Letter to Those Desiring a Career in Nature and Travel Photography

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Posted on March 4, 2013 by Lorelle VanFossen

On a regular basis I get emails and comments from students attracted to the photography bug. To them, photography represents the exotic, exciting, and adventurous. While there are some aspects that involve travel, adventure, and excitement, for the most part photography as a hobby is fun. Photography as a business is hard work and boring.

A couple years ago I created the following form letter in response to the quantity of requests for advice and help with a photography career in travel and nature. I’m updating it but I thought you might enjoy the older version for posterity.

Brent VanFossen balances his long camera lens on roof of car while photographing big game animals from the road. Photography Lorelle VanFossen. Dreams of a nature and travel photography career is a good dream, but one that requires an education first.

I know I sound old, but I wish I’d had the photography, art, and business training I needed before I first hit the road with my camera. Traveling costs money, but it also presents a lot of opportunities I could have turned into income which would have allowed me to spend more time exploring and expanding my art and skills rather than taking any job I could to pay for the next trip. No matter how you look at it, photography is expensive.

School is boring. Go Anyway.

School really doesn’t teach you what you need to know to succeed in life. Still, you have to have the piece of paper that says, “This is proof I know how to complete things. I know how to suffer and make it through it.” There is no photography career you can take on without that piece of paper if you wish to do more than run your own business. Even then, a fine art or graphic arts degree is a minimum. A business degree is a requirement.

Lorelle sites in the grasses as spotter for eagles, British Columbia, Canada.

I recommend that you triple your educational activities outside of the traditional classroom. Honestly. Do not play all the time, throw away the television, and sign up for every class you can at the local college or training schools or wherever on photography, art, business, public relations, contracts, negotiation, sales training, advertising – take any class you can. All will apply to a photography career. Go to school until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, then head right out for one to two classes a night elsewhere. Learn to manage your time. Learn everything. Learn how to take notes and how to flex your memory so you don’t have to take notes. Ace everything.

If you spend two to four years immersed in classes and education, you will emerge ready for the next 50 years of a photography career. If you do not, you will spend more time learning and studying, losing deals rather than winning them, than out and about with the camera.

Make a plan

Photography is not about the camera. It’s not about taking the pictures. It’s about selling them.

It’s about understanding the marketplace and trends to be taking the pictures you can sell three years before the style is in fashion because you were paying attention with how the market was moving and there, before everyone else, to respond to the shifts in the purchasing power. It’s about negotiating business contracts for publishing books, videos, CDs, from simply selling an image then leveraging it to sell it again and again. It’s about know how to negotiate with an airline company that wants to put your photograph on the tail of several of their airplanes. It’s about negotiating with a movie company that wants to use your image on their marketing and promotional campaign.

Duane Hansen hides in camo in the trees behind his camera. It’s about learning how accounting works and how the tax system works in your country and outside. Because I travel and work all over the world, I have to know what the tax rules and laws are in the various states within the United States (income tax, no income tax, sales tax, no sales tax, property tax, earned income taxes, investment taxes – will they tax money I earn outside of the state or only within the state) as well as the tax rules for living outside of the country and how to pay taxes on money earned outside and within…and the list is long.

I’ve never been good with basic numbers, even though I can program a spreadsheet, database, or computer. I had to take a lot of classes later in life to figure out how to estimate jobs for photo assignments and work with the stock photography industry. Do you know how to write a release form and ask for someone to sign it before you photograph them or their property? Do you know the laws pertaining to the photography of public areas, public parks, national parks, and private property? Do you know how to determine value for insurance when traveling with the camera gear, and deal with insurance companies after losing or having the gear stolen? When I work with big companies or magazines on photo projects, they use a language all of their own. I had to learn all that.

Traveling is fun. Travel and Learn to Travel at Home.

Taking pictures is fun. Selling and making a living to pay for the travel and the gear sucks. If you don’t know how to do that, the traveling sucks and the taking pictures just gets you pictures – pictures that you can’t show to anyone because no one cares or wants them. Any twit with a cell phone now has a camera and they are more interested in their pictures than yours.

Travel far but learn to travel near. What you call home, a familiar community, it boring to you. What you call boring is exotic to others.

