Please Give Me Your Opinion

My Navy career gave me several years of shore duty overseas, which wasn't enough time to become integrated into the local cultures and communities. You could integrate much faster without the distraction of a job and with total immersion, but it still can take a long time. The books I've read on foreign cultures that showed more than superficial knowledge were based on much time and often much sacrifice. The strength of those books was almost always in the knowledge and understanding in the text, not in great photography.

Your photography can't be judged adequately by online images, but looks good to me. However, it seems inappropriate for your stated purpose. Compare your posted images with W. Eugene Smith's photography. He was not only a master photographer and printer, but he captured humanity in his work. The dichotomy between your apparent style of photography and insight into the lives of the people you might get to know is great. Fine Art photography works better with static subjects and relics of the past than with the lives of humans.

As an adventure, if you can afford it, go for it! Don't expect it to pay unless you have an understanding with a publisher beforehand. Journalists have paid for expeditions by submitting while on the road. Remember, the man who pays the bills should have much say in what he is receiving in return. This may be a burden on the traveller. I have many dozen books on the places I've lived overseas. Based on what you've said and shown, I wouldn't add yours to the library unless it received extraordinary reviews.

Could you please explain when do you achieve complete integration and why should you strive for it? Are you integrated when you talk, dress, and do just as the locals do? But the locals can be a pretty mixed crowd, too. Which locals do you choose to imitate? Is it when you think like the locals do? But that's quite impossible, the locals grew up there, their whole thinking is influenced by that place. You're there just for some time, so you can't catch up. At least I find myself quite "integrated" when I start understanding how it must be like to live there, and usually that happens within a week or so (I do some research on the countries I visit, though, and I've never been to something totally different from my own country, if, indeed, there is such a thing). Really, people in other countries don't really do anything that exotic; they still wake up in the morning, they still go to work, they still come home to their families etc. It's just a matter of finding out how exactly do they do those things, and even that does not change much within pretty large regions. Oh, and do the things they do; ride the same busses, eat at the same places, stay where local tourists would be likely to stay and so on -- that helps a lot. Avoid the typical tourist destinations. You cannot really integrate yourself from a distance.
But, probably most importantly, complete integration is not really necessary. Quite often, a foreigner can have a new and refreshing look at things. I enjoy looking at photographs foreigners have shot in Riga; even though they're mostly shooting the same tourist attractions over and over again, they sometimes get unbelievably nice pictures of the very same places I've seen for hundreds of times and never really considered photographing because they seemed so obvious and well-known.

Didzis said:

Could you please explain when do you achieve complete integration and why should you strive for it?

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Being new to an area offers a transient view point which can only be produced once and is limited only to the potential of the person and the place.

Donald Miller said:

Frugal, You brought up some really valid points of consideration too..Lanuguare barriers being a major one. Thank you for your thoughts as well.

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Thanks, in retrospect my reply may have come across too negatively. It wasn't meant to discourage you from doing it; heck, if I was able to get away from work for that long I'd probably do something similar (the travelling and photo side, not necessarily the book).

In terms of integrating, I'd use the difficulty in integrating and language barriers to your advantage. There are tons of humourous situations that come up from cultural misunderstandings. There's great opportunities to reflect on what things we do have in common.

Donald Miller said:

David, You provided some very important considerations. Some that I had considered and some that I had not considered. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Frugal, You brought up some really valid points of consideration too..Lanuguare barriers being a major one. Thank you for your thoughts as well.

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You might want to consider a different approach - picking one place only and living there for a year or so. Kind of a photographic version of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence".

I don't think it is necessary to "integrate" yourself. Mayle writes from the viewpoint of an outsider who is both bemused by and bemusing to the "locals".

Anyway, I envy your "time freedom" that enables you to undertake such an adventure. Good luck, have fun and send pictures!

I mentioned this to my wife, and she suggested you should spend some winter months in Northern Norway to "test out" the concept. Say - December, January and February in Vadsø? That should give you enough time to get a little bit of insight into "the Land of the Midday Dark"...

Ole said:

I mentioned this to my wife, and she suggested you should spend some winter months in Northern Norway to "test out" the concept. Say - December, January and February in Vadsø? That should give you enough time to get a little bit of insight into "the Land of the Midday Dark"...

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Yeah. right!!!! Maybe I'll make that my annual base to get caught up with writing and printing. From what you say, that may make sense.

Get your passport.

Get a couple empty credit card accts.

Get a map at the local bookshop, a couple changes of underwear, go.

Go now.

df cardwell said:

Get your passport.

Get a couple empty credit card accts.

Get a map at the local bookshop, a couple changes of underwear, go.

Go now.

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Already got the passport, Got one credit card and two debit cards, haven't got the map...Why do I need extra underwear?

I think it would help if you tell people your previous travel experience and also how many stories you've completed from idea to end.

