Travel & Humanitarian Photos
I knew it would be around here somewhere and think I may have found it.
Studio photographers have a pile of different backdrops and infinitely variable studio lights. Travel photographers make the best use of what’s readily available. Yet we’re the lucky ones as our available backdrops are infinite in number and whilst lighting can only be adjusted minimally if we’re not taking a portable studio with us we do still have access to a whole range of lighting effects.
I’ve been looking for a blank wall near my apartment. Something bright and colourful and with lots of character. Red would be ideal. Something that I can use as a backdrop to isolate subjects against.
This bright red wall, full of character, is just along the road from me. I’ve passed it perhaps twenty times and never noticed it. So much for my powers of observation!
Although, in my defence, I’ve only ever passed it on the back of a motorcycle taxi. It’s at the corner of a particularly narrow but busy junction where the bike drivers either mount the pavement to use as a shortcut or try to squeeze between the opposite wall and oncoming traffic to get through. I’m usually more concerned about the imminent parting of the ways between me and my kneecaps to worry about aesthetics. I wonder if that’s why the wall’s painted red? Perhaps it’s not paint at all.
I digress. I walked along the road yesterday and finally saw the wall. I had the little Canon G9 with me so stayed for a while and shot a few frames. As it’s busy there you have to be patient and wait for the queueing cars and lorries to clear the frame before shooting. I could have shot about a hundred frames of grinning taxi drivers. As they waited for the junction to clear they’d see me (they have special antennae to detect farang) and gurn through the taxi window. Perhaps that’s a project for another day.
So I have a wall and it’s only a short walk away. I’d like to shoot a series of images, each with a single person or couple in the frame and then stitch them all together in a kind of panorama. Ideally, I’d set up a tripod and cable release, set up the exposure, focus and sit on a chair, sipping tea and firing frames at the decisive moment. If I weren’t concerned about the possibility of me and my gear being swept away by a passing motorcycle taxi I might do just that.