If I could offer you a free ticket to travel, where would you go?
Imaginary Travels is an opportunity to exercise our imagination in a playful way.
The Photographic Society of America defines a travel photo as an image that expresses the feeling of a time and place, portrays a land, its people, or a culture in its natural state, and has no geographical limitations.
Travel photography as a genre is one of the most open in terms of the subjects it covers.
Many photographers specialise in a particular aspect of photography such as landscape, portrait, or documentary photography.
“Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think it is possible to walk, like Alice, through a looking glass and find another kind of world with the camera.” – Tony Ray-Jones
Landscape Photography
John Thomson (1837-1921) was one of the first travel photographers in the world.
His images of China and South-East Asia brought the land, culture, and people of the Far East alive for the ‘armchair travelers’ of Victorian Britain.
He was also a pioneer of photojournalism recording life on London’s street in the 1870s.
The Atmospheric Landscapes of Fan Ho
Fan Ho, born in 1937, is a Chinese photographer and film director who documented the streets of Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s.
You can use the fishing technique with leading lines by waiting for your subject to enter your scene at the right place.
Don’t be afraid to experiment as Fan Ho did – later in his career he combined photos in photoshop to create new images.
“I’m trying to mix present and past, new and old, reality and dreams; to make my old negatives have a new life.
That is why I use modern techniques, like Photoshop, to digitalise my darkroom experience and helps me combine or superimpose these images, or even borrow from movie techniques and do a montage and mix together into a fusion.
An old, nostalgic feeling mixed with new sensations.”
– Fan Ho
Portrait Photography
Karimeh Abbud (18 November 1893 – 27 April 1940; Arabic: كريمة عبّود), was a Palestinian professional photographer and artist who lived and worked in Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. She was one of the first woman photographers in the Arab World.
Karimeh Abbud described herself as the “only national woman photographer in Palestine.” She was known for her family photos and for playfully posing her subjects, as in this 1921 picture of children in a Jerusalem orphanage.
Social Surrealism* in the Streets with Helen Levitt
Helen Levitt’s early photographs unfold a decade of economical crisis at the end of the 30s in New York. But far from being depressing her images are playful and poetic.
“I decided I should take pictures of working-class people and contribute to the movements. Whatever movements there were Socialism, Communism, whatever was happening.
And then I saw pictures of Cartier Bresson and realized that photography could be an art and that made me ambitious.” – Helen Levitt
Surrealism* was a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media. – Wikipedia
Documenting the English Way of Life
Tony Ray-Jones was a British photographer who wanted to capture the essence of “the English way of life … before it becomes more Americanised”.
As a precocious talent, he befriended the freewheeling young stars of American photography, Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz, and was mentored by Richard Avedon and returned home in 1965 with notebooks full of strategy.
“Get more involved (talk to people),” “Stay with the subject matter (be patient). See if everything in the background relates to the subject matter. NO MIDDLE DISTANCE.”
With these principles in mind, Tony took himself off in a camper van in search of Englishness.
He found a good deal of it on beaches – windbreaks and frigid paddling and Thermoses balanced on shingle – and at all levels of pageantry, from Glyndebourne and the Chelsea flower show to local beauty parades and funfairs.
The humour and satire used to document British society that Parr is so famous for today show many parallels to Tony’s work before him.
Photographing the Polar Bear
My dream was to photograph the polar bear so I decided to embark on a journey to Churchill in northern Manitoba, Canada with my faithful companion Rabbity the tea cozy.
An hour after we left Montreal, our plane was caught up in a storm and we crashed in Ontario’s Boreal forest.
Rabbity and I were the only survivors.
We sailed across the Hudson Bay Lowlands for weeks before reaching the main town where we hopped in a plane to complete our journey.
It was sunrise when we saw a Polar Bear enjoying the first rays of sun.
Rabbity and I crawled as close as possible and I took a photograph while my companion was keeping the tea warm.
The End
Imaginary Travels Assignment
Shoot 3 photographs that tell the story of your imaginary travel.
Tips:
- Which objects could define your destination (e.g white blanket for the snow, bear, and luggage)
- You can also travel in time or in another dimension
- If you live by yourself try to use the self-timer on your smartphone
- You don’t need to be in the picture if you don’t want to
- Don’t feel obliged to have a linear story
Bon Voyage!
Imaginary Travel by former participants