Why not consider countries people don't already have 100 books about? I go to the bookstore and there are 5 or 6 picture books about Ireland on the shelves, 8 about France, etc. None about the eastern Black Sea coasts. None about Libya.

StephenS said:

I think it would help if you tell people your previous travel experience and also how many stories you've completed from idea to end.

Why not consider countries people don't already have 100 books about? I go to the bookstore and there are 5 or 6 picture books about Ireland on the shelves, 8 about France, etc. None about the eastern Black Sea coasts. None about Libya.

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My previous international travel experience is virtually nill. I have written and had technical stuff published before.

Changes of conditions in my personal life have recently made it possible for me to consider this from a financial perspective.

You point out a really interesting and important consideration and I appreciate what you said. Thanks.

I think there is an art to travelling well. The distinction between being a tourist swaying with the circumstances, and the ability to be involved and display perception of the culture doesn't just happen by putting yourself in a place that you find interesting. Just like being a good photographer involves more than buying a clever camera. And presumably you will be photographing people? How are your skills at that?

If you want to make money out of it. From my perspective as a book buyer you'll be competing with people like say for example Steve McCurry. He's had a bit of practice so far having indulged his passion for travelling and photographing for a long time. The photos he has used in his books are the cherries picked from twenty or thirty years of paid travel as a freelance photographer, and for Magnum and Nat Geographic. Organisations that demand high standards for every image submission.

If you're thinking more Michael Smith/Paula Chamlee. Don't forget they're already established having had solo exhibitions over the years and many workshops under their belts before the book projects. You'll need to display unrelenting marketing abilities and perserverence to turn yourself into a brand to go this way since no-one else will do it for you.

If you don't wish to think about how they got there, that's fine. But if you do manage to get as far as having a book on the shelf in borders, or the new listings of photoeye, you will be competing with them. It'll be just one of the (something like) 8 photo books published each week in the US alone.

Probably sound like another wet blanket. Dream big, but temper it with healthy dose of 'getting all the ducks in a row' so it is a success.

In saying all that perhaps, if the full objective is to be happy by spending lots of money travelling for a while and photographing places that interest you, I say go for it. There are only a handful of circumstances that make you feel as alive as when travelling. To photograph the experiences and be able to share them with people afterwards is ... well, there's nothing like it.

Donald Miller said:

My previous international travel experience is virtually nill. I have written and had technical stuff published before.

Changes of conditions in my personal life have recently made it possible for me to consider this from a financial perspective.

You point out a really interesting and important consideration and I appreciate what you said. Thanks.

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Donald, its a nice dream and its wonderful that you have the means to try to realize it. That you have little travel experience, perhaps none in the third world, is not so good. And that you seem not to speak the languages you'll need is very bad.

Give some thought to how you'd manage transport. Renting a car is expensive, buying one can involve much paperwork and ability to communicate in the local language -- gotta be able to explain yourself to the nice folks in motor vehicles, gotta buy insurance -- and some risk and if you buy one you'll have to sell it before you leave. Come to think of it, I've been places where the car rental people didn't speak English; Costa Rica back when, Haiti, Paraguay, Panama, Nicaragua, for example. Buses are fine if you have time and can stand waiting and speak the language well enough to recognize the one you want and understand where to get off. Unless you intend to stay in one little neighborhood, you'll have to solve this problem.

A question for you and for Roger Hicks. How would/do you manage film on a long trip? The longest I've been in the field so far has been five weeks, on that trip I shot mainly Kodachrome. Brought it with me, carried it with me, had it processed after return home.

It sounds great that you want to do something like this.I don't know all the pro&cons of this project, but I thought I would mention that a couple years ago I found a book called First Light. This auther did what you are thinking about, so I thought if you cauld find the book on ebay, haif .com ect. you might get some first hand info into what he went though, where he stayed, Good photos, nice writing too. FIRST LIGHT by ETHAN HUBBARD ISBN 0-930031-04-0 Heres another number maybe it dosent mean anything. G465.H84 1986 910.4 85-29894

jd callow said:

Being new to an area offers a transient view point which can only be produced once and is limited only to the potential of the person and the place.

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Very true. Some of the most valuable travel books I've used were written with the essentials fresh in the author's mind. These books make good partners with the books based on extensive knowledge.

Donald,

I've already told you to go for it and do what it is you want. That said I have one suggestion you should think about. You mention having little travel experience. No big deal. So why not consider a two-week trip taking photos to iron out a few things?

And don't go somewhere 'easy' like Ireland or France or anyplace so popular. You said South America. How about trying a trip to Peru? Or maybe somewhere in Central America like Nicaragua? Not that there's anything wrong with an 'easy' place, but trying something a bit more rugged and bit more third world will really help you plan a longer trip - see how good a traveler you are.

I think the experience will be great and you can use it to figure out how much things will cost, how to travel with gear, how you relate to people 'over there', and many other factors that only spring up during the reality of doing it.

Just book a ticket online, get a guidebook and try it out.