P#24 Q6D: What's the Most Frustrating Part of Travel Photography?
If you're serious about being a travel photographer, you'd best prepare for the biggest travel photography headache
No job is perfect, and professional travel photography is no exception to that rule. According to Scott Stulberg, travel photographers deal with their own fair share of career-related heartaches. Here he explains the most common (and most frustrating) one...
Why Wasn't It Me?
Scott Stulberg: I would have to say that the most frustrating aspect of travel photography is seeing that somebody else went to the same location you shot at, and got a shot that you could die for.
That's very frustrating to me, knowing I've traveled with other friends and we've gone to different places. They might go off and do something and I'll go over somewhere else or they'll go at a difrerent time of year and they get a great shot that I would have loved to get.
My friend, Jim Zuckerman, for example, just went to Africa yesterday to lead a photography tour. We were together in Africa in September doing a trip together. I got some shots that he wants to kill me for. Now he's in Africa now and I know I'm going to want to kill him so I'm going to have to send him a letter bomb or something when he gets back because he's there without me, but I will hopefully be there next September without him. He'll want to get me back.
It can be very frustrating. I tell a lot of students, "Don't get upset. Get motivated." I am upset inside because photography, to me, when I see beautiful shots, it just knocks me down and takes my breath away.
I say, "I can't believe I wasn't there and I didn't get that shot." My friend who was shooting the stars on the Big Island of Hawaii along with lava flow, she was so lucky she heard the lava was flying up and she went hours to the other side of the island. She went past the guards as much as she could. I saw the images and I wanted to die.
When people take these images, I wish to God I could have taken them. Many times I think, "I got to get there." Then I plan a trip if I feel motivated. That's why I'm going to the Pushkar Camel Festival in India, because I saw great images for so many years and I said, "I have to go there myself."
Audri Lanford: You're taking that frustration and turning it into something really positive. That's great.
Scott Stulberg: Yeah, it's true. Get motivated. Don't get upset, get motivated.
In Closing
Is the biggest headache of travel photography avoidable? Probably not. It is, however, possible to turn it into a positive. According to Scott Stulberg, it's a matter of turning that frustration into motivation, and using that motivation to push your travel photography to new limits.
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