MY PATH TO VISUAL STORYTELLING
- Ferry R Tan
- Oct 4, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 6, 2020
I love to explore the world through photography and travel that I have been doing for quite some time and I have to admit that this has changed my life for the better. I see myself as a curator and a collector of experiences. The experiences I have built over the years have contributed to my knowledge and influenced my current way of thinking and perceptions.
Practicing travel photography requires an open mind and curiosity. They say that life should not only be lived, but also fully experienced, and for me it was through travel and photography. To get the most out of my trip, I choose to travel light. Furthermore, a healthy body and an open mind are my guarantee for successful results.
I have made successful trips and there were also a number that were downright disappointing. This includes failures caused by technical problems such as a crashed external hard drive. But I think failures and successes are essential taste makers for a story. I remember the journeys when I came back with just a hand full of good images. However, I have never seen it as loss or loss of time. It was only part of a learning process.
Travel also requires patience and perseverance at times you have to work in limited circumstances. It may sound strange, but working with limitations has advantages. It forces one to be mindful but, not in a technical or calculative sense. Throughout the years I learned that photography and travel compliment each other perfectly. It was for me the perfect combination to capture life. Nothing is self-evident and to understand what life is about, I need to go where it all happens.
I regard photography as a medium for self-discovery and self-expression. It is also a tool, to discover the limitations of my creativity and I continually challenge myself to push the boundaries. It is a form of art in which I can identify myself as an artist in an unlimited but aesthetically pleasing way. As a photographer, it is my way of self-expression.
To date, the saying "every picture tells a story" is still actual and always will be. However, the saying is true to some extent because it only tells what is going on but there is further no backstory. In other words, a photograph only provides visual information about where, when and what but it does not tell us about the artist's feelings or what he experienced, hence my decision to write down my experiences because a picture is no longer enough to express my feelings. Regardless of how good a photograph is, with it I can only show what I've seen, not what I've heard or smelled when I took the picture.
When I take pictures, I never think about compositions or lighting, instead I prefer to follow my intuition and observe the world with my mind's eye. There are no magic camera settings to take pictures. They can only be good if you think out-of-the-box and discover the right settings for the situation you are in. I usually determine my compositions in post-production. Travel photography falls into the category of photojournalism in which artistic and emotional qualities outweigh the technical.
Technically, there is no road map or fixed rules for travel photography or even for photography in general. Don’t be afraid to put your camera in manual mode, and experiment with different apertures and shutter speeds. Remember that the aperture controls the depth of field, and the shutter affects the sharpness or blurriness of the image. Likewise, the regular rules of composition do not always work for your situation. The key is to be super observant and look for small details.
I was already busy with photography when I was a teenager. Despite years of practice, my qualities as a photographer have improved considerably, but I have always felt that something was missing. I needed more than just taking pictures. I discovered the missing link since I started writing about my travels.
Professionally, I am an architectural photographer, but my true passions lie in traveling and discovering the world and telling my story through my photography. I shoot a series of images to create a photo story. Overviews are probably the most important of a photo series because they provide the viewer a general idea about what and where. These images have to be interesting in composition and lighting because they will determine if a viewer is drawn to read the story or rather skip it.
Photography is all about intuition and making decisions. Above all, it is a medium for self-expression. Whether you're doing it in the camera or in post-production, in general compositions consist of horizontal and vertical photographs, but the most important is to make your photos impressive and epic. Detail photos are equally important to draw the viewer’s attention to the smaller details of the whole. Observe small details that are difficult or even impossible to see in the established image because they create the balance in the story. It's about making small things look big.
While in the field, I am continually on the lookout for interesting details that can relate to my story. If I do a series about a city, a funny street sign, graffiti or food on a local market can be my detail photo. If the story is about a specific person, his or her hands or tools can be the hero of the shot. I take the time to understand the culture and customs of the place I am visiting. How do people greet one another? What are the predominant religions and traditions? What is the general way of life? All these facts are the building stones of a story.
Ferry R. Tan
Jakarta, October 4th, 2020
Comments