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Travel Photography is Dead *Updated*
November 6th, 2007I’ve now heard “travel photography is dead” from the mouths and pens of people who “know what they’re talking about” several times in the last week. My initial reaction was a defensive, “the hell it is! You can have my travel photography when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
But I’ve chewed on these hard words for a little while and today when talking to my friend, fellow photographer Kevin Clark, I had a realization that might just get me kicked off the staff of the Travel Photographers Network: “they” are right. It is dead.
Travel Photography as a genre is a little hard to pin down; it’s a broad umbrella that covers many styles, purposes, and a continuum with infinite degrees of talent. Is an image shot in India a “travel photograph”? What if it’s shot by by someone who lives there? Is it “travel photography” just because it captures the exotic, the novel, and the unfamiliar? Fifty years ago the answer might have been yes. Travel Photography was, by definition, capturing the exotic. Making the “far away” accessible to the masses who would never travel, largely for financial reasons. Only those with deep pockets could afford to venture the Inca trail to see and photograph Machu Picchu. Now college students routinely take advantage of cheap fares, see the wonder in an afternoon and head home the next day. Name a wonder of the world or an exotic destination and the German backbackers and America collegiates with Canon Powershots have beat you to it. And they’ve gone online and posted the images on Flickr, and submitted them to iStock Photo and twenty other stock agencies before you’re even on the train.
This proliferation of cheap travel, and the ease with which it is made – Lonely Planet Guide in hand – has stripped us of the one asset every “travel photographer” had in their backpocket. If they had no talent whatsoever, they at least had novelty. They had a photograph of an exotic place or culture on the far side of the globe, and the scarcity made it a commodity, even if the quality wasn’t there.
What people heralding the death of travel photography mean is that it’s a market that’s lost its goods. They’ve lost scarcity, the market is saturated, and anyone who wants an image of Taj Mahal can go to Flickr and find 100 photographers who’ve shot the same shot from the same angle on the same camera, and they’ll fight for the chance to give the image away in hopes of garnering a publishing credit. Coffin closed. Eulogy over. Dirt flung. Tears cried.
And good riddance. The death of travel photography in these terms is an opportunity to change the marketplace. If the marketplace is saturated with mediocrity it creates a scarcity of excellence and creativity. With scarcity the price goes up, thus creating another market. What that market looks like remains to be seen, likely there’ll be several.
What does this mean? It means the low-hanging fruit is gone. It means that photographers with a unique eye and the ability to tell compelling stories, no matter where she is shooting, will always be able to sell their work. With hard work and good marketing. But it’s going to take a shift in thinking. Clients may not be looking to buy “travel photography” but they might be clamouring for lifestyle photographs of Ethiopia.
Buyers willing to pay good money for your images aren’t generally looking to buy “travel” photography they’re looking to buy excellent photography. And a plane won’t get you there. Frequent flyer miles are no substitute for years of experience, creativity, talent, hard work, and a willingness to shoot from your own unique eye and heart.
So if the death of travel photography makes way for fresh photography that is good not because it’s novel or exotic but because it’s great photography that resonates with a sense of place, tells the stories of people and their culture, explores the commonalities that bind us as a race, and the differences that make us unique, then it didn’t come soon enough. With every ending a beginning. Here’s hoping.
Jan.2008 – I noticed with curiosity that there is a group on Flickr discussing this article. My stats tell me few of the people who are dissecting it have actually looked at the article, but such it is with online discussions. I do appreciate the pushback, but most of them have missed the point – which is easy to do.
So, the Cole’s Notes version: as a commercially-viable genre, what was once known as Travel Photography is no longer what is was. People will, I hope, always travel with cameras, and some will create great images. But as a genre, the term now lacks value. Buyers (and this whole discussion is about the marketplace) now look to other terms to more accurately describe what they’re looking for. Perhaps what we need are sub-genre-type descriptors – like Editorial Travel, Lifestyle Travel. But where once it was enough to be the one guy who went to Lalibela, Ethiopia, now you’re competing with many, many visitors, all with cameras.
Whether “Travel Photography is dead” or not is beside the point. More important is that travelling photographers learn to capture the sense of place in strong, compelling, unique photographs. I think this is a good thing, and am pleased that the low-hanging fruit has gone. It pushes artists to do more, travel further, look deeper, and try harder. If all you want to do is travel with your camera, none of this matters to you. But those of us that make a living behind our lenses need to think this stuff through.
