The Traveling Image Makers

A few weeks ago I had a conversation on this podcast with our common friend Valérie Jardin. Most of the discussion we had was centered around an article published on the New York Daily News and titled When your photograph harms me: New York should look to curb unconsensual photography of women.It would have been easy to discount the article as yet another rant about street photography and its purported invasion of privacy, but the fact that it was written by an Asian woman got me thinking.It made me think that photography is mostly a white guys’ club. Women are a minority and people of color, especially black, are an even smaller minority. Black women photographers? I don’t know any, personally.We white guys often tend to overlook this fact and can become race-blind and gender-blind. When I look at the issue of photographing strangers in the street, it’s easy for me to think that I should apply a sort of golden rule: I am not going to treat others in ways that I wouldn’t want to be treated, but is that enough

Our guest this week is Swedish landscape photographer Mattias Sjölund. Mattias has an inherent passion for photographing and hiking in nature. He is the founder of Foto Magica, one of the leading organizers of photo tours and workshops in Scandinavia.We asked Mattias about his favorite wilderness locations in and around Sweden and discovered a number of places that are not excessively popular yet, but are definitely deserving of a visit, including Abisko, Knuthöjdsmossen, Gotland Rauks, and Jämtland. LinksFoto MagicaPersonal websiteInstagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Bishop, our guest for this week’s episode of the podcast, is an Australian who visited Italy many years ago, fell in love with the place and one of its people and never looked back.Matt was raised up in the small seaside town of Sorrento, Australia. During his childhood years there was certainly a strong artistic background that influenced his photography later in life. Matt was drawn toward landscape photography after spending months climbing the mountains in Switzerland, and after soon arriving in London in 2002, he purchased his first 35mm Camera. Over the years his progression into capturing landscapes was a slow experimental one, until recently where his workflow in digital photography became far more refined. Today Matt resides in Rome, Italy, surrounded by ancient forests, medieval castles, rolling pastures and alpine jagged mountains.In recent years his main photographic projects involve collaborating with Pentax Europe, the Landscape Photography Workshops in Patagonia, private post production in

We're super happy to have again as a guest on our podcast Jordana Wright, who we already interviewed in episode TTIM 104 – Jordana Wright and The Enthusiast’s Guide to Travel Photography.Jordana says of herself: "I’ve had a camera in my hand for over 75% of my life. Originally it was a plastic point-and-shoot and a fresh roll of Kodak but these days, well, things in the photography world have changed exponentially. While my gear budget has grown a bit, my love for framing the world in a little box remains the same. My camera has taken me to some amazing places and introduced me to some of my favorite creatures. I’ve been lucky enough to make a living at photography for the past 14 years. When I’m not actively looking through the viewfinder, I write about photography and creativity (my first book “The Enthusiast’s Guide to Travel Photography” was published in 2018) and teach photography through workshops, classes, and private tutoring. I currently live in San Ignacio, Belize."Last time we spoke, more than

This week's guest of the show is Else Kramer, who likes to define herself as a Renaissance woman, a photosopher, making the visible invisible, a coach to gifted women and a wearer of polka-dot dresses.Here is how Else talks about herself on her website:"I spend most of my day looking at the world in wonder, marvelling at all the amazing miracles to be seen.And I’m very lucky that the past 10 years of my life have been centred around helping others do the same, through online projects, keynotes and live workshops.I love using new technology to empower people to be more creative and better appreciate both their world and art.I embraced smartphone photography when I got my first iPhone - the 3S. I believed (as I still do) that this was the start of a Visual Revolution, where everyone would be able to tell their own stories through images. I was the first person to give smartphone photography workshops in the Netherlands, and have run many online projects helping people see with fresh eyes using their smartphones

Darlene Hildebrandt is the creator of Digital Photo Mentor. She has been a professional photographer for over 30 years, and as such, she has photographed everything from soup to hay—literally—including doing food photography; weddings; family portraits; corporate events and products.After a forced change of direction (a.k.a. divorce), she left her photography studio behind and moved on to other aspects of photography—including sales, fine art, and travel. She finally landed on teaching and couldn’t be happier. She's written for and has been published on websites and in newspapers around the world, and was also the Managing Editor of Digital Photography School for 5 years, one of the most popular photography sites on the internet.We talked about Venice and its recent 1600th birthday, Canada's wine country, Nova Scotia, and Toronto. We also discussed the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence in the field of photography, what people can use it today for, and where we are headed. See acast.com/privac