If you live in Hawaii, you may take it for granted. For those that don’t live in Hawaii, it is a far away place of mystery and fantasy.

What is special about where you live? Pretend to be a tourist and treat your community like a tourist haven, somewhere exotic that people would flock to see. Identify the unique qualities and photograph it as if you were photographing for National Geographic, Traveler, or any travel and nature magazine or website you respect.

Travel, even in your own neighborhood, teaches you how to see things as someone else sees. It teaches you how to frame, plan, and capture images that define a location, a community, a people.

Set Goals and Self-Assignments. Practice Gets You to Carnegie Hall.

Set self-assignments. Set personal and professional goals. Make a plan for pushing your craft to its limits.

Photograph subjects you would not normally choose to capture. If you are interested in only nature photography, spend time aiming your camera at man-made objects and find your art in them. If you are a people photographer, push yourself to photograph inanimate objects and nature.

Get out a calendar and set deadlines for yourself. Places, subjects, people, whatever it takes to push your art beyond its current state.

If you are not pushing your abilities, you are staying static, keeping your expertise at a level that anyone can achieve. Go deeper and further with each task, honing your skills and strengthening your art form.

If I Could Do It All Over Again…

If I could do it all over again, that is what I would do. I would immerse myself in 4-6 years of fine arts, graphic arts, business, advertising, marketing, and entrepreneurial classes. I’ve got the business degree, but it isn’t enough. I was working while going to school and my mind wasn’t in the game as much as it should have been. Learn from me.

Duane Hansen in the mud photographing tulips closeup, Skagit Valley, Washington. I’ve learned from the best in the business that they stayed in school and went to night school to get the training they really needed because they sat down at 16 years old and made a plan for their lives. They went where serendipity took them, but only because they had the training and education to recognize an opportunity when it stood in their face and followed their heart along with the money trail.

That’s my little bit of advice. Over the years, thousands of people have taken my classes and workshops. They have talked to me about how they gave up school and everything to hit the road and photograph. Some worked for 30 or 40 years then gave up everything for photography. Either way, without a plan, without the education to make it happen, they wasted years of their lives flailing around. They are not photographers but wannabes. They are mechanics, doctors, lawyers, dentists, writers, hair stylists, and whatever job they fell into, not photographers. They didn’t take the time nor had the plan to learn what it takes to be a photographer. Art Wolfe did. Galen Rowell did. George Lepp did. Frans Lanting did. Look at the ones with dozens of books and you will find someone who made a plan and learned what it took to implement that plan, and grabbed the best opportunities (not the loser opportunities) because they knew what they wanted. They have the papers that say “I know how to complete things.”

Good luck and know that EVERYONE feels the same as you at your age. If we didn’t, the world would be broken. It’s natural.

Lorelle

Water Droplets on Sheet Web

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Posted on January 20, 2013 by Lorelle VanFossen

Just as there are many types of spiders, there are many types of webs. A favorite of ours is the sheet web.

Lying flat across plants and grasses, Brent and I are impressed by these diligent web makers as they work on the horizontal rather than vertical. Our front “yard” filled with knick-knick, Oregon Grape, and sahlal, native Pacific Northwest plants, is a haven for sheet web-making spiders.

In the fall, the rain comes down, drenching these sturdy webs with water drops. Brent was able to get in close to capture the droplets without disturbing the web.

I love the patterns, the wet texture, and the lovely colors of nature in this photograph. Made into a puzzle, this one would be a tough image to put together.

Exploring Painted Hills in Oregon

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Posted on January 2, 2013 by Lorelle VanFossen

A few years ago, my mother and I went on a genealogy romp through Oregon trying to track down the records of my family. We swung out into Eastern Oregon to one of my favorite nature parks, Painted Hills. I’ve photographed it for many years. Here are a few of the choice images from that trip to revisit this odd geological spot where the winds and rains have worn away the topsoil to reveal amazing colors of the minerals in the ground.

Photographing Hands

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

I love photographing hands. I should dig through my collection and do a gallery post of nothing but hands.

While old sages say eyes are the windows to the soul, I think hands speak even louder about a life lived.

My own are covered with memories, scars from injuries, adventures, and risks survived. I’ve long been a lover of cats and rescued many, some of which came with attitudes and claws, leaving their marks on my light sensitive skin.

