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In recent years, more and more photography enthusiasts are keen on creating travel and humanistic photography, but many photographers find that travel and humanistic photography is difficult to master. For example, when taking travel and humanistic photos, several photographers often go out to create at the same time. Some of them may take many wonderful works, while others have few gains.
Indeed, travel photography is a challenging creative medium. This is primarily due to the unfamiliarity of the locations used during travel photography, and secondly, the fleeting nature of these scenes. This requires a solid foundation in photography, including a strong grasp of composition, lighting, and color palette, as well as the skills and techniques of capturing travel-themed images.
Of course, some say that many classic humanities films and award-winning works, both domestically and internationally, are created through staged photography. However, mastering the art of posing and designing these shots requires a high level of photographic skill. In unfamiliar and crowded locations, choosing the perfect scene for humanities photography, selecting your subjects, communicating effectively, and maintaining key points during filming are all key skills essential for capturing humanities while traveling. Myanmar, a Southeast Asian photography landmark, not only attracts landscape photographers but is also a haven for humanities photography. In February and December 2018, I traveled to Myanmar with China-TravelNote to create my own works. Here, I'd like to share some of my experiences.
Many works of humanistic photography are created in scenes with large crowds, such as markets, night markets, and streets. These scenes are very messy, but they offer endless variations and combinations. This brings us a lot of possibilities for humanistic photography, which is also the charm of humanistic photography. You never know who you will photograph or what kind of work you will capture. However, many masterpieces of humanistic works are actually created in very small and inconspicuous places, which requires photographers to have a strong ability to choose scenes.
This picture was taken at Nyaung U Market in Bagan, the largest agricultural product market in Bagan. This is the kitchen of a snack bar. From the outside, I could see some light leaking from the roof, and there was some smoke when cooking. Sure enough, after waiting for a while, I finally got the picture I wanted.
Several factors are mainly considered:
First, light
Light is often the first factor we consider when searching for a scene. Any ordinary scene can be transformed by unique lighting. Front light, back light, side light, reflected light, and diffuse light are all commonly used in humanities photography. Some photographers even use speedlights to create artificial light. This is also a major attraction of humanities photography, as it allows for full-time photography from early morning to late evening, without the extreme weather requirements of landscape photography.
Early morning backlight
Around 10 o'clock
Diffuse light on a cloudy day
Side top light at around 11 o'clock
Using reflected light from the ground
Second, color
The color composition and color purity of the scene are also important selection criteria. The simpler and more regular the colors are, the easier it is to take good photos. Such colors are less likely to interfere with the subject and are more likely to highlight our main characters. At the same time, when we consider the environmental color, we also need to consider its color matching with the main character. For example, the color of a person's clothes and the environmental color are generally the main color matching of the picture.
Green and white combination
Combination of blue and yellow
Yellow, black and colorful combination
Purple, yellow and black combination
The third is connotation
Different places have different connotations. For example, schools, Buddhist temples, and train stations all have unique cultural connotations in our hearts, so the choice of these scenes will explain the environmental significance of our film. In addition, unique patterns and texts can also give the environment special meaning.
The silhouettes of several monks donating alms are depicted walking down an ordinary street. The backlight of the early morning creates distinct silhouettes on the monks, adding to the overall atmosphere. The geometric arrangement of the monks, from low to high, adds interest to the painting.
In the Mahaganayan Monastery, an old monk is reading a book, and behind him are two young monks chatting. One is sitting and the other is standing, one is still and the other is moving, one is bright and the other is dark. These contrasts add some interest to the picture.
When photographing the humanities while traveling, choosing the scene is crucial, but choosing the subject is often even more important. A good scene can elevate an ordinary subject. And a good subject, regardless of the setting, can be transformed into a stunning humanistic work. So, which subjects should we focus on when photographing while traveling?
Because the local cultural characteristics are one of our focuses when photographing people during travel, we try to find people with local makeup, clothing, and accessories when photographing local people.
The vicissitudes of life in the elderly and the innocence of children are both easy to move people. Therefore, for many humanistic photographers, children and the elderly are eternal themes;
When photographing people while traveling, it's important to focus on their faces and eyes. Many humanistic portrait photographers spend most of their time photographing different faces. Some faces are like books, filled with stories. The eyes are the windows to the soul and are often the visual focus of our photographs, so they're also a frequent focus of our photography.
People with special expressions and body language are also subjects we often photograph. Expressions and body language can convey special emotions to the picture.
Among the above shooting subjects, we often choose the most typical characters, such as very old people, wrinkled faces, particularly cute children, the most exaggerated expressions, and the most beautiful girls. These can better express the theme of our humanistic shooting.
Interpretation: This is a typical child with Burmese cultural characteristics, with thanaka painted on his face and a yellow garland, forming a natural contrast of warm and cool tones.
Communication is crucial for travel photography. It not only determines whether you can capture the scene, but also directly affects the quality of your photography. Many people who travel abroad find it difficult to communicate due to language barriers. However, communication doesn’t necessarily require verbal communication. Sometimes a smile or a gesture can be very helpful for your photography.
This is the fundamental premise of communication in travel photography. You need to understand the local culture and customs, especially their taboos, and know what you can and cannot photograph. For example, when traveling to Southeast Asia such as Myanmar and Thailand, when taking photos of children, you should never touch their heads. For them, the top of the head is considered the most noble part of a person.