Our guest on this week’s episode of the podcast is Valérie Jardin.Valérie is a visual storyteller recognized internationally for her street photography. She leads workshops worldwide, writes books, produces a weekly podcast, and is an official X Photographer for Fujifilm USA.We asked Valérie for her thoughts on an article by Levi Sim, provocatively titled Taking street photography should be illegal. In the article, Levi reflects on his approach to street photography, after having read another article, written by Jean Son for the New York Daily News and titled When your photograph harms me: New York should look to curb unconsensual photography of women.When we practice street photography and take pictures of strangers–sometimes without our subject’s awareness–a small minority of photographers behave like everything is allowed. Other are more considerate and will follow a basic rule: don’t put others in a situation we wouldn’t want to be in ourselves.But is that really enough? When we think like

Charlotte Brett is a landscape and travel photographer based just outside London. With a passion to see and photograph diverse places around the world, in recent years she has travelled to China, Morocco, Cuba, Ecuador and The Seychelles. As well as capturing big landscapes and cityscapes, Charlotte loves to photograph the details, colours and people of the places she visits to give a sense of a country’s culture and history. She was recently approached by high-end travel library, 4Corners Images, who will be representing her work commercially going forward. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Does every picture tell a story? What does it actually take to create storytelling photographs? This week, Ugo, Ralph and special guest Kav Dadfar discuss the ins and outs of storytelling in travel photography. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In episode 182 Ugo interviews Colby Brown. We have wanted to interview Colby for a long time and, thanks also to the pandemic, we finally managed to find him stuck at home long enough us to be able to arrange this.Colby Brown is a photographer, photo educator and author based out of Eastern Pennsylvania. Specializing in landscape, travel and humanitarian photography, his photographic portfolio spans the four corners of the globe. Throughout his work, one can see that he combines his love of the natural world with his fascination of the world’s diverse cultures.Ugo and Colby discuss branching out into other streams of activity for photographers, good and bad online education, and humanitarian initiatives. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode Ugo and Ralph catch up after a few months and discuss their recent travels, to Italy and Turkey respectively. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After a looong pause, The Traveling Image Makers podcast is back on the air and an old friend is back too!Pete DeMarco, who has previously on the show in episodes TTIM 96 – Peter DeMarco in Asia and TTIM 146 – Matt Brandon and Pete DeMarco in Malaysia is an American expat currently living in Asia. He recently spent some time living in Singapore and he wanted to share with us the reasons why he loves that city and some of his favorite locations for photography.Pete is an award-winning travel photographer. His passion for helping people transform their photography shows through in the expert advice he shares. His work has been featured in National Geographic Traveler, CNN, and Conde Nast. He’s also the founder of the The Creative Collective.Ugo, who has recently been to Singapore too, and Pete compare their experiences in this episode of the podcast that, for the first but possibly not the last time, also has a video version. You can watch that by clicking here. See acast.com/privacy fo

This week's guest on the podcast is premiere outdoor photographer, photo workshop leader and PhotoHound app co-creator Luka Esenko. Ralph "sat down" with Luka to get an update on what he's been up to lately and he asked him in-depth questions about why the switch from Snapp Guides to PhotoHound, an app that is extremely useful for photographers in that it's full of great information about what and where to photograph in over 4,600 locations on 6 continents around the world (and growing). PhotoHound is free app and is based on a community of photographers sharing not only great spots to shoot, but also other useful information such as the best time of day, and season, to be in the location, and even where to park, how to find the trailhead, suggested gear and more. The community even adheres to the PhotoHound Code of Photography, which everyone should read and abide by.For the past 12 years, Luka has been running photo workshops in and around the Adriatic region, including hi

