Travel Seminar Preview (Patreon)

I am nearing the completion of my one-month location shoot in India. I have been capturing images to illustrate my forthcoming Patron-only travel seminar that I hope to have ready to publish in February. The images captured in India will be used to illustrate a broad range of topics (not just choice of camera gear and the camera settings I use), e.g., These four images were captured on my last shoot in Varanasi and will be used to answer the question ”do I pay people so I can take a photo of them?”

The first image is of a person who did not ask for payment before or after I created his portrait (some people in India will dress as Sadhu’s to pose for payments from Tourists for photos). I approached this person as he was NOT trying to attract the attention of tourists. I ask permission by making eye contact, smiling and then tapping my camera and then waiting for a positive response before raising the camera to my eye. I always take three or more photos, from a full-length portrait to a tight head and shoulders crop. I occasionally ask someone to move or turn so I can improve the background or light on their face. I share the images I have created of them, either by showing them on the back of the camera or sending the images to them by email or ‘Whats App’. It’s worth disabling the ‘show focus point’ setting when doing this as most people will wonder what the green square over their eye is.

The second image is of a ‘Chai Wallah’ that I captured shortly after he made me a cup of Indian spiced coffee this afternoon. I had passed him every day for the last 3 days, and we had exchanged smiles and a ‘nod-of-the-head’ each day. Today I made some portrait photographs of him after he served me my coffee. One could say doing business with him was payment for the photograph. 

The third image is of a religious pilgrim. He was more than happy to have his portrait taken and I gave him a small offering to help him on his journey. Something that the locals may also do when they encounter a pilgrim (as evidenced in the last photo). He mentioned money early in the exchange and I made my decision to pay him based on my ‘best guess’ that he was a pilgrim and not someone dressed up to be a ’photo opportunity’. My guess came from the fact that I had approached him and not the other way around.

I am not adverse to giving someone who is less fortunate than me some money, but it makes me a little uncomfortable if the interaction is brief, as the photo can have less value to me when there is no meaningful interaction other than the ‘taking’ of the photo. 

I will explore many more of these type of questions in my forthcoming seminar.

I have now been travelling the world with my cameras for nearly four decades so hopefully you will find some of the information that I share to be useful In your own travels.