Tested techniques for travelogs - color slide photography technique for creating show presentations

When producing a travelog it is important to grab and keep the interest of your audience. Your travelog will be most effective when you coordinate all the elements of your show for maximum appeal. When planning, photographing, and constructing the travelog, key dimensions to be considered are subject matter, beginning, continuity, and transition.

The primary purpose of travel photography is to give your audience a vicarious sense of being there--to give them a feeling of what the country is really like. In order to do this you have to get shots that typify the area, and the most special aspect of a country is its people. It's not only the flowers, trees and buildings we want to remember, but the faces, the smiles, the eyes and the families of those we encounter in our travels. Ultimately it is the people we are concerned with--how they dress, how they live and how they relate to others.

For portraits most advanced amateurs and professionals use a longer than normal lens, usually a medium focal length lens from 80 to 105mm. This allows you to stand back at least four or five feet, giving you a natural perspective and a more comfortable working distance from your subject, particularly a total stranger.

In addition to portraits be sure to get pictures of people in places where inclusion of some of the background places your travel pictures in their proper setting. In photographing people at work, remember what your subject is doing is as important as the subject's relationship to his work.

Photographers are among the most sensitive people in the world; thus they have many self-doubts with respect to whether their intrusion into other people's lives is justifiable. In order to overcome this difficulty it may help you to keep in mind that asking someone to pose for you, or merely pointing your camera in his direction, is a way of telling him, that in your opinion, he is an exceptional person of interest to another human.

One way to start photographing strangers is by taking candid pictures. In crowded places you can often find an inconspicuous place from which to observe the passing scene, and snap away. Easy places to begin taking people pictures are playgrounds for children, or adults at work. If your subject is sleeping he won't be disturbed; however, onlookers may object if you are photographing a beggar or a drunk, since they feel the pictures may be wrongly viewed as representing the general condition in their country.

Another important dimension to consider in putting together a travelog is how to capture the audience's attention from the very beginning. Begin with a good title slide, one which arouses interest either through the wording of the title itself, or through its beauty, or both. I am partial to alliterations, such as "Perusing Peru" and "Espana Espied." Another one, which doesn't look as euphonious but has a pleasing sound is "City for a Sunday," a program on Mexico City. For a travelog on Guatemala I again chose words starting with the same sound. "From Maya to Modern" offered a clue of what was to follow, but some intrigue, since the country was not revealed in the title. For a show on Greece I chose the title, "It's Greek to me." With that title you might safely assume that the travelog was about Greece. Since the title "Greek Odyssey" has become as redundant as "the sun slowly sinking in the west," I felt using the familiar expression "It's Greek to me" would be fitting as well as different.

Once you have decided on the title you must prepare a title slide. This can be done in many ways. One involves placing Herrard 3-D letters on top of a print of one of your photographs. You can also use plain colored paper or a piece of fabric from the country represented. A piece of glass can be placed on top of the background if you don't want to place the letters directly on whatever you decide to use.

Borrowing an idea from television, it isn't necessary for a program to begin with the title slide. Sometimes I prefer to start the travelog with a dark screen, using only music to establish a mood. It is important to use good title slides and strong slides at the beginning and the end. By starting with good slides you prepare your audience to believe that they are going to see a good show, and by finishing with strong slides they go away with the same feeling--provided of course you don't do too bad a job in between.

For an interesting and well-constructed show, it is important to maintain continuity--an even flow of suitable visual images with appropriate music or narration. In producing travelogs, one point that everyone seems to agree on is to discard all out-of-focus, overexposed and underexposed slides before you start. Choose only the best of repetitious pictures and discard the rest.

Don't use very light and very dark slides next to each other, but try to arrange the slides so that they progressively get darker or lighter. This way your audience is not aware that there may be considerable difference in the density of some of the slides which you have decided to use, probably because you needed them to convey a thought or point out a particularly interesting aspect about the area or its people.

