Chapter4.A Good Attitude Makes Good Pictures

Chapter 4. A Good Attitude Makes Good Pictures

Taking a camera with you on a trip lets you capture those special moments, and it can be a tool for opening doors into other people's lives. (Photo by Kevin Gilbert)

Taking a camera on your trip can help open up new worlds of possibility and make you welcome in the lives of strangers, or it can make you appear as an outsider, distancing you from those around you. The difference depends not on your choice of travel destination, but on your choice of attitude.

It doesn't matter if you're traveling for vacation or if you're on a photographic assignment for a magazine or newspaper. All successful travel photographers know the same cardinal rule: Respect the people around you and you will end up constantly surprised by how your trip, and your pictures, turn out.

Travel photography should be about enjoyment and about great experiences. If you're on a vacation with your camera, don't let the desire to capture every event spoil having fun. And if you're on assignment in some foreign place, remember to let the newness of what's going on turn your work into something happy rather than a chore.

Figure 4.1. While photographing outside a Sikh temple, Blue Pixel's Reed Hoffmann and his group were invited in for a tour, which finished with a baking lesson given by women working in the temple's basement.(Photo by Reed Hoffmann)