Travel Photography: Tread Your Own Path [Paperback]

Steve Davey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 2009

Want to capture images of immense festivals and endangered wildlife or, perhaps, take the best photo when bungee jumping or underwater? Steve Davey, author of the hugely successful Unforgettable Places To See Before You Die, provides the know-how on these experiences plus many more. This first-ever photography guide from Footprint is not only visually striking and inspiring but also provides comprehensive advice, covering all the technical aspects of photography. And it is jam-packed with information and anecdotes on how photography can enhance your travel experience, allowing you to come home with both fantastic memories and stunning images.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Davy has been traveling and photographing for 20 years and is the author of Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die, which has sold more 200,000 copies in the UK alone.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Footprint Handbooks; 1st edition (January 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906098425
• ISBN-13: 978-1906098421
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #898,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING, February 4, 2009

By 

Roger Wallace (Leavenworth, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travel Photography: Tread Your Own Path (Paperback)

Not only is this an outstanding travel photography book but one of the best overall photography books ever written. I have approximately twenty books on photography in my library and this is by far the most comprehensive. Davey uses his beautiful photographs and detailed information on how they are captured. This books covers everything from travel insurance, equipment, techniques, tips and post processing. If you want one book that covers it all this is the book. The only problem I had with the book is the print size is to small. For a detailed look at the pages of this book you can view it at: [...]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best photography book for amateurs not interested in studio equipment, July 28, 2010

By 

Roger Abbott "grey0135" (McLean, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travel Photography: Tread Your Own Path (Paperback)

BEST photography guide I've ever read. This book covers the basics (e.g. shutter speed, depth of field, filters, etc.) and has a useful glossary at the end, but goes a lot further. It discusses a number of advanced techniques which all photographers with dSLRs can use without needing incredibly expensive studio equipment. E.g. Scott Kelby's three book series has many useful bits of advice on composition and technique, but spends a lot of amount of space on studio techniques that few amateurs will be interested in (e.g. complex studio lighting setups, tethered shooting, etc.) Useful for pros perhaps, but not for most amateur dSLR owners. Not only are the pictures in Davey's book visually stunning, but almost all of them can be taken with a dSLR and a basic lens setup. The only exception is a lovely picture taken with a 600mm lens, which few people are likely to own. Nonetheless, it's one of the best pictures in the book, and I'm glad it's in there!

A few particularly strong parts from the section entitled "Execution" - the best part of the book.
- Good advice on composition
- Very detailed explanation on how to read and use histograms
- The section on manual exposure gives detailed advice on how to use the spot meter in conjunction with exposure compensation in order to find the correct exposure (i.e. instead of relying on multi-point autofocus). Since metering for midtones is difficult, Davey shows the reader how to meter by focusing on the highlights or the shadows.
- Section on "color temperature" (i.e. white balance) is also extremely detailed - the clearest explanation I've ever read.
I would have appreciated a bit more detail on the fill-in-flash section. E.g. first curtain versus second curtain on slow sync. Author alludes to the difference, but never gets into it. But overall, excellent material.

The section labeled "Inspiration" is also quite useful: advice on shooting in a number of common settings: e.g. religious buildings, ruins, sunsets, deserts, from a boat, food and drink, markets, etc.

Perhaps the most questionable section is the one on "correction", which covers a lot of ground in very little space. Although the advanced photographer is likely to find this to be of little use compared to the previous sections, this should be very useful to beginners who are new to raw editing. Clear and succinct explanations of the various file formats, what the basic settings in lightroom do (e.g. vibrance versus saturation), etc.

All in all, a brilliant book for both beginners and advanced photographers. Not only is it useful, it is also fun to read. The author strikes a good balance between informing and entertaining the reader. The author gives a mini-anecdote in all the photo captions, without wasting space in the actual body of the text, which is engagingly written but more business like. Yes, the text is small, but not unusually small. It didn't cause any problems for me.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource for Travel Photogs, June 19, 2009

By 

T. Mosbo (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travel Photography: Tread Your Own Path (Paperback)

I've been in Thailand for the past two months and have been reading this book for tips. I've learned quite a lot already and am looking forward to finishing the book and getting into more of the post production and business end of things.

This book is very comprehensive and covers everything you need to consider as a travel photographer (or just vacationer who likes making photos). Davey covers composition, lighting, equipment, technical settings such as aperture, shutter speed iso, etc. Later in the book, he talks about post production workflows and how to make your images even better as well as how to sell your photos and make some money doing what you love!

A couple of things lead to me giving a near perfect score instead of all five stars. The editing of the book is pretty awful. There are typos all over the place. This, of course, doesn't detract from the effectiveness of the content, but it's at the very lease pretty annoying. It's as if the editor didn't even give it a quick read. I find errors on virtually every page. Secondly, some of Davey's opinions are just that, his opinion and I tend to disagree with some of his compositional advice. That's personal preference of course, but there are some things that I just didn't jive with him on.

All in all, I've really enjoyed this book and found it to be an extremely helpful and useful tool to improving my photography both at home and abroad.