Tomás Tigchelaar Lourenço, our guest for this episode of the podcast, is not a photographer, but he is using the power of photographs to effect some powerful change in the world.In December of 2017 Tomás started the @GiveSealifeAHand Cleanup movement on Instagram.This movement started during a beach walk in Portugal, when talking about ocean plastic pollution, he said something like “If fish had hands, this problem would have been long solved.”. Moments after, he looked at his hands and realized he had to give sea life a hand.After a cleanup, he made a hand out of the trash he collected and tagged it #GiveSeaLifeAHand. Two years later he now has more than 150 hands from 95 different countries around the world and carried out 9 GiveSeaLifeAHand talks at primary schools in Portugal and Curaçao reaching over 300 kids with this message.Hi motto is “Cleanups are the easy part, making them unnecessary is the difficult one.” Therefore his goal is to have a picture of a hand from every country in the world

Our guest for this week’s episode of the podcast is Kav Dadfar.Kav is a professional writer and travel and landscape photographer, based on the outskirts of London, in leafy Surrey.Kav has worked on various assignments as well as for commercial clients. His travel images are represented by various high-end stock agencies such as 4Corners Images and Robert Harding and they have been used by the likes of Condé Nast, National Geographic, Wanderlust travel magazine, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, American Express, Daily Mail, Sunday Times Travel, Express, The Guardian and many more.He’s also a judge on one of the UK’s biggest photography contests, the Wanderlust Travel Magazine Photography of the Year competition. Over the years he has given talks at camera clubs and events such the Destination Show in London as well as being a regular writer for Digital Photography School (one of the most popular photography sites on the internet), LifePixel and ExpertPhotography websites. Over the years he has written almost 400

Our guest for this week’s episode of the podcast is Canadian nature photographer and adventurer Paul Zizka.From the peaks of the Canadian Rockies to iceberg-laden seas off the coast of Greenland, Paul’s journey to capture the “under-documented” is a testament to his passion for exploration, his creative vision and fierce sense of determination. These qualities, combined with his pursuit of fresh perspectives and a deep love for the landscape, have resulted in an ever-growing portfolio of cutting-edge images.Whether it’s wading waist-deep into a glacier-fed lake or chasing auroras from dusk til dawn, Paul is known for an adventurous spirit that draws him to the extraordinary. Highlighting his collection are his signature self-portraits, epic mountaineering moments, dreamy astrophotography images, as well as a window into some of the most remote corners of the planet. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're really excited to have back on the show one of our favorite guests and best friend, street photographer extraordinaire Valérie Jardin.Valérie is a French photographer, currently residing in the United States. She is self-taught and worked for several years as a commercial photographer. Today, Valérie is known internationally through her workshops. When she is not teaching others the art of visual storytelling, Valérie is a prolific author, a speaker, and a podcast producer of the bi-weekly show Hit The Streets with Valérie Jardin. She lives and breathes in pixels.Even though Valérie has been living in the US for many years, she still returns to her native France several times a year. In fact, she had just returned from Normandy when we caught up with her to discuss what makes France such a coveted destination, the differences between various regions, and the best Parisian neighborhoods to visit. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nowadays travel to most of the world has sadly become impossible. Photographers, and especially travel photographers, are trying to find ways to keep their juices flowing while they can’t go very far or, in some cases, are not even allowed to leave their home.Andrew Gibson is a photographer who has been forced to cancel all his travel plans in the last two years, not because of a pandemic, but because he and his wife now have a small child.We spoke with Andrew about the ways he has been coping with this situation and how it has affected his photography and his business. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his toddler has become one of his main subjects.He is also an educator and a writer. You can find all of his ebooks and other products at www.creative-photographer.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our co-host Ralph Velasco recently returned from spending a few days at one of the most popular festivals in the world: the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.On this week’s episode of the podcast, he shares with us his experience and gives some useful tips for those wanting to partake in it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

One of our favorite guests is back on the show! When Ugo interviewed Darlene Hildebrandt in episode 85, she expressed her intention to come to Venice for the Carnival and join the workshop that Ugo leads there every year.Darlene is the creator of Digital Photo Mentor. She has been a professional photographer for over 30 years, and photography educator since 2011. Darlene provides valuable articles on her site, has a free ebook, and offers online photography courses, as well as photography travel tours. Her next tours are to Morocco in April and Peru and India in the fall of 2020.As sometimes happens, things didn’t go exactly as planned and, also thanks to a broken foot, Darlene had to wait more than two years before she could come to Venice.She finally did just recently and that was a perfect opportunity to interview her again and ask about her impressions of Venice and the Carnival.We recorded the interview in busy St. Mark’s Square and, even though it was still 7AM, there was a lot going on. It was als