Hands tell of the kind of work a person does, whether for money or passion. I love the hands of painters, potters, and other hand-crafters as they are often stained and calloused with the efforts of their work. Many blue collar workers have soft hands today as their work is not very labor-intensive. It makes me miss the hands of my family members who worked the fields, build their own homes, and stayed closely tied to the land through their hands.

Photographing hands can be easy, but take care to pay close attention to the background and foreground to ensure there is nothing distracting from the hands. Zoom in as close as the composition can permit so we see the details.

Watch for the lighting. Side lighting works best to bring out the cracks and lines. Soft, diffused light is best for younger hands.

In the two examples of hands I have here, the first one is of an older woman helping a young girl make a lavender wand at the Lavender Festival, Washington County, Oregon. Not composed, just a chance shot, I like the comparison of the different aged hands, and the idea of helping hands. I was photographing under a huge tent, so the bright summer sunlight was diffused, giving me an even light across their hands. Their silver jewelry just adds a touch of familiarity.

The second is of a mother and child orangutang in a group I worked with in St. Petersburg Zoo in Western Florida. I loved their hands, holding on as much as possible, and the anthropomorphic emotions that arise accordingly. It was a stormy day with the light bright and shadowed intermittently. I had my heavy camera on a stable tripod and worked with a long lens to fill the frame with their hands, then waiting for the light to shift, hoping they wouldn’t also shift in the process. If you would like to see more from our work at the zoo, see Funny Faces in our gallery.

For more help on photographing hands, see:

Patterns in Nature: New Growth on Evergreens

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

In the spring, while everyone is looking at the spring flowers, I’m looking at trees, running my hands over the feather softy new growth on the tips of the evergreen trees.

I love how dark green trees suddenly seem to flower with the light green “blooms” on their tips. Within a few months, this slippery and silky ends will become brittle hard and spiky, keeping shadow on its rough bark during the heat of summer, reaching out to catch any cooling breeze that passes by, then pushing away the weight of the snow on its branches in winter. Pine needles are part of the evergreen tree’s defense system.

I pointed out this new tree growth to my future husband, Brent VanFossen, while we were on a photographic field trip when he was still a student and I was the teacher. We were working on patterns in nature, specifically lines and shapes in the basic photography workshop, and this new tree growth was a perfect example of a tiny equiangular spiral, a pattern few people every notice until they get really close up.

Brent used his 200mm with an extension tube to get in really close, and bounced a little white bounce light from his diffuser/refector to fill in the shadows and make the spiral pop out. This was done, of course, on a stable tripod as a show shutter speed was required to get the maximum depth of field for the tiny end of the branch and needles.

All these many years later, this continues to be one of my favorite peaceful photographs. It’s simple and I never get tired of looking at it.

Lavender Festival: Photographing People and Hats

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

When I photograph people and I don’t have time for signing model releases, I take care to hide their faces. This beautiful woman, an artist selling her wares at the Lavender Festival, Washington County, Oregon, turned her head away to reveal the lovely hat she was wearing, which was what I really wanted to capture in the first place.

I love hats, and I love people who wear hats. They are not easy to photograph, both the hats and the people who wear them. If you catch them from the front, most of the time their faces are shaded and the camera can’t handle the contrast between the brightness of the fore and background and the darkness of the shade under the hat. Photographing them from the side helps, but you have to watch for extreme dark and light areas.

Photographing from the back is perfect as you get the hat on the person without the worry of over or underexposure issues. If that is the story, then you’ve aced it.

This woman was dressed so perfectly for the event and her lavender artwork in a beautiful antique dress and this magnificent hat with the huge flowers and ribbons. If I’d had more time, I would have asked her to pose for me, had her sign the model’s agreement, and spent a lot more time arranging her with her artwork. Unfortunately, we were on the run. Maybe next year.

A Reflection of Trees

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

A select few artists and photographers specialized in working with reflections, images captured in lakes, rivers, ponds, and puddles, then turning them upside for display, making what would normally be seen upside down be right side up, a portrait of abstract Monet-style photography.

This particular image I took in spring at the Bellingrath Plantation and Gardens, along one of the many ponds and estuaries of the slough coming off the Gulf Coast and mixing into the fresh waters of the Dog River and other waterways around Mobile, Alabama.

