Travel Images, a perspective

Having had the opportunity to take a whirlwind tour of a foreign country
while toting along some cool camera stuff, I've learned a few things:

1. If you really need to get superb photographs for a particular
   purpose, don't count on shooting them through the grimy window of a
   moving vehicle. I can't count the number of times I have thought "wow,
   that'd make a nice photo, if only I could stop for ten minutes, set up a
   tripod with camera, and get the composition and exposure right". It's
   not that it's impossible to get good photos while "on the run", but in
   order to guarantee it, you need to be in control of your transportation.
   That's aweful hard to do in some locations (such as the very beautiful
   train route between Cusco and Machu Picchu) but it's a choice between
   shooting a hundred shots and hoping that one of them will turn out
   right, or shooting ten shots and knowing that one of them will turn out
   right.
   


2. On a related note, photography/videography while travelling can be
   very hard to get right because you find yourself too tired from the
   basic survival and sightseeing tasks to really put all your energy into
   things like composing a really nice shot. It's easy to get into a
   routine of pointing at random nice-looking stuff, hitting the shutter
   button, and checking for blown highlights, but that's not really art. If
   you want to get good photos of a particular place, imagine the amount of
   time you'll need just to do sightseeing there, triple that, and double
   it again if you will be working in unusual situations (e.g. having to
   cart a lot of gear around, or in an unusual environment). The reason for
   this is not just to have more time to compose shots and think
   artistically, but to avoid dumb mistakes caused by fatigue (like the
   many photos I have ruined by having a lens hood that was not fully
   rotated into place). Those numbers are just made up, but that type of
   rule is something to keep in mind when planning a trip and deciding on
   its purpose.
   


3. If you carry much camera stuff into Machu Picchu, you will get
   hassled. I think they had a TV crew sneak onto the site at night a few
   years back, and in the process of filming their beer commercial they
   marred the "hitching post of the sun" stone. Since the Machu Picchu
   management was commenting something about tripods when I got pulled
   aside, my guess is that tripods with spiked feet sometimes get used in
   all the wrong places. Be sensitive to the fact that it's more than just
   a great photo op, and that people do visit these places just for the fun
   of taking them in. (Overheard, a husband speaking rather loudly to his wife: "Check your histogram. Is your histogram good? Then the shot's fine!")
   


4. You can be sure that you won't use all the gear that you take, but you can't predict which gear that will be. I brought four pairs of batteries for my camera, and after the first week of shooting hadn't even finished one. On the other hand, gear like the photo tank and four memory cards has been invaluable.
   

With those points in mind, here
is a gallery with a few photo highlights from the trip so far.