The book How to do Photographic Story Telling: Including composition and posing ideas is out now. There are three versions, in order of our personal favourites
How to do Photographic Story Telling bookHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sampleHow to do Photographic Story Telling page sample
The book covers our philosophy about photography, including how to get great photos that tell a story. Add value, meaning, and depth to your photos.
The purpose of this book is to give a different perspective on creating amazing photographs. Travel photographer Andrew Blyth (B.Sc, M.A) presents his two decades of learning in psychology and photography in this simple, concise, and easy to digest book. He reveals his secrets of how to create authentic-looking scenes, how to direct models (and clients), and how to make even ‘boring’ scenery ‘aesthetic’ (beautiful). He demonstrates his ideas with myriad of examples photographed in Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Australia. This book includes inspirational quotes from some of the greatest photographers which will help guide your thinkings.
The eBook edition makes for great portability and easy referral. The print edition makes for a great in-studio or on-site reference. Many sample images are included to help show models and clients little details like hand placement, how to pose, and a lot more. Topics include:
The Three Elements
Photographing Movement
Visual Stories: Operation Bilby
Photographing Boring Things
Visual Stories: Events in Japan
Posing People
Composition and Posing Ideas
Some proceeds from this book will support environmental charities and photographic project Operation Bilby.
eBook: ISBN 978-0-9954040-2-1 | Print: ISBN 978-0-9954040-5-2
How to do Photographic Story Telling: Including composing and posing ideas
Andrew Blyth (B.Sc, M.A)
Publisher: Travel Photos (Aus)
On Sale: 8th February 2023
Print: USD$42.95
eBook: USD$9.99
Print ISBN: 978-0-9954040-5-2
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954040-2-1
Travel Photographer Opens Archives and Offers Advice on Making Great Photographs
Melbourne, Aus – 30th Jan 2023 – Travel photographer Andrew Blyth opens up his 20 years of archives of life in Asia to share his tips and philosophy of visual story telling. His first book for the arts and photography community How to do Photographic Story Telling offers a unique insight into his mind and vision. With many of us wanting to travel abroad again, we are looking to get the most out of our trips and key to this is getting amazing photographs. Andrew believes that ‘Photos are a time travel device that can instantly take us back to our adventures abroad’. Nothing will devalue these experiences more than poor photography. Andrew’s advice and philosophy of his style of photography will make for great reading – and viewing.
As you can expect from a photographer, How to do Photographic Story Telling is loaded with amazing examples of photography from Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Australia. It includes how to pose people, how to think about photo compositions, and what makes a photograph meaningful. The book is light on words, heavy on unique ideas, and filled with visual expression. Andrew leans on the ideas of some of the greatest minds in photography by providing quotes in very clear context that will echo in the mind of the reader. It is an essential photography guide for all avid photographers and travellers.
The book, due to its photographic content, is published in print-on-demand premium magazine format (22x28cm / 8.5×11in). It can be ordered from Blurb, Amazon, and as an eBook on Kindle and Apple Books. The book is 124 to 128 (depending on edition) pages plus soft cover.
Travel Photos prefers recycled, recyclable, renewable, and reusable materials for its physical products. A portion of profits are used to support environmental charities. A portion of proceeds from this book will help support the next stage of the Operation Bilby photographic project.
There are many more reasons to get a professional photog’ to do the job for you. Here are some. We hope you enjoy the last one.
It’s a Service; not just “a Photo”
Occasionally we get clients who are shocked that “a photo” costs more than $20, and say they can do it themselves for less. Ok, that’s fine. Remember, you’re hiring a service, not buying an artistic mass-produced framed photo from Kmart.
Sample of the editing and post-processing done at Travel Photos
We have invested tens of thousands of dollars in equipment, software, training, practising, and more. Yes, you can use your iPhone or ask your colleague to do it for you. However, compare an amateur photo with a professional. Which is going to bring you value?
That is why our company Director Andrew prefers to take his car to a mechanic rather than do it himself – even though he has his own hammer. We save you time, effort, energy, and investment costs.
A photo of Travel Photos poster with other street ads in a Melbourne laneway
There are legal risks
Travel Photos PtyLtd has public liability insurance. We are also educated in photo licencing, model employment, and other legalities required when using photos of people and things. There are many stories of how a photo in an ad has either gone sideways or backfired.
In 2007, an Asian American young lady sued Virgin Mobile Australia for their racist and insulting bus stop ad used in Adelaide. The ad makers did not have permission from the photographer, and did not have permission from the young lady to commercially use her likeness. What did the ad say? “Dump your pen friend” (CBS News). Needless to say, it probably cost Virgin Mobile more than what they gained.
Travel Photos PtyLtd ensures all the legal basics are covered before supplying our clients with images.
We have Skills and Talents you Don’t Have
Sorry to be so bold in saying it, but it’s true. The owners of the Lotus, Mercedes, Ferrari and other such Formula One race teams don’t drive the cars themselves – they hire highly skilled professionals to do it for them. In the image below we bet only the most talented of photographers (and this model) will know how we achieved this remarkable photo (btw, no torches were used).
Art Project: Operation Bilby, Supper Time.