I loved the stark trees in the water, the blue sky, the flowering azaleas, all came together for a powerful reflection image. I underexposed a bit, playing around with capturing the darker tones of the image, and this was the best of the lot.

The Stack of Old Books

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

Among the man-made patterns I love to photograph are books, specifically old books. I love the pattern of them stacked, their cover jackets of different colors, patterns, and textures, especially the older books with their leather and paper bindings.

I think of the hard work that went into designing the colorful covers, the care taken to find the perfect font and collection of images to grab the attention of the passerby and leap off the bookstore shelf into their hands.

As an author, I think of the powerful impact seeing my first book cover on a book that wasn’t self published. I couldn’t believe it. After all the years of self-doubt at being called an author, here I was, a published author. Joy filled me, immediately doused by humility and responsibility. With this book in my hand, I now had to be more than I was. I had to be a real writer. I had to live up to whatever an author was.

This didn’t last long as thirty seconds later I was asked for my first book autograph from Chris and Gorgeous Cree. I signed a book to both of them. They laughed and said that I had to sign two books, one for each of them. I was humiliated, having never thought about autographing my own books, and a part of me wanted to save every single one of them so why give two to a married couple when all they needed was one.

I tucked that book into my bag and signed two fresh copies for them, totally three autographed copies in the first two minutes of experiencing my own book. I still have that original first copy, that’s how stingy and protective I am of my first book. I use it as my proof and edit version. It’s been sliced into individual pages and stuck in a notebook binder and every other page has red marks on it with edits and corrections. I’m working on it right now for the version 2 due out hopefully by the end of the year.

To me, these books represented all those hopes and dreams the authors had. They were all in a pile at a swamp meet market in Mobile, Alabama, looking like they could fall over at any moment. That’s fairly symbolic to me.

One of my favorite quotes by the outrageous Quentin Crisp is:

It’s no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, ‘Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.’ By then, pigs will be your style.

When I look at these books and my own inadequacies in getting my second book out the door, I often wonder if I’m the ballet dancer of the pig farmer.

The Bridge Over La Conner, Washington

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

I’m a little uncomfortable sharing this photograph. My cousin, Don Lee, looks at this view daily. It’s his favorite in the world, right outside his home in La Conner, Washington. Helping him with his photography, I encouraged him to photograph it every day as a photo montage for a year. If you sat only a few minutes with him you would completely understand why I gave him the assignment as he speaks about the bridge, the river below, the town beyond, and Mt. Baker beyond that, like it’s a personal and intimate friend, with mood swings and attitude.

We were having a discussion about this very scene when the stormy weather shifted and the setting sun burst through with golden rays, turning the bridge the most brilliant shade of orange. I grabbed my camera and the two of us photographed this monument to man’s power to defy a river.

Don, I know my picture is humble. Your work is phenomenal and someday I hope you exhibit the entire year’s worth of pictures of the bridge across the channel to La Conner.

Bellingrath Plantation Home, Mobile, Alabama

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

I loved visiting the Bellingrath Plantation home and gardens near Mobile, Alabama. They have an amazing art gallery in addition to the beautiful art collection within the unusual house. But the gardens…

The gardens are exquisite no matter what time you are visiting, but they are at their peak in the burst of spring and browns of fall.

I worked hard to find an interesting line that led to the Bellingrath home, and the line of plants and scrubs seemed to point directly at it. There are so many distinctive images of the fairly modern plantation home, I wanted to see if I could come up with something not so postcard.

Exploring Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

Recently, Dave Moyer and I spent a week in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, attending conferences and working long hours. On our way out of town, we took a few hours out to visit Granville Island, a favorite touristy hot spot in Vancouver I’ve enjoyed visiting since I was a child. Having been a couple decades since my last visit, I was stunned to discover so little had changed and yet how much it had improved.

Located under the Granville Street Bridge, literally, this small area is really a peninsula not an island, but it feels like one. It features a marina and dozens of shops of all different types, mostly featuring handmade or imported items.

Granville is also home to a wide range of artists and craft studios and educational facilities including a glass blowing, printmaking, woodworking, broom making, and boat building studios and workshops.

