The following is a transcript of a radio talk show interview. I'm a travel photographer who has just written a couple of books: a global adventure/love story and an armchair traveler's book of anecdotes.. Glen Allison ----------------------------------- << Why did you decide to become a professional photographer?<< Actually, ever since I was 12 years old I wanted to be an architect. Later I received a degree in architecture from UC Berkeley. Photography was a hobby during college. After graduation I worked as a draftsman for a well-known architect in LA and then started shooting some of his buildings on weekends. I had an eye for good composition. Because of that architect's fame, his work was often published. Before I new it, my photo of a building he'd designed appeared on the cover of the most prestigious German architectural magazine. >>What was the one event or thing that made you realize you were a professional photographer?<< That cover photo. All the other photos in that issue really were taken by pros, yet my picture was on the cover. >>Other than making money, what's the difference between a great amateur photographer and a professional photographer?<< A great amateur and a great pro shooter have one thing in common: a good eye for a great photo. The difference is that the pro has decided he or she is going to make a career out of this passion. >>How many cameras do you own?<< Two camera bodies with seven lenses, mostly zooms. It all fits into one small shoulder bag. >>Do you develop your own film?<< Never. Until the recent digital explosion, my stock photo agencies only wanted slides delivered to them. The proper exposure for slide film must be captured in camera. What you see is what you get. The film development for slides is pretty mundane and straightforward and far too time consuming for me to do with the hundreds of rolls of film I shoot each month in countries all over the globe. I need a life too. >>When you are on the road, do you get your film developed as you go or do you wait until you get home to do it all at once?<< Depends on the length of the trip. When I do yearlong jaunts around the world, I process the slides en route, do my editing on a portable light box, create caption labels with a laptop and small printer, then FedEx the final edited film to my photo agencies in the States or Europe. Many agencies now prefer digital submissions but today's 35 mm digital cameras don't produce large enough file sizes. Consequently, most travel photographers still shoot film, then later scan that film so they can do computer manipulation. Most of my trips are now no longer than a month, so that I can return to my base in LA for the film scanning. In a couple of years down the road, digital camera file sizes will increase, which will enable shooters to do laptop computer manipulation in the field and not have to return to their studios so frequently to scan film. >>Without naming names or describing the situation - in too much detail - have you ever taken a shot and then after you developed it decided it was just too embarrassing to the subject to be published?<< When shooting a series of images of a subject, naturally some are more flattering than others. I think it's more of a case that I'D be embarrassed if my peers saw some of those images published. >>How do you decide what pictures to submit and where?<< I don't submit images directly to magazines, but rather to my stock photo agencies who handle all sales for me. Most agencies provide lists to their photographers of images they need on various subjects. This can provide a good starting point if that particular subject matter intrigues me. In the beginning I shot the most important travel icons (Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty) at the most visited destinations so that I'd be able to quickly build an earning base of images that would sell well. Once that base was established, I started picking destinations, like Borneo or Papua New Guinea or Kazakzthan, that excited me rather than whether or not I was going to make that particular trip financially profitable. >>When you began your career as a photographer, you wanted to be a travel photographer but wound up as an award winning architectural photographer. Then, you changed direction and became the travel photographer you always wanted to be. Other than the obvious differences, how different are the two fields?<< The main difference is the freedom I found when I switched to travel photography. There's a big difference in the amount of photo and lighting equipment needed when comparing travel to architectural shooting. As an architectural photographer I had a mini-van full of thousands of dollars of "Hollywood" lighting that I needed to drag around to each shooting location, usually with an art director or designer looking over my shoulder orchestrating the shoot and 3 or 4 assistants helping out. Now I carry only a small camera bag on my shoulder with one small flash unit. I don't do assignments. Last decade I shot thousands of travel photos. Finally--after some hard times--I was able to build a good earning base of imagery from my journeys. Now I can go anywhere I want, shoot what I want, when I want. I just need to keep capturing commercially marketable images, but the door is pretty much wide open in the artistic interpretation of those pictures. After a while you learn what will sell and what will not. >>The photographer controls the composition of the picture. Is the ability to know what the photo will look like before pressing the shutter a gift or is it something that can be learned?<< In one respect it can be learned in the sense that one's perceptions can be honed to maximize creative results. However, I'm sure that the most successful photographers have an innate creative ability to pre-visualize great images even before they shoot them. I hear many amateurs say things like, "I hope my pictures turn out." Would a surgeon be a pro if he said, "I hope this operation 'turns out' "? Believe me, I've taken my share of crappy pictures, but now--after the learning curve--ALL my pictures "turn out." Maybe someone's eyes blinked in one of the frames. Or maybe I later shot a more pleasing variation of the composition. But in general, if I'm shooting, I know what the result will be before I click the shutter. That doesn't mean the next variation might not be better or more finessed. Hey, I've trashed thousands of pictures that I'd never let anybody see. All pros do. >>Grey Matheson, the main character in "The Journey From Kamakura" is a photographer. Which creates the question, how autobiographical is the book?