The low down: Photography with Peter Guttman

Photographs have become a core part of how we experience, share, and remember our travels. To give you some of the best low down tips on getting high results in the sometimes challenging conditions of low season travel, our Editor-at-Large asked a renowned, award-winning photographer to share some of his tales and tips. Peter Guttman has travelled in over 240 countries in all kinds of weather.

The visual high of low season travel

Seasons often fuel the driving engine for travel. In order to survey earth’s amazing diversity and fragile beauty, I’ll often seek out travel’s low season to visit many of our globe’s remote and magical corners. With a tireless passion for exploration, I dedicated much of my life to travel photography and toward discovering the wonders of our planet, which I’ve tried to capture visually within the eight hardcover books I’ve written. In doing so, it became apparent that sojourning during less busy times can provide a soul-soothing, almost spiritual sense of wonder and discovery.

Very fortunately for me, the rhythmic flow of mother nature’s elemental forces doesn’t always coincide with the desire for comfort and climate-controlled imperatives sought by mass tourism’s pleasure-seeking hordes. As such, I often deliberately schedule my travels in direct contradiction to the usual patterns of vacationing tourists. This has enabled me to take valuable advantage of pristine landscapes and intimate wildlife encounters, while spending quality time with local culture, providing a deeper dive toward understanding and investigating remote societies. Privileged access created by low season travel has, for me, served as a backstage pass to our global theatre, and in turn has greatly enhanced the photography for my iPad travel app, Beautiful Planet HD. The images in that collection depict our astonishing planetary diversity by featuring lightly-populated scenes of pre-digital cultures and landscapes.

For example, when investigating Fez, Morocco, the world’s largest non-motorised city, I journeyed there in the very early spring. This enabled me to sidestep a relentless crush of foreign visitors mobbing the labyrinthine lanes of the medina. Its narrow walls now echoed hauntingly with clip-clopping donkey carts, while strolling djellaba-clad falconers and water vendors served as vivid avatars of the mysterious atmosphere pervading this medieval quarter. I made my way down to Venezuela, not during the mostly preferred dry season, but rather deep within its July rainy season to paddle through tropical jungle by dugout canoe A sauna building in Lapland in the glow of the Northern Lights, Ahvenjärvi in Finland

Exploring the narrow lanes of the Medina of Fez, Morocco

Credit: Peter Guttman

to the base of Angel Falls. As high as three Empire State Buildings stacked one upon another, the world’s tallest waterfall can often appear as a small trickle of water drooling down from a towering limestone tepui. However, by arriving at the falls during rainy season, the heavens seemed to cry a misty bridal veil impressively gushing out of the firmament.

November might seem an unwelcome month to explore the natural splendors of Canada, but one of my most memorable engagements with nature occurred around that time in Manitoba. One can then experience a close encounter with the world’s largest land carnivore, just when Hudson Bay begins to freeze up. At that time, starving polar bears hope to attend the grand reopening of their frozen cafeteria, stationing themselves next to newly formed breathing holes, where ringed seals will emerge for a gulp of fresh air and wind up as the main entree. As winter slowly begins to close in, this dramatic gathering of ferocious snow-white mammals may be viewed from platforms on a rather unique tundra buggy, which makes its way to this remote spot during this brief transition between seasons.

To capture many distinctive low season experiences, I’ve had to develop numerous strategies to accompany my photographic activities, especially when shooting in unexpected or difficult weather conditions. My global exploits have found me photographing raucous emperor penguin colonies in bone-chilling Antarctic blizzards and battling heat stroke while attempting to photograph camel caravans lumbering through scorching oven-like desert canyons in Djibouti, the world’s hottest nation. I’ve documented a steep ascent through painfully thin atmosphere to summit Mount Kilimanjaro as my exhausted lungs screamed for more oxygen, and I’ve endured numerous waterlogged stakeouts awaiting an appearance by the mystical spirit bear in a drenching British Columbian rainforest. Low Season Traveller

Top tips for photography, whatever the weather

A polar bear roaming through the tundra in Manitoba, Canada

Credit: Peter Guttman

While your own journeys will hopefully not be as physically daunting, below are a few points to consider while braving the elements with a camera.

COLD

• The cold can drain your batteries more quickly. Carry many spare ones and fully charge everything before heading out. Consider rubber-banding hand warmers to your camera, or keep it near your own body heat when not in use.