One of my favorites is the farmers market. I’m a huge fan of markets and love exploring them visually as well as filling up my shopping bags with tasteful vegetable and fruit treasures.

Entertainers, called “buskers,” entertain the thousands who visit on weekends and holidays, juggling, singing, playing musical instruments, acting, and delighting children and everyone with magic and performance.

Along the north side of the island not far from the market areas is a traditional Salish Housepost, an open air roofed building traditional to the Coastal Salish Native Indians of Canada. In one we found they carving totem poles, one of the few places in the Pacific Northwest where the tradition continues thanks to generous donations and support from the Emily Carr Institute and others.

Exploring Granville Island is best done thoroughly away from the busiest times of the week such as weekends and holidays. The market is alive with the activity of the farmers and shopkeepers early in the morning, though most of the rest of the shops don’t open until later in the morning. If you thrive on crowd energy, the weekends during the warmer months find the area packed.

Parking can be a challenge. There is parking on the island with permits and for short term parking. It’s a short walk from the neighborhood on the south side of Granville Island Bridge and parking can be found there in paid parking lots and metered spots, though the meters max out at about 2 hours. If you get there early enough, there are a few parking spots that have no meter nor limits on Sunday.

Come ready for any type of weather no matter the season and bring your shopping bags and good walking shoes. Be ready to eat some fabulous food from the fine restaurants, market food stalls, and local pubs throughout the market area of the island.

Hot Pink Azaleas, Mobile, Alabama

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

Azaleas, rhododendrons, I love flowering shrubs and trees. These azaleas, photographed at Bellingrath plantation garden near Mobile, Alabama, were a color that tested the digital camera’s ability to record. It’s almost surreal.

I underexposed a bit to bring out the darker tones of the purple, and moved in with the camera on a tripod as close as I could to fill the frame with color.

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival: A Weed

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

We call them “weeds,” a different colored tulip in a batch of other colors.

This was taken at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Washington State near Mt. Vernon, one of the largest tulip festivals in the world.

Photographing Old Antique Cars

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

I enjoy photographing man-made subjects from time to time and found myself with a lot of old cars in my files. Personally, I’m not a car fan. I don’t care what I’m driving, it’s merely transportation. If it gets me from point A to point B safely, I’m happy. So it’s odd that I would have a small inventory of antique car pictures, photographed from around the country and beyond.

When I stop to think about why I have these, I think it’s the patterns and shapes. I find grinning or growling faces in the front grills of these gasoline beasts. I like the reflections in the circular tire hub caps. I find eyes in the headlights. And I just like the patterns and shapes, the lines, textures, and shiny of this preserved relics of past transportation options.

This collection comes from the pitiful attempt at a home show after Hurricane Katrina in Mobile, Alabama. I went to look at new home features as we were starting to think about building our future home, and my father went along for the fun, finding great entertainment in the old cars. I’m not sure why there were featured at the home show, but with so little there, and so few people in attendance, it didn’t hurt.

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival: Tulip Picker on the Horizon

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

A spotted this tulip picker on the horizon in the pre-dawn light of Mt. Vernon, Washington, during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

With the brightening sky behind him, I was able to underexpose the image to create a semi-silhouette effect, a dramatic image of a Mexican collecting the tulips up to put into boxes and crates and shipped out around the globe.

Taking Your Camera on the Road

with Lorelle and Brent VanFossen

Tag Archives: photography

Letter to Those Desiring a Career in Nature and Travel Photography

Featured

School is boring. Go Anyway.

Make a plan

Traveling is fun. Travel and Learn to Travel at Home.

Set Goals and Self-Assignments. Practice Gets You to Carnegie Hall.

If I Could Do It All Over Again…

Water Droplets on Sheet Web

Featured

Exploring Painted Hills in Oregon

Featured

Photographing Hands

Patterns in Nature: New Growth on Evergreens

Lavender Festival: Photographing People and Hats

A Reflection of Trees

The Stack of Old Books

The Bridge Over La Conner, Washington

Bellingrath Plantation Home, Mobile, Alabama

Exploring Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia

Hot Pink Azaleas, Mobile, Alabama

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival: A Weed

Photographing Old Antique Cars

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival: Tulip Picker on the Horizon