The Travelling Photographer: Tours, Gear and Getting the Shot

This event is primarily for members of the QLD Camera Group, if you would like to attend, please reach out to the camera group prior to booking a spot. Contact Page

Travel photography promises a lot: new light, new landscapes, and a memory card full of images you couldn't make at home. The reality is often jet lag, bad weather, a bag that's too heavy, and the best light arriving while you're still on the bus.

In this session, Sony Advocate, Craig Turnbull shares what actually works when you're photographing away from home, drawing on stories and images from a photography tour of New Zealand that will have been completed just weeks before this talk.

What we'll cover:

Photography tours, the honest version. Not all tours are equal. We'll look at the main types on offer, small-group workshops, large operator tours, self-guided itineraries, and private guides, and what each one is genuinely good at. What you're really paying for, how much shooting time you can expect, and how group size changes the experience more than almost anything else.

Pros, cons and pitfalls. The tour that gets you to the right place at the right time versus the one that hands you the same composition as fifteen other people. Booking traps to watch for, questions worth asking before you pay a deposit, and how to tell a photography tour from a sightseeing trip with a camera bolted on.

Equipment that earns its place. What to take, what to leave behind, and the compromises that come with both. Bodies and lenses, filters, tripods, drones and the rules that govern them, batteries and power on the road, and a workable backup routine so a single failure doesn't cost you the trip. We'll also talk airline weight limits and how to survive them.

Planning and preparation. Scouting locations before you leave, reading light and weather, timing for sunrise and blue hour, permits and access, and building an itinerary with enough slack in it to handle the day everything goes wrong.

Craft on the road. Working a location rather than collecting it. Finding your own frame in a heavily photographed place, photographing people respectfully, and coming home with a coherent set of images rather than a random pile of them.

Fresh from the field. New images and stories from the recent New Zealand tour, including the shots that worked, the ones that didn't.

The session is aimed at photographers of all levels, whether you're planning your first overseas trip with a camera or you've been doing it for years and want to compare notes. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion throughout.

• What to pack
• Camera Gear
• Planning and preparation