Tips for the Travelling PhotographerPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
If you notice, when you open Thai Airways webpage, www.thaiairways.COM and go to Holiday Packages, at the bottom of the page will appear PHOTO GALLERY with the subtitle ‘Let’s Share Your Beautiful Moments with THAI’. Here’s your chance to show the world your photos.
To prepare the site, I asked photographer Robert Stedman, one of the leading photographers in this part of the world, for tips that we can pass on to photographers. Robert has his own design and photo studio in Singapore. Here follows my interview with him. The advice he gives sounds pretty solid.
Q. Let’s begin with your Number One piece of advice.
A. When travelling you want to get the best possible photos of the places you visit and the people you meet. As a professional photographer I’m routinely asked, “What kind of camera should I buy to take good photos?” And then I get a recital of the most expensive, latest cameras made for me to choose from. Many people think that by purchasing a top end digital camera it will do all the work for them. Many believe the better the camera, the better the photo. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Q. Can you explain what you mean; a camera is just a camera?
A. Exactly. The truth is that you can make great photos with a basic point and shoot digital camera or take horrible shots with the most expensive, top of the line digital SLR. Rule number one: it’s not the camera that takes beautiful images, it’s the photographer. Once you realise you’re in control, not the camera, your images will get better.
Q. I assume you were taught this in school.
A. When I went to photography school it was the same, yes. We studied the great master photographers from the early 20th century such as Henri Cartier-Bresson. That famous French photographer produced stunning images with only the most primitive, clumsy and basic of equipment—and in black and white. I still marvel at his work. Our teachers clearly showed us it wasn’t the camera that made Cartier-Bresson’s photos great; it was his skill and ability to ‘see’ an image. While many of us may never achieve the beauty of a Cartier-Bresson photograph, we still can make some great photos, without maxing out our credit cards on expensive equipment. Here are seven tips that I give that will help aspiring photographers shoot like a pro.
1. Get familiar with your equipment. It sounds basic, but how many of us do it? It’s no use buying a camera if you don’t fully understand its operation. Study the manual. If you don’t understand a term or function, look it up on the manufacture’s website. You’ll find loads of useful info there on how the camera was designed to help you capture images.
2. Use sunglasses. No joke. We call them polarizers and they are for the camera, not the photographer. Very often, images can be full of haze and highlights and one easy way to reduce fuzziness and those annoying reflections is with a polarizer. A polarized filter also increases colour saturation. If you have a camera that will accept screw-on type filters try using one. If your camera is basic with a small lens, try putting your sunglasses over the lens. Many sunglasses are made with polarized material. It’s a simple but effective way to a better photo.
3. Add more light. Most digital cameras come with a built-in flash. Knowing how to use these small blasts of light can make a so-so portrait into something fantastic. Adding a bit of light helps lighten dark shadows and brings out more detail. It will literally make your indoor or outdoor portraits ‘pop’. Look for the camera’s ‘fill flash’ mode, which measures the correct amount of light needed, automatically.
4. Keep the horizon level I’ve looked at a lot of photos in my time and one of the biggest things people do to make a photo look bad is framing a crooked horizon. Unless you’re doing it for effect, keep the horizon, well, horizontal. Beach scenes look odd if the ocean is running downhill.
5. Up the limit on your card. I’m talking about your memory card not your credit card. All too often shooters want to max out their data cards with lots of images they can later edit. Thing is, memory cards are finite. A small card will store a limited number of images. Memory prices are low, so take advantage and buy a big card. For small cameras around three mega pixels, get at least 512 megabytes. For larger professional cameras in the 10 or higher category a four or eight gigabyte card is essential.
6. Keep your clothes on. We’re talking about storage. Most digital cameras offer a host of ways to store images. The jpeg or jpg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format was developed to compress images to a reasonable size so they could be manipulated and shared by computer. Technology has moved on and jpeg isn’t the ideal format to store high quality images. The compression destroys detail. If you’re shooting low-res jpegs and take a stunning image it may not enlarge well. That’s because there is a lack of information to make the enlargement. Best thing to do is shoot in RAW. Most cameras offer a ‘RAW’ or native setting. RAW stores the image uncompressed and unprocessed with the maximum amount of data. More data means more detail. You can later edit or store the image in a smaller resolution. Shooting in the RAW setting uses a lot more of your storage card, so it’s another compelling reason to buy more memory.
7. Keep it steady. While many cameras are designed with ‘anti-vibration’ or ‘shake’ features, the truth is that nothing beats a tripod. While geeky, these three-legged tools are essential for night photography or double exposures. Using a tripod will reduce blur and make your photos sharper. The only drawback is that tripods are unwieldy and sometimes a pain to carry. Today, it’s easier than ever to take photos thanks to digital cameras. Even basic point and shoot cameras have a tremendous amount of functionality built in. By applying some ingenuity and a touch of creativity you will be taking shots that will have your friends asking, “What’s the best camera I should buy?”
Let’s thank Robert Stedman for his advice. Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
