Tech

Here's how to take travel photos without being a gawking tourist

Rafi Letzter

2016-05-02T18:22:12Z

What are the top three activities that come to mind when you think of traveling?

For me, the answer is exploring, eating local food, and taking photos.

I'd imagine many people have similar associations. But taking photos when visiting another place or culture leads many people to perform a gross caricature of the tourist abroad, treating an unfamiliar culture like a zoo for consumption — the colonist on a global safari, disrespecting the peoples of the places where they visit with overeager lenses and disregard for norms of personal space and respect.

Not only does this kind of behavior make you look like a jerk, but it leads to worse photos than you'd get if you put a little thought in before you snapped.

I'm nowhere near as well-traveled as some photographers, but I've found myself more than once in the position where it was my job to make pictures in a place where I was an outsider. And I've made a fool of myself by not thinking carefully about where I was and what I was doing. You shouldn't do that.

Here's what I've learned about taking tourist photos without being a jerk.

Don't carry any more equipment than you need.

A photo posted by Rafi Letzter (@rletzter)Mar 13, 2016 at 10:52pm PDT

I own some fancy cameras. I get to play with some even fancier cameras. But these days when I'm going somewhere new and interesting for my own pleasure I tend to leave my fancy cameras behind in favor of an iPhone 6s or Galaxy S7.

Montreal from Mont-Royal (aka the mountain in the middle of downtown

A photo posted by Rafi Letzter (@rletzter) on Mar 13, 2016 at 10:24pm PDTMar 13, 2016 at 10:24pm PDT

That's because when I'm on an adventure with friends and loved ones I'm not trying to make art with my photos — and you shouldn't either. Instead, I'm there to have experiences in interesting places with people I care about; the photos just serve as a kind of ad-hoc visual journal. And a smartphone camera is plenty effective for those purposes.

Too cool for the tourist entrance. (Thank you @seanmlavery)

A photo posted by Rafi Letzter (@rletzter) on Apr 30, 2016 at 2:25pm PDTApr 30, 2016 at 2:25pm PDT

There are also a number of smaller cameras like the Sony RX-100 or even the RX-1 that will do you nicely. Only bring more powerful, heavy, and intrusive equipment if your whole goal is to make pictures.

Try not to shoot the same thing everyone else is shooting.

Probably the most difficult and frustrating gig I've ever done involved following a bunch of Northwestern University students on a tour of Doha, Qatar. I was, in addition to shooting the tour, a tourist myself — trying to make brochure-worthy photos while traipsing around famous, over-photographed Qatari sites with a group of Western kids sticking out like about sixteen sore thumbs.

If you're going somewhere everyone else goes and takes pictures, focus on pictures of your friends and family enjoying the spot. If you invest time and energy in trying to make the perfect picture of the tour ground itself, you'll miss out on the experience.

Don't spend more than a few minutes on architecture.

Anyone who's ever gone to a new place has taken photos of the local public art and architecture. That's fine — it's fun! And utterly inoffensive. But keep in mind that any cool structure you've seen probably gets shot about a million times that day, so get one or two "look what I saw" shots and move along.

Don't shoot poverty porn.

One of the most poorly-thought through stops on that Doha trip involved a school-planned jaunt through one of the migrant workers' neighborhoods where men lived packed 10 or more to a bunk room. Our Qatari guides felt entirely comfortable, it seemed, waltzing into their quarters with large groups of American students in tow. This was apparently encouraged by Northwestern as a sort of learning experience, and many students followed the guides' leads and snapped away.

Don't do this.

Slum tourism is a too-popular and gross way for wealthy visitors to gawk under a thin guise of "education" about the ills of the world. It's invasive, exploitative, and serves no one but the gawkers and the tour guides who profit from it.

I took one photo that night, after a brief conversation with this cobbler and his customer through a Bahraini friend of mine's translation. In theory, I had permission. But if I found myself in the same situation today I wouldn't ask.

Pay attention to local norms.

This image comes from the ultra-religious neighborhood of Mea Sh'arim in Jerusalem. In that area, there are streets and alleys where outsiders are welcome, and streets and alleys where they are not.

I spent plenty of time walking around there, talking to people who lived there and learning their rules before I ever brought a camera. When I did shoot, I wore clothes appropriate to the neighborhood's rules and was careful not to intrude on anyone's day.

That deferential attitude allowed me to make much more interesting images of daily life there than if I had simply showed up with a giant camera and started snapping.

Put your camera down long enough to get to know people.

Western Wall prayers — This is the kind of shot you get when a prime lens forces you to zoom with your feet. Rafi Letzter

The more effort you put into talking to people and getting to know them before you want to take their picture, the more access they'll be willing to give you — because you'll have shown you're not just there to treat them like zoo animals.

If you have the comfort level to strike up conversations with strangers in places you visit, you'll end up with a compelling look at their lives. If you don't, then why are you comfortable shoving a camera in their faces anyway?

Shoot people who want to be seen.

The good news is there are many interesting (positively or negatively), unusual people all over the world just itching to get their image, or message, out there.

The shot above comes from a late-night, far-right Israeli settler march through Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. I shot this event for a local wire service, but it was just as interesting as a person there to make pictures as a way to understand a place and its people.

No one there minded being photographed, and none of them were being exploited. The shoot offered a window into a side of Israeli society not visible on sanctioned tours, and is exactly the sort of unusual event that will allow you to make truly unique images.

Don't expect to make high art, but try to see something new and interesting.

Making great pictures on your travels will ultimately emerge from traveling in the right way. If you go to a place not intending to take the same tour a thousand other people have taken, but with a plan to non-intrusively get to know the people who actually live there, you'll end up with a unique and interesting set of photos. If you just stay in nice hotels and stomp over the same kitschy tour grounds a million other people have before you, you probably won't.

Photography Travel