Up Your Travel Photography Game: Photographing Strangers

Advice from a kinda, sorta introverted photographer

One of the things I love most about traveling is seeing and experiencing how other people live. Landscapes are wonderful, buildings can be truly magical and nature is amazing but what really brings a place alive for me is the people. Without the people, I might as well be visiting a deserted movie set, interesting but empty.

First and foremost, when taking a picture of someone, whether you know them or not, it is important to always, always be respectful and get consent.

Consent doesn’t mean that you have to carry around a bunch of model release forms, it can mean making eye contact, holding up the camera and asking with the expression on your face.

Once, while attending a huge public funeral in Bali I saw a particularly striking older gentleman, I held up my camera and asked with my eyes and he frowned and shook his head. I was so so so tempted to take the picture anyway, he couldn’t have stopped me, but I didn’t because to have taken the picture would have been a violation so, I have no picture of him to show you here and that is as it should be.

On other occasions, like the woman in the photograph below, the person has signaled that it is OK so I went ahead and took the picture.

Sometimes even that is not possible and in those cases, I stick to photographing in places where people expect to be photographed like a parade in a public park, or a sporting event.

The photograph above was taken during a festival in Bali in which all of the participants were dressed up and taking pictures was not inappropriate.

I try to only take pictures of people that I think they would like, that is not mocking them and wouldn’t make them uncomfortable. Think, would it be OK to show this picture to one of their family members? If the answer is no, it is probably best to resist.

OK, so now on to how to take respectful and interesting photographs of people.

Look for the ways in which people do things that you do but in their own way

For example, I have to get from one place to another in my life. When I lived in the States, that usually meant getting in my car. When I am traveling however, I see people going here and then on trains, bikes, scooters, subways…, the possibilities are endless. In England, I loved the train stations. They were generally filled with light, made from bricks and just looked peaceful to me. In Bali, scooters were everywhere and whole families would pile on to get where they needed to go. In Japan, the ends of the work days were punctuated by the clean and efficient subways where people would read books, play phone games and sometimes catch up on a bit of sleep.

Think about some other things you do every week that might be different in different places like shopping.

People taking part in special celebrations

One of the things I love about life in the United States are the celebrations like Halloween and Christmas and one of the things I love about traveling is seeing what other people celebrate.

I think of Easter as a day filled with chocolate and egg hunting but in much of Eastern Europe, it is a time to visit the cemetery where your ancestors are. It is a time to dress up and honor family. In Japan, Easter is not really a thing, but cherry blossoms are! Even in the busiest, most urban settings, people take the time to go out to the parks and marvel at at the trees.

Pay Attention to How People Work

Maybe because I am not working when I am traveling usually, I really love watching the way other people work. I am a teacher so my work looks very different. I think there is a lot of beauty in the things that we dedicate our lives to. We so often undervalue the work of others because we do not see what they see when they are working, we do not feel what they do. So much of our work days are hidden and the only thing we pay attention to is the final product, not what it took to get it there.

The three photographs below show people working in the food industry. Herding cattle takes time and energy but how often do we think about it when we order a hamburger? Preparing food in the kitchen is something we often don’t see when we are at a restaurant and standing behind a counter at a candy store is probably less fun than eating that candy.

As you go about your travels, take the time to look around at the people who are working and honor their contribution to your experience.

When People are Doing Sports is a Great Time to Photograph

Sports are generally done out in public and people are expecting cameras to be present. It can take a bit of time to get the hang of photographing different sports but it can be really fun. I am not into any of the sports in the photographs below but I can appreciate how beautiful they are.

I love to play sports but I confess, watching them is really boring for me. I do love the emotion in sports though and that is what I try to capture when I photograph people practicing sports. This can be the adrenaline rush and intense focus of a skateboarder, the calm, reflective moment of attaching a line to a surfboard as the sun comes up and the feeling of freedom of flying a kite at the beach on a sunny, windy day.

You Don’t Always Have to Photograph the Whole Person, or Even Faces

So much can be conveyed by just showing feet or hands. As imaginative human beings, we do not always need to see everything in order to get the idea. In fact, it is boring to have every single detail of something spelled out. Great writers recognize that their readers are intelligent and can figure a lot out from just a few clues. Great photographers think about exactly what they want to include in a photograph and what they want to leave out. give the viewer just enough, but not too much.

Sometimes World Events Just Pop Up when You are Walking Home and it is Good not to Have a Professional-Looking Camera

I usually carry around a big heavy DSLR camera but occasionally it is just too heavy and I don’t feel like it so I leave it behind. I was super glad I did when the Gezi Protests broke out in Turkey. I was staying near Taxim Square which was the epicenter of the protests. I was walking back to where I was staying when tensions began to escalate. Taking pictures of people could have been risky that day if they had thought I was a reporter but because all I had on me was my iPad, the police didn’t take me seriously. They even smiled and posed when I brought it out.

And Sometimes, the Travel Gods Just Hand you a Gift if You Have Your Camera Ready

Final Thoughts

In spite of being a bit of an introvert, I love people. I find them fascinating, beautiful, inspiring, and complex all at the same time. When I photograph strangers it is because I want to honor their humanity.

What do you look for when you photograph the people you come across in your travels?

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