<< About 90% of the scenes in Part One of the novel are based on actual events. The others were added to embellish the story or to add more drama to what happened in reality. The reader must decide what to believe. In Part Two, while most of the scenes are based on actual events, the dynamics of the character interchanges begin to take on a life of their own in order to better serve the flow of the story as it unfolds toward the conclusion, which in real life hasn't actually happened yet--though it's getting close.. >>Grey's profession dictates a great deal of the action. Why will the book appeal to nonprofessional photographers as well?<< The story will appeal not just to pro and amateur photographers, but to the avid armchair traveler and the typical reader. To most people the freewheeling lifestyle of a global travel photographer is probably an exotic, dream-come-true type of career. My main character must grapple with the roller coaster ride of love won and lost, fortune won and lost, dreams won and lost. But more importantly, he must deal with the challenge of winning them all back again under the most impossible circumstances. And he must go through the necessary human revolution to do so. The fact that his journey takes him to exotic locales to learn those lessons adds an exciting dimension to the challenges he encounters. The incredible woman he meets in Southeast Asia, who leads the way back, will probably intrigue just about anyone. (The fact that most of this story really happened is cool, too.) What Grey Matheson wins over in the end are the same challenges and struggles that are common to us all and that anyone can relate to--he must win over himself. >>Grey travels to some very exotic locations. In your travels around the world, have you visited all the places he did?<< Absolutely. My descriptions of those locales, and my struggles while I was there, are very vivid in my mind. It was easy for me to incorporate them into the story. >>Of all the places you have been, which was your favorite?<< The next one. >>What makes you decide one assignment is right for you but another isn't?<< My work is all self-assigned. Today I choose destinations based on my perception of how vibrant or unusual or exciting the experience will be when I arrive there and on how much I can learn about cultures different from my own. If we as human beings can celebrate the differences among ourselves, then maybe we'll be able to make our own personal cause to create peace on this confused planet. My ultimate goal is to make one lifelong friend in every country of the world. >>What was the most fun assignment you have been on?<< The most exciting, and at the same time most grueling, was my overland journey across the Himalayas from Katmandu to Lhasa, Tibet. On that trip I thought that altitude sickness might kill me, but the rugged faces of the high-altitude nomads and the awesome mountain scenery was spectacular, so I was spurned to keep going. My most fun trips have been to the Rajasthan area of India because it is sheer madness there: 15,000 camels at the Pushkar Fair during the full moon of November each year and cows in the middle of streets and snake charmers playing their flutes and curbside dentists pulling teeth and wall-to-wall people wrapped in the eye-blazing color of their saris and turbans and cremations on the banks of the Ganges and scenes ad infinitum to boggle the senses. >>Have you ever run out of film just seconds before the perfect picture presented itself?<< No. Never. Professional photographers simply never run out of film. However, there have been numerous times when I shot like crazy and later realized in the excitement that I'd never put film in the camera. >>When someone buys one of your photographs, do they buy just the rights or do they buy the actual photo?<< It's possible for someone to purchase what is referred to as a "buyout," but agencies would charge a lot of money for this--maybe twenty or thirty-thousand dollars. In the stock photo business images are normally licensed based on usage rights. A small, quarter-page photo used editorially in a regional magazine pays a lot less than a full-page ad for a major corporation wanting to use the same image in magazines around the globe. The least amount that an agency has charged for one of my photos is seven dollars. The most was thirteen thousand of which I received half in both cases, the standard royalty percentage at the time.. The little sale bought me a nice latté at Starbucks. Both sales were enjoyable. >>With the capabilities of computers and digital photography, it is possible to create and manipulate an image so the final product has little or no relation to the original subject. Should there be an "honesty in photography" rule like there is for advertising?<< Stock photo agencies require contributing photographers to indicate when an image has been radically manipulated or enhanced by computers so that they can pass this info on to potential buyers, who make the final decision if they can use the altered image. From the standpoint of artistic expression, I have no problem with "created" images. Painters do this all the time. When does photography cross over into the artistic realm? Well, any time the photographer wants to create that kind of art. On the other hand, it wouldn't be morally correct to imply that an image was "real" when it wasn't. Even Ansel Adams used red filters on his black and white images to make the blue skies turn deep black and thus become much more dramatic. The difference now is that our methods are different. We can create these kinds of effects with the computer. Technology just puts different tools at our creative disposal. All avenues can be valid when used in the appropriate circumstances. >>What is the funniest photo you have ever taken?<< Probably of myself. I was shooting in Capidoccia, Turkey, in an area of fantastic, eroded earth formations. Each hundred-foot-tall, perfectly phallic-shaped and very erect monolith had been carved by Mother Nature to exact male anatomical specifications--complete with circumcision--only really, really humongous in size. They call this area "Big Willie Valley" and I'd bet that each guy who treks though those marvels of nature probably plops himself on the ground, raises his legs in the air and frames a self-portrait adding the profile of one of these natural wonders to his own as I did. I sure hope those photos never get published. >>How long do you keep negatives and prints of photographs you are not going to use or sell?