• There’s no such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing choices. Avoid cotton. Dress in layers for flexible adjustments to your body’s natural thermostat. Employ moisture-wicking, synthetic layers as a base, and an outer, waterproof, wind-resisting shell is a must. No jeans. Wool socks. Gloves should include a thin synthetic layer beneath woollen mittens. Boots best include waterproof Gore-Tex and heat trapping Thinsulate.

• If you happen to be utilising a tripod with aluminium legs, consider insulating its surfaces with foam. That helps toward preventing frostbite-inducing contact.

• Be aware that white, snowy backgrounds require an additional stop of light to prevent under exposure, as an overly white background can usually fool your camera meter.

• Unless deliberately shooting silhouettes, avoid sun reflections off the snow and ice by repositioning your direction of focus. Hope for cloudy skies to reduce unwanted contrast, or alternatively, at the margins of the day, take advantage of the sun’s lower angle during winter, which produces much more dramatic lighting effects.

HEAT

• One of the most common challenges when shooting in hot weather is the aggravating effect of condensation. Your lens clouds up and crystalline views may turn into a soupy fog. Avoid this by never exposing your camera to whatever cooled spaces you’ve emerged from. Leave your camera overnight beneath blankets, out on a balcony, or in a bathroom, always shielded away from direct air conditioning.

• Consider wearing a fitness headband to mop up any excessive facial sweat that can fog up your viewfinder. Carrying a small, light-coloured towel can help shade your camera if temperature build-up becomes extreme.

• Don’t leave your camera in a parked vehicle. Increasing heat can sometimes wreak havoc with electronics within

the equipment and prove even more detrimental for those still shooting with film in their camera.

• Scout out cooler, shady spots that might prove useful for your photographic efforts. Shade also provides a much more pleasing context for shooting portraits of any kind, eliminating unflattering facial shadows and contrast. Shady spots will, as well, offer a retreat for smartphones, whose cameras may automatically shut down when exposed to excessive sun and heat.

• Polarising filters may be very useful, particularly on wideangle lenses, when shooting shoreline or sun-bleached scenes, by subtly reducing reflection while enhancing eyepleasing saturation of colours. Whether at beachfronts or deserts, be mindful and protective about blowing sand, which can infiltrate your camera equipment and jam its operation or scratch rolls of film.

RAIN

• Travel with a generous supply of towels, cloth wipes and lens tissue and keep aware of raindrops on your lens glass which can easily mar the final image. An ultraviolet filter helps protect the glass. Small silica packets may assist in reducing moisture.

• Use a lens hood. Purchase a dedicated rain sleeve for your lens, or improvise one by rubber-banding a plastic bag with a cut-out viewing hole.

• Scout out sheltering spots that might be useful for your photographic efforts. Shoot from porches, bus shelters or open car windows. A variety of coloured umbrellas may provide both rain protection and serve as a useful photographic prop to lend scale and atmosphere for subjects inhabiting a scene.

• Find particularly colourful elements to play a prominent role in the photograph, which helps reduce dreariness and enlivens an image.

• Make lemonade from lemons by exploiting rainy conditions. Use reflections to create memorable images. Puddles may yield surprisingly stunning photographic conditions. In urban situations, shooting extremely low right next to a puddle may yield startling mirror-like images that appear precisely the same by turning the photograph upside down. To maximise the drama of the scene, locate an intriguing background structure lit additionally by manmade light. That will prove particularly effective when shooting during blue light.

BLUE LIGHT

• Applicable for all seasons and conditions, but particularly rewarding during rainy conditions, be on the lookout for blue light conditions. This usually occurs just after sunset and lasts until total darkness. The reverse phenomenon appears at dawn.

• A phenomenon unbeknown to most is that even when a grey, dreary day transitions to night-time’s complete darkness, the sky will temporarily appear blue. For

the avid photographer, this visual phenomenon can be a life saver during time-restricted visits to amazing destinations.

• As it begins to get darker, utilise the growing glow of man-made light, whether amber tones emanating from lit windows, a string of light bulbs, or colourfully blazing neon signs. In contrast with the deepening blue in the skies, a dramatic scene may continue to develop and evolve into a romantically poetic image.

BE PREPARED

• Don’t forget your own needs—carry and drink lots of water!

• Do advance research and familiarise yourself with weather predictions, highway routings, event schedules and safety precautions.

Want to learn more about the art of photography in all conditions? Take a look at Peter Guttman’s award-winning photography and find more top tips at peterguttman.com or follow him on Instagram at @peterguttman. Images in this article have been shot by Peter Guttman during his many travels.

Angel Falls, Venezuela Low Season Traveller

Credit: Peter Guttman