Full Service
For busy people, understaffed offices, and those who don’t know all the ins and outs, we take care of all the details for you. We can do the following:
Image research
Production planning
Model/talent auditions and hiring
Location scouting
Travel to the required locations
Organise specialised equipment
Provide specialised services (like makeup artists, local fixers, security, etc)
Do the photo shoot
Manage staff
Image management and long term storage
Editing and post-processing
Image delivery
Legal document management
and more
In short, tell us what you need, and we’ll make it happen.
Our makeup artist preparing a model for a shoot in Yokohama Japan
No Copy Cats Allowed
As a standard, Travel Photos PtyLtd retains the ownership of the photographs. Additionally, the licence we issue to our clients includes an “exclusive use” clause. That means, your photos won’t be used by your competitors. Additionally, we are proactive in protecting the copyrights of our photos.
True story. At the start of the Stock Photo era at around 2005, two advertising agencies bought the same $2 stock photo for their print material. People in the north east of the US wondered if two competing banks were now merging because the look and style of the print materials appeared the same. Avoid confusing your customers, avoid diluting your message, or worse – be unintentionally promoting your competitor. Unique exclusive photos is what we specialise in.
Confusion occurs when you use cheap stock images
Don’t let your business get lost in the crowd. Stay unique. Stay fresh.
Our ethos is equity, respect, dignity, freedom, and travel. To honour these, we’ll offer 30% off commercial photo shoots for female small business owners. This can be for products, show of experiences and services, professional portraits, whatever.
Terms and conditions: small businesses (less than 10 employees), the company director be female, be situated in Victoria Australia. Certain expenses like travel costs cannot be discounted.
Contact us now. Valid for anytime before Easter 2021
Lensbaby is a special lens. I’ve had mine for… since… I don’t know! Since forever it seems; at least 10 years. I’m sure you’ll recognise some of these photos showcased below and now you may realise how I created a particular effect. Yes, Lensbaby is my secret weapon.
What is a Lensbaby? It’s a manual focus / manual aperture lens that has unique characteristics that enhance through selective focus on a topic or subject in a photo. I use the original Lensbaby Composer Pro 50mm. This lens allows me to literally bend the lens in half to shape the focus point. I first got it for my Minolta cameras. Minolta later dumped their camera division onto Sony, so my Lensbaby is for the “Minolta/Sony A” mount. I’ve since dumped Sony in favour for Canon, so instead of abandoning one of my favourite lenses, I’ve got an adapter so I can continue to use it.
I’ll admit, I’ve been using my Lensbaby less since I made the change to Canon. I hope that this blog post will remind me to come back to to this. One of my favourite projects was(is) the City of Ghosts project. The origin of it is from this one image. Here I was initially using a standard lens, but struggling with balancing the lighting, and working with a model who had limited experience. All the standard approaches was giving me very standard pedestrian results, which I was not satisfied with. So, I switched to my Lensbaby, and got this image.
Outdoor night portraits of a young Japanese lady in Osaka, taken with a selective focus lens.
What I’d really like to do is come back to my City of Ghosts project. As you can see is that the original shoot was done in Tokyo. It was fun to do. We were in the iconic Shibuya crossing. The one that features on blockbuster movies. The one that has anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 people crossing at each light change. As we were shooting, the model was cold (it was early November); I was cold; my assistant was cold. There were lots of Japanese interested in what we were doing. Foreign tourists photographing my model, me, us working. But, we all wanted to get the best variety of photos possible.
The shoot started with my standard general purpose 28-75mm f2.8 lens. As you can see, the photos were nice. You can see the crossing. You can see the context. However, something was missing. It had context, but I wasn’t yet satisfied with the visual outcomes, so I switched to my Lensbaby.
What’s next? More. I’m now in Melbourne, with new people, with new scenes, and with more skills and knowledge. I hope to work with a model and develop a story. Not just show a pretty model in a scene, but to make a story for people to experience.
For the first time we’re going to start offering photography workshop courses. We’ve been asked a few times before to host beginner photography workshops, but because of time, we haven’t been able to follow through with that. Now, we can. We’re in Kyoto, and it’s the perfect place to help traveller photographers improve their game. There will be four main options:
Beginner Workshops
Intermediate Workshops
Mixed-levels Workshops
Special Skills (based on a specific theme or skill set)
Cherry blossoms in Gion Kyoto. Model: Brooke; Photographer: Andrew.
All workshops will assume participants have a modern digital DSLR or mirrorless camera with interchangeable lens. Some Canon point and shoot cameras have easy to use Manual settings, and so these are often suitable too.
Beginner Workshops will assume that the participants have just got the camera out of the box from the store that very day (hopefully the day before). The focus will be to get participants aware of key concepts of shutter speed, aperture, iso, and white balance.
Intermediate Workshops are currently not offered. However, we will host two different special skills workshops instead.
Mixed-level Workshop Walk: Kimono portraits. Is an opportunity for everyone from post-beginner to intermediate level to learn how to use travel scenes, exotic environments, and local context to make next-level photographs. Currently, we’re organsing and searching for models who will wear a kimono and pose for us in Gion, so that there is a two-fold purpose, one to get great Japanesque photographs; and two, to learn environmental portrait photography.
Special Skills is a short introduction to a very specific genre of photography. Typically a theoretical explanation is given, basic demonstration, and guided practice is given. Currently in Kyoto, we will practice night photography.