<< I don't. I destroy them immediately. If they are not good enough to use or sell, then I don't want anyone seeing them--ever. >>There is a scene in "The Journey From Kamakura" where Grey spends time waiting for a sunset shot of the ship he is lecturing on. What is the longest you have ever waited to take a photo? Was it worth the wait?<< Once I waited thirty days for a sunrise photo. In early November each year in San Francisco the sunrise, the Transamerica Pyramid building, and one tower of the Golden Gate bridge perfectly line up if viewed from across the bay to the north. I was standing on the same mountaintop every morning at 5 a.m. for 30 days straight, 15 days before the sun arrived at the midpoint and 15 days after, so that I'd be able to create a composition with the sun in slightly different positions each morning as it marched across the sky. Well, it rained 17 days during which I shot no film. I only had a pretty sunrise on five of those mornings and only one was spectacular. My agency chose just this one photo from that entire thirty-day shoot, which happened about a decade ago. Since then I've earned tens of thousands of dollars on that one single image. Yes, the wait was worth it. I was thrilled when I shot that photo. Cashing the checks over the years wasn't bad either. >>In that same scene, another photographer complains about the composition and comments that he will have to erase parts of the photo on his computer. How much editing do you do using a computer?<< I usually work 3 or 4 hours on the computer for every image I give to an agency. Bits of trash or telephone wires can easily be erased. Sunsets can be enhanced. Silhouetted birds or boats can be added. Colors can be made more brilliant. Most of the time I don't make radical changes. But if I'm only at the Pyramids of Giza a couple of days and the weather is bad, I can salvage the trip by switching skies later. Or if a great looking nomad walks into the frame and I don't have a model release, then I can maybe twist his head a bit or add a hat or add extra hair so that he is no longer recognizable. If appropriate, I can add some sunglasses or change the color of the clothes. >>Have you ever been asked to touch up a photo so much that it no longer represented the original subject? Did you do it?<< Usually my computer manipulation is not so dramatic. But I have some software that will quickly convert a daylight scene to appear as though it were lit by moonlight or add sunshine and shadows to overcast scenes, which can make great compositions dazzle with magic lighting that didn't exist when I shot the pictures. I don't always have thirty days to stand on a mountaintop waiting for the magic light to arrive. But I definitely know how I'd interpret the shot if I only had the chance. Computers have given me this opportunity. You decide which picture you'd like the best, then buy the one that suits your needs. >>Photography is an art and a photographer is an artist. You have moved from being a visual artist to a wordsmith. How different are those art forms?<< No, I haven't moved from one to the other. I must keep perfecting both forms of art. From the standpoint of pre-visualization, however, they are very similar. In a photograph I ponder a scene to decide what I'd like to capture in terms of mood or nuance or the essence of a place and how I want to express or interpret that feeling as a moment in time. Always the image begins as "reality," something appearing before my eyes. I can alter the vision according to my own artistic whims and creative juices flowing at that particular moment, but the picture always starts as something I see with my eyes wide open. In contrast, when writing a scene for a book, I can conjure all these same aspects in my mind (even ones that don't really exist)--but my eyes can be closed during the entire creative process. >>Is the personal satisfaction the same when you create a great photograph and a great paragraph?<< Capturing a great photograph and the magic it expresses is truly exhilarating. However, to be able to craft words that paint images in the reader's mind that are just as magic and just as real, is for me far more exhilarating because it's far more challenging to accomplish such a task and to do it exquisitely. >>I understand you are working on another book that will tell some of the funny things that have happened to you while on assignment. What kind of stories will we be reading and when? >> You know, traveling is supposed to be fun, but it's often difficult. Flights get canceled, bags get lost or worse yet, stolen. Sometimes our nerves get frazzled in Third-World countries where infrastructure doesn't work or doesn't even exist. But if we don't laugh, many times all we can do is cry. Last decade I embarked on an eight-year journey, not maintaining a permanent residence, during which time I photographed 131 countries and territories. And I got myself into some really funny situations--at least when viewed in retrospect. Once, when I was trying to photograph the Grand Palace in Bangkok, I was trapped on the rooftop of a military building during a coup takeover. Machine guns were pointed at me. It was scary but eventually I was able to bribe my way to a great photo--then I was able to laugh about the whole incident later. And once I fought off a mugger in Moscow, which was really frightening at the time. However, the circumstances are what made the incident so funny. Some guy was trying to steal my wallet from my pants pocket and I was slugging and kicking him during a mad scuffle. I was in the men's room of a fancy hotel and the man was diving at my pants which were at my ankles at that particular moment because I was sitting on a toilet with an emergency case of impromptu diarrhea--but the would-be robber never got my wallet. Then there was the time I was abducted by penis-gourd-clad tribal warlords in Irian Jaya in what turned out to be a mock capture of my tour group. Irian men only wear penis gourds. Later these same men sold me some souvenirs and they needed to make change for my large bills. But these guys didn't have any pockets. They only had one place to stash their coins. Believe me, you don't want to ask for small change in Irian Jaya. And I almost fell into an active volcano in Vanuatu. I was surrounded by life-threatening avalanches in Tibet and even had a small brush with Taliban soldiers. My new book, "Laughing Your Way Around the World," is a lighthearted look at these and many other crazy episodes and all the poignant lessons I learned about human nature along the way. It will be finished in the next month or so.