If Seth Godin wrote about photography, I think it would sound a little like this.
Good on ya’ for always seeing the opportunity…
Great entry. Thanks to Flickr and cheap digital cameras, I would argue that most photography markets are saturated.
Flickr and istockphoto have created a huge market for cheap, mediocre photos with endless choices. I find that a lot of my clients are willing to pay very little for mediocre photos because they don’t see the value in great photography or they simply don’t have the budget for Getty and Corbis type images.
Thankfully, there are a lot of clients, and people with a discerning eye that know a great photo when they see it.
I knew there was a reason I have been feeling depressed lately. Here, I had an old friend die and I did not even know it. Your words strike more than a cord, more like a slap in the face. Do you know, I have actually seen images of the very people I have photographed in the mountains of Thailand, on other photographers website? The same faces. Uniqueness will no longer come by the journeys length but by the ability and the talent. Only talent will speak. I guess this is a good thing. I used to think I had walked a trail none had walked. I guess I was fooling my self.
thanks so much for your post. I saw the “travel photography is dead” post on “A Photo Editor’s” blog and have been mourning a bit since then. But like you (and with some inspiration from Tewfic el-Sawy, who writes “The Travel Photography” blog) I am looking at the silver lining. I love travel photography for the lifestyle aspect – culture, diversity, etc. – not to say I’ve been there and also shot the Taj Mahal! And I love photography in general for its emotive imagery that is not always captured by the mere snapshooter. Hopefully art will return to travel photography and photography in general, and hopefully there will always be those out there who are willing to pay extra for quality. After all there are still people willing to pay for a real Rolex, when so many cheap knock-offs are easily found. I suppose finding the right clients is where the challenge lies. thanks again for some inspiration.
I get your point, and I agree entirely with your intent. But it leads me to this one burning question:
Cheap travel!? Where is this cheap travel of which you speak?
Everywhere I want to go costs roughly $2,000 just for airfare (double, if I’d like to stay married!
) Maybe those making questionable decisions with their student loan money can afford that, but it leaves a huge gap between me and a whole world of the exotic. I don’t think I’m alone there: there’s still lots of room for inspiration and wonder from travel photography.
On another note, I believe (with Chase Jarvis) that there is room for many market segments in the field of photography. Competition on one end (photography) means competition on the other (publishing, advertising, art galleries, etc.). In an image-saturated world, it takes a unique image to catch someone’s eye — everyone’s gotta step up.
If travel photography is under a fundamental change from mere consumption (by photographer, art director and viewer) to interaction or engagement (where the more insightful images come from), it’s a change I welcome. I see that as the direction it needs to go to climb the food chain.
In an increasingly instant world, the better images are the slower ones.
“Chase Jarvis” was supposed to be a link to this very inspiring video of his on Strobist:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/09/watch-chase-jarvis-entire-nyc.html
Brad – Point take, but by cheap I’m comparing it historically. International travel has never been so accessible to so many, and that’s largely due to discount travel. You may not be able to go anywhere specific and according to your schedule for less than $2000 but I’d hazard a guess and say you’ve never gone to Flight Centre Direct or some other discount outlet and asked for their cheapest flight to anywhere. If you’re flexible and not too picky, you can go around the world for a great deal.
Mainly, my argument is that (1) travel is more accessible than it’s ever been and (2) that accessability means the world and shrunk and images are no longer valued just for their exoticness.
I think that part of the storytelling aspect of good photography is the connection of the viewer to the artist.
One of the reasons that I appreciate the work done by Pixelated Image is David’s ability to tell a good story in more than image. The “Beyond the Frame” segments are great, but even more so are the ways in which he weaves his own soul journey and his personal connection with the photo subjects into the ongoing narrative that I find in these pages.
I make no claims to great photography, but even I experience more appreciation by my audience when they are able to make similar sorts of connections.
In the midst of my prolonged mulling over this post, Pentax just announced a Travel Photography Contest. Ironic, donchathink? Looking through submissions, photographers are definitely having a hard time defining “Travel”. (The macro of the butterfly on a flower just cracked me up!)See the growing gallery here, if you dare:
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/home#section=CONTEST&subSection=TravelContest&subSubSection=1212170&language=EN
Looking through the gallery, I myself being skeptical of every image. As you touched on in your post, everywhere is local. Our North-America-centrism is crumbling before our very eyes!