Soul-full Travel Memories
I grew up in front of a lens. I’m nobody famous or special except to my father who loved to take pictures. He always had a 35mm around his neck with a bag of film and lenses, plus a 8mm movie camera in his hand.
Book Review: The Photographing Tourist, A Storyteller’s Guide to Travel and Photography
Author: David Noyes
My dad armed me a Brownie snapshot camera so he could teach me and share his passion. My father would sit for hours reviewing and choosing slides for his Camera Club “Photo-Essay” competitions. He’d watch, then review and splice his movies into film stories. Dad would so have appreciated The Photographing Tourist, A Storyteller’s Guide to Travel and Photography and identified with its author David Noyes through their love of photography.
But journalist David Noyes takes the idea of photo-essays to a whole new level by gifting us with wonderful stories that accompany and illuminate his photography. As tourists we document our travels in pictures and often share them silently with intimates and our broader Internet family. When we read Noyes' Field Notes we experience storytelling — how it augments photography and grounds pictures in reality while sparking our emotions and imagination. Noyes also shares his photography knowledge by providing guidance in a sprinkling ofTechnical Shorts throughout the book. He demonstrates the power of story by his writing and the impact the combination has to our senses.
From his travels around the globe, Noyes presents us with his unique views into Local Lifestyles, and Indigenous Tourism and Environmental Portraits. He dedicates a chapter to Spiritual Worlds and Sacred Places and reminds us as tourists to be aware of our place in and among the devout. He councils us how to mingle with large groups of tourists when visiting Landmarks and Famous Places and still take great photos. He weaves storytelling with his outstanding photography throughout the book as he temps us into Nature and on grand Adventures.
Today with our camera-phones we can constantly capture and tell our stories in pictures — photos and videos — with are all kinds of Apps and software to enhance our pics. Some of us will invest in a SLR camera to have more control as we shoot to augment our professions and document our lives. As you read this book I bet you will be inspired, not only to travel the world, but to make picture-stories that are less random and more spectacular — in fact, I’m sure of it. Gift this book to anyone with wanderlust, and to those who love photography with all it’s nuance and storytelling potential.
Learn more about David Noyes at his website www.noyestravels.com and his U.S. based nonprofit Innocent Eyes Project that supports child education programs in the developing world.