Sequences are another important part of travelog construction. The dictionary describes a sequence as "the following of one thing after another." More specifically, under motion pictures, it is defined as "a film story set in the same time and place without interruptions or breaks of any sort." In slide photography an apt description of a sequence might be "time-lapse photography of a single subject." Sequences in your travelog add interest and help to avoid monotony.

Occasionally I will end a travel program with a "flashback sequence," which reviews some of the highlights of what has already been shown. This gives me the opportunity to use some slides which are similar to others earlier in the program. Be sure they are some of your best slides. This review of where you have been and what you have seen gives you an easy way to end your show if you have no blockbuster of an idea in mind.

Technically your production will consist of pictures, sound and narration. All can be used effectively to move from one sequence to another.

Transition can be made by a change of music, notably music with a different mood. A change of country can be indicated easily with a switch from the music of one country to the music of the new country to be visited.

Music should be incorporated into the travelog with great care. The music should never drown out the speaker's voice; it should not be monotonous nor have familiar lyrics. Piano music should not accompany narration--it makes it difficult to discern what the speaker is saying. Don't grab just any instrumental for background music. The tempo should fit the scenes: upbeat for city traffic, pastoral for landscapes. If your travelog is on a foreign country it is helpful to use some music of that country. Don't overdo it if the music is somewhat offensive to our western ears, such as Turkish or Chinese music played on native instruments.

It can be helpful to record native music and sounds as you travel. It is also a good idea to buy music while you are in the country you are visiting because it may be difficult, if not impossible, to find it at home. Nothing adds more excitement to a bull-fight scene than the addition of the sounds of the bull rushing across the ring and the roar of the crowd. On the other hand, a little bagpipe music goes a long way. Sound deserves as much time, care and consideration as the pictures and the narration.

Transitions from one scene to another can be difficult, but in a travel program they are obviously necessary. A slide of no particular significance but which is pleasing to look at, can be used while you are explaining what is going to happen next. Please don't say something like, "And now I'll take you to so and so" or "This is so and so." Maps can often be used as transition slides as they keep the viewer informed about where your travels are taking you in a particular country.

Maps are often difficult to read on the screen, particularly if they are quite detailed, so it is usually better if you blow up small sections so they are legible, or make your own maps by cutting out the shape of the country and adding the name of the town you are heading for with rub-on letters available from stationers. If you use large maps you can add numbers to the map and state the place the number represents, or you can add arrows pointing to your destination. The arrows can be rubbed on or simply cut from a piece of colored paper and laid on top of the map to be photographed.

Word bridging is also effective in transition from one place to another. In a travelog on Mexico City I used word bridging to connect four slides of different subjects. Note how the following wording transports the viewers from the plaza in Mexico City to view the dancers performing inside the Palace of Fine Arts via the monument to Benito Juarez in Alameda Park:

"Also located on the plaza near the presidential palace, the cathedral shines majestically from thousands of lights."

"As the cathedral is separated from the presidential palace, so are church and state separated since Benito Juarez, a full blooded Zapotec Indian, was president in 1858. This monument in his honor stands in Alameda Park."

"At one end of the park is located the Palace of Fine Arts, one of Mexico's many cultural centers. It is a blend of Mayan, Mixtec and classical architecture, and because of its enormous weight and the softness of the underlying soil, the building has settled twelve feet since its construction."

"Inside the building, the world famous ballet Folklorico, one of Mexico's finest ambassadors, portrays more of the history of Mexico as beautifully costumed dancers perform folk dances of many regions."

Humor in a photo-essay or travelog also helps to change the pace, and often gives welcome relief from facts and figures. Timing is very important in the use of humor. Humor in a travel program is rarely the result of one slide--they're just not that easy to find--but by watching closely for a combination of slides and searching for a humorous line as you arrange your slides, you can create humor to fit into a program.

Examples of these ideas and more are included in the slide program "Tested Techniques for Travelogs."

COPYRIGHT 1994 Photographic Society of America, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group