Posted by GRAGGPHOTO on January 8, 2009 at 1:16 PM
I've always wanted to get feedback from members concerning the state of the photography that currently graces the feature pages of most of the prominent travel publications (i.e. Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast, etc.).
I guess it is just a modern fad, but most photography is drastically overexposed, and from my background and training it appears that photographers basically just point and shoot without regard to maintaining highlights and tonal range. With all the great camera equipment we have on the market that can record minute details of color range, why do so many photographers ignore these capabilities? It really appears "amateurish" to my eye.
Maybe the bad exposures are supposed to lure us potential travellers into dreaming about the beautiful color we should see when we arrive at these destinations?
Matt
Posted by Tom Guffey on January 8, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Matt,
Part of the problem - at least with the lower quality cover shots are, a number of the 'travel rags' are buying from cheap stock sources...........
I can speak first hand about the industry. An awful lot of what you see is owner-shot usig P&S cameras, rather than buying stock or hiring the work. Then there's the factor of cheap printing in brochures and such. We've developed a "stable" of clients that know the difference and are willing to pay for it, but it's by far a smaller segment of the travel industry. In our case it may mean a charter flight on a bush plane to a remote lodge, along with a full spate of camera gear and studio lights. Clients bear that cost PLUS our professional fees. Stock sales from our files are coincident to the facility shots. More often they just come to us for stock. Even more often they go for royalty free "stock" and shoot their own facility shots with whatever pocket camera they got for Christmas.
Sometimes they rip off images. Your chamber of commerce is likely to host visiting groups of travel writers. Watch them when they circulate through town. They scoop up armloads of local brochures. And when they get back to distant homes, they think nothing of popping the images onto scanners for local publication. Who will ever know!!!! And if you've ever seen a scan taken from a brochure, yeah. It's overexposed. And more likely over contrast. Easier to hide the grain from cheap scans of cheaply printed brochures that way.
Posted by Richard Wong on January 9, 2009 at 1:21 AM
It's the high-key fad. It's no accident but more of a sales tactic that bright tones are associated with positive moods whereas the dark stuff is depressing.
Part of the problem - at least with the lower quality cover shots are, a number of the 'travel rags' are buying from cheap stock sources
Kind of the same in a lot of industries. People just care about "getting the job done" and paying as little as possible rather than looking for excellence in their product or even their personal performance. Problem is, they are training the public to not know the difference or even care.
Posted by Robert Fisher on January 9, 2009 at 2:03 PM
Thing is Ed, most of the public won't know the difference really. Most people don't notice the difference between a good photo and a bad one unless they're side by side.
The other thing to keep in mind is that travel is a very low margin business. Packaged tour operators, who are big users of photography for their websites and package brochures, work on very thin mark-ups. Their formula is low margin x high volume. Many of the photos they use are free and provided by the hotel/resort owners/operators. Increasingly, the large tour operators are owning their own resort/hotel destinations as well. Paying for photos eats into their already small profit. That's not an excuse, it's just a fact. It doesn't apply universally to all travel-related photography but for that sector it does.
Matt, I think this relates to the subject. I have been researching a number of accommodations recently and I always click on the photo section to get a better idea of the area I want to go to. In many cases the quality of the photos are mediocre. More than once I started having second thoughts about the area because of the photos. I believe high quality photos attract people to the area and to the accommodation that features them on its website. Do you agree? Sure, it will cost some money to get the quality shots but keep in mind the photographer benefits too and so deals can be made. As it is now in most cases the quality shots are of the accommodation itself.
Discussion
7 repliesI guess it is just a modern fad, but most photography is drastically overexposed, and from my background and training it appears that photographers basically just point and shoot without regard to maintaining highlights and tonal range. With all the great camera equipment we have on the market that can record minute details of color range, why do so many photographers ignore these capabilities? It really appears "amateurish" to my eye.
Maybe the bad exposures are supposed to lure us potential travellers into dreaming about the beautiful color we should see when we arrive at these destinations?
Matt
Part of the problem - at least with the lower quality cover shots are, a number of the 'travel rags' are buying from cheap stock sources...........
Sometimes they rip off images. Your chamber of commerce is likely to host visiting groups of travel writers. Watch them when they circulate through town. They scoop up armloads of local brochures. And when they get back to distant homes, they think nothing of popping the images onto scanners for local publication. Who will ever know!!!! And if you've ever seen a scan taken from a brochure, yeah. It's overexposed. And more likely over contrast. Easier to hide the grain from cheap scans of cheaply printed brochures that way.
Kind of the same in a lot of industries. People just care about "getting the job done" and paying as little as possible rather than looking for excellence in their product or even their personal performance.
The other thing to keep in mind is that travel is a very low margin business. Packaged tour operators, who are big users of photography for their websites and package brochures, work on very thin mark-ups. Their formula is low margin x high volume. Many of the photos they use are free and provided by the hotel/resort owners/operators. Increasingly, the large tour operators are owning their own resort/hotel destinations as well. Paying for photos eats into their already small profit. That's not an excuse, it's just a fact. It doesn't apply universally to all travel-related photography but for that sector it does.
Will
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada