Talk on Travel Photography

When I was asked a month ago to speak about Photography for a group, am really surprised and honored at the same time since I’m not a big name (yet) in the Philippine Photography Industry as most of my works are found on this blog and also on some travel and inflight magazines. I decided to accept that invitation and thought it would be a good practice for me. Last time I did public speaking was to a multitude of students in an auditorium teaching Basic Macromedia Flash and thought that it was fun interacting with your audience and answering some questions. So last Thursday, I had a chance to be a speaker again, to a small group of photography enthusiast and talked about Travel Photography in general.

The invitations was from the group Sunshot Photography Club from Sun Life Philippines. A fairly young photography club consisting of 50+ members in varying skill levels of photography, from point and shooters to DSLR handlers. Each month they hold a meeting and would invite various speakers in their different niche in photography.

For this meeting, the talk covers Travel Photography in general and touching a bit details on shooting Outdoors and Landscapes and various styling in Food Photography. For this talk I did some quick slides covering some concepts and tips that I personally do. I think at the start there I was stuttering a bit trying to find my ground hehe but I just focused on what I need to accomplish and impart what I know and what I personally do during my shoots and travel photography.

After the talk, there was a series interesting questions covering on what camera I’m using and what do I bring during my travels, where to shoot for the best polarized sky, how to use an ND Graduated Filter, how to achieve certain food styling shots and how to get your work published.

Also, every meeting they have a photo competition covering what their theme or topic that was discussed was before. Last Time, they also has a talk on Travel Photography but on a Macro level, but for this competition, photo should be their best Travel Photos. I was one of the judge, as well as multimedia graphic artist/ photographer Tj Reyes. We each had a score sheet for each photos so even if I had a fave there, it might be different for him as well, so until the winner was announced I had no idea who will win.

Personally I found a lot of very good works from the 40+ photo entries there. There were some that really stand out in terms of color, composition, subject and technicality. But what really stood out was from Os Sevilla of a hatted man bathed with streaks of light, with exceptional details and vibrant colors that would surely capture your eye. Top 3 winners gets a plaque each and for us judges and guest we get a cool framed print out of one of our works.

Last on the meeting program was the AVP presentation of their last OTS at Taal Volcano and Taal Town. It was an amusing AVP and I saw how much fun they had there. This group have a lot of promise and hope they grow as time goes and I won’t be surprised if some of them get popular and get media exposure.

Thank you very much to Os Sevilla for the pictures here from the lecture. Thank you for Sunshot Photography Club and club president, Nesty Ocampo for the invitation. I may also conduct a workshop for another group, tentative this November, spanning 4 hours on the field covering basic Photography. Will have to see if that will push through.

For now, on the next few post, I will be sharing the stuffs I discussed at this lecture about Travel, Landscape/ Outdoor and Food Photography. Some personal notes and tips on how I capture my images here.