A smile is the universal language of the world. Although different places and different people may react differently to your lens, some may be surprised, some may be confused, some may be happy, and some may be unhappy. But no matter what, giving people a sincere smile at the first time and letting others feel your kindness will win the greatest chance of your photo.
In addition to smiling, we should learn some simple local greetings and compliments, such as "Hello!", "Thank you", "Goodbye", "So cute", "So beautiful". While smiling, greet others immediately with "Hello". After taking the photo, thank them and praise the children.
When photographing someone from the front, especially at close range, always ask for permission to avoid unnecessary hassle. Some people are camera-averse, so if someone doesn't allow you to be photographed, don't do it. It's a matter of mutual respect. The best way to ask for permission isn't verbal communication, as verbal communication can often lead people to believe you're asking for help. The simplest way is to point your finger at the camera and gesture for permission. Others will understand and respond accordingly.
Keep some small candies or stationery with you and give them to them when taking pictures. They will often be very happy, which makes it easier to interact with children. It is important to note that you must wait until after the photo shoot before giving candies, because once you give candies, whether you hold them in your hands or hold them in your mouth, it will directly affect your photo shoot.
The reason we don't accept money as a token of appreciation for photographing isn't to save money, but primarily to protect the local cultural environment. Children shouldn't be given money easily. Even if they ask for it, we try to offer candy instead. You can imagine how it feels to be asked for money as soon as you pick up your camera. This loses the original purpose of photographing the humanities, turning it into a complete "business."
You can show the photos in your camera to your subjects. Children will often be delighted and become more lively. Adults may also like the photos. You can then exchange contact information with each other and send the photos to them when you return. Sometimes, you are not satisfied with the photos you took and want to take more. Showing photos to others is a good way to communicate. Others will have more trust in you, especially when they like your photos, which will bring a lot of convenience to your shooting.
For those who love travel photography, a dual-camera, multi-lens setup is recommended. Because photography is often fleeting and there's often no time to change lenses, dual cameras are more efficient.
My favorite lenses for photography include the 24-105mm f/4, 35mm f/1.4, 70-200mm f/2.8, 24-70mm f/2.8, and 16-35mm f/2.8. Of course, this also depends on your shooting style and habits. When shooting, you should also prepare the appropriate dual-camera lenses based on the specific characteristics of the scene. In most cases, you can choose a combination of a telephoto and wide-angle lens, or a zoom and a prime lens.
In terms of camera parameter settings, in most cases, the commonly used mode for shooting humanities is AV mode, which can control the picture effect by controlling the depth of field. However, there is a disadvantage of using AV mode, that is, in places with poor lighting such as indoors, the shutter speed is easily insufficient, resulting in blurry films. At this time, it is necessary to adjust the ISO in time to ensure the shutter speed.
Here's a practical tip: set iOS to automatic and control the shutter speed using the minimum shutter speed in the ISO settings. For static, humanistic photography, the minimum shutter speed can be set to automatic. However, if the subject is moving, you'll need to manually set the minimum shutter speed. For photographing slow-moving people, a minimum shutter speed of 1/125 is a good choice, although the subject's motion should also be taken into consideration. Center-weighted metering is generally a safer choice for metering, but sometimes spot metering combined with exposure lock is used.
Many photographers often struggle with composition when capturing humanities. For recurring scenes, it's worth considering composition and lighting, but with fleeting scenes and people, there's often less time for reflection, so capturing the moment is paramount. In these situations, it's recommended to focus on a broader composition, prioritizing the capture and allowing for a second, more balanced composition in post-production.
Because capturing the subject's expressions and body language is crucial when photographing humanities, a humanities work can fail to become a masterpiece simply because of a poor expression or overlapping movements. Therefore, when photographing, we should use continuous shooting mode more often and be generous with the shutter speed for dynamic subjects. Capturing more will give us more options later.
When photographing landscapes, we often wait for the right weather and light. But when photographing people, besides waiting for the light, we also wait for the right people. So, when we find a good scene, we can wait purposefully. Waiting for the right people to appear in the right position, which may be one person or a combination of people.
If a photo has three or more contrasts to highlight the subject, it will definitely be a good photo. Therefore, it is very important to master various shooting techniques and use various contrasts to highlight the subject and create a good atmosphere. Common contrasts include light and dark contrast, color contrast, dynamic and static contrast, virtual and real contrast, size contrast, old and young contrast, etc.
Many times our subjects are too ordinary, but if we adjust the camera position in time, use the perspective of the lens, and look for interesting foregrounds, the picture will become completely different.
For many conventional shooting locations and many cultural scenes with staged nature, we also try to break the routine and use different perspectives and methods to shoot, so that the film will be revitalized. For example, when we came to Bagan to shoot the sunset, everyone focused on taking pictures of the pagodas, but the background of the elderly couple watching the sunset from behind is actually a beautiful scenery.
Post-production is the other half of photography. Current digital camera design principles are based on the "three lows": low sensitivity, low saturation, and low contrast. This is why many DSLR photos don't look as good as those taken with smartphones. This isn't because digital camera manufacturers lack the ability to optimize photos, but rather because optimizing digital film maximizes its potential, making a photographic masterpiece even more perfect. Therefore, post-production is indispensable.
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Original film
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Original film
I hope the above information will be helpful to all photography enthusiasts. Many photography techniques are simple to explain, but actually applying them is not easy, and often leads to problems. This requires extensive practice, turning many techniques into a photography experience, so that we can better create. I hope this tutorial is helpful to everyone, and I wish all photographers to shoot more great films in 2019!
