazines. He is a trainer at both ThinkTapLearn and lynda.com, and is the author of 11 photography books.

As a present to the TTIM listeners, Scott is generously giving away 3 licenses each of Skylum Luminar 2018 and of Skylum Aurora HDR 2018. To participate in the giveaway, sign up using the widget that you can find at ttim.photo/110 and use it to share this with your friends and followers. The more you share, the greater your chances of winning!

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Pedro Kin is a Portuguese landscape photographer based in Slovakia but you’ll often find him chasing the light in the most beautiful mountains, forests and fjords of Europe. Favouring the cold landscapes and the raw nature of northern Europe, the weather does not stop him from going after the perfect shot — be it the northern lights in the Lofoten Islands, a snowy beach in Lithuania or a powerful waterfall in Iceland. When not travelling the world with his camera, Pedro is found back home helping others improve their photography and editing skills through personalized one-to-one online courses.

Ugo caught up with Pedro recently to talk about his latest journey to Patagonia, his tips for cold weather shooting, and their upcoming photo adventure to the Italian Dolomitestogether.

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, Ugo interviews Mike Holp.

Mike is a digital nomad and travel photographer from Austin, Texas. He’s been traveling in South America for over a year, capturing photos of beautiful destinations, and meeting new friends from all over the world! Mike is offering a coaching program to other aspiring digital nomads with the proven techniques for long-term travel on a budget. He recently launched an online course and free eBook on how to generate passive income with Airbnb every month without owning property or renting out your space. It’s now possible to work from anywhere in the world on your laptop.

Mike and Ugo had a conversation about what it means to live as a digital nomad, how to generate passive income through photography, writing, affiliate marketing, and traveling across South America.

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In this episode, a conversation between Ralph and Ugo about the former’s recent trip to a pair of small, not very well-known, but beautiful and welcoming countries: Georgia and Armenia.

These two countries with a long history, which regained their independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, haven’t seen much tourism until recently and this means their beauty is still largely unspoilt, even though they are rapidly modernizing and the infrastructure is almost on par with European standards.

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