My Tog Blog About Awesome Content Creation

Tips for Better Travel Photos from Pro Travel Photographer, Ralph Velasco

• Tim (Mytogblog) • Season 3 • Episode 31

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In this episode, I interview Ralph Velasco, a professional travel photographer and tour organizer. We discuss Ralph's journey into travel photography, his favorite travel destinations, tips for taking better photos, and how to be a more mindful traveler. Ralph also shares his insights on balancing multiple business ventures and the future of travel photography in the age of AI.

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Ralph's channel, The Continental Drifter.
Ralph's book, The Intentional and Mindful Traveller.
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[00:00:00] Tim: Hey everyone, my name is Tim and this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Riverside. 

[00:00:04] And since today's episode is about photography, I wanted to take just a few moments to show you how to use Riverside's editing features to incorporate images to your podcast or video content. Let's check it out.

[00:00:16] There are a number of reasons why you might want to use an image in your video content. For example, maybe you want to use it to show a location that you've been to or something that you saw. Or perhaps you want to use a graphic to support the discussion of something that'll be difficult to explain verbally.

[00:00:33] To do this, you just pull up the timeline in the Riverside Studio. And then you go to the part of the conversation where you want to add the image. You click on that and you go over to images. And then you can just go and upload and select the image that you want to add to the timeline. Click on that.

[00:00:50] And then you simply adjust the size and location of the image on the screen. And you can also determine how long you want the image to appear on the screen. And after that, you're good to complete the edit and export the video. 

[00:01:05] It's super intuitive and easy to do, even if you don't have a lot of experience with video editing.

[00:01:10] You can try it out using the link in my description, and put in the code mytoddblog for a 15 percent discount. Now, onto the show.

[00:01:17] Intro Music Plays

[00:01:22] Tim: If you want to learn the key to taking better photos, then today's episode is for you. My guest today is Ralph Velasco. He is a professional travel photographer and tour organizer, who has been a guest speaker at the New York Times Travel Show, the Professional Photographers Association of America, the Apple Store, and other major venues.

[00:01:41] He's also 120 multi week international tours to places like Vietnam, Antarctica, Portugal, Spain, Cambodia, and many other destinations. In addition to that, he has a YouTube channel with more than 2,000 subscribers, and is the author of several travel books, including a three in one book about how to be an intentional, mindful international traveler.

[00:02:08] In today's episode, we talk about how Ralph made the transition from the corporate world to being a full time traveler. Photographer and tour organizer. How he manages all his different business ventures. And he also shares a tip that took me a while to learn as a photographer, but that once I got the hold of it, it really made a big difference in the quality of my photography.

[00:02:31] And if you're also into photography, this is a great thing to learn about or to be reminded about even if you've been doing this for a while. It really applies to everyone. 

[00:02:38] So, sit back, relax, and, let's get into it.

[00:02:41] 

[00:02:43] Tim: Hey Ralph, welcome to the show. 

[00:02:45] Ralph: Hi there, great to be here. 

[00:02:47] Tim: Thank you very much for coming on. I'm really excited to talk about photography and all of the stuff that you're doing. 

[00:02:53] Maybe you could start just by telling us a little bit about how you got into travel photography and content creation.

[00:03:01] Ralph: Yeah. So I've been a traveler for many, many years, since high school and I studied in Spain for a summer. The next summer I was a volunteer in Peru, the following summer I was a volunteer in Venezuela. The following summer I studied in Mexico City. So I've been, traveling quite a bit since I was, fairly young.

[00:03:24] And so always enjoyed photography and travel. But way back then it was, like, becoming an astronaut or a rock star to think about actually making a living from travel and photography, it was something that I decided that I was going to pursue. 

[00:03:41] Tim: So, are you glad that you made the switch in your career to go into photography and travel? 

[00:03:47] Ralph: Yeah, it was the best thing I ever did. It only took me 45 years to figure it out. Most people never do. I consider myself lucky and that it didn't take longer, but yeah, it was, one of the best things I ever did.

[00:04:02] Sort of a perfect storm. Digital photography was just the dawn back in the early two thousands. We had the internet, social media was starting to come out. So it was all these different things that allowed me to be able to do this. You know, I wouldn't have been able to do that just like three or five years earlier.

[00:04:19] Tim: Yeah, big changes. And, it's, quite interesting how, it created a lot of new opportunities for people like yourself. I think a lot of photographers kind of, lamented the rise of social media and, film photography kind of going away, but it has really opened things up to a lot more people.

[00:04:38] So what are some of the most awesome places you have traveled and what did you like about those places? 

[00:04:44] Ralph: One of the most amazing places that I just got to, about six months ago was Antarctica.

[00:04:51] And that was my seventh continent. I had a trip going there and had a really nice group. And with this particular trip, we actually fly down to the continent. So we don't take the Drake Passage, which is notoriously rough. 

[00:05:08] I actually had someone on this trip that flew down with me and it was his second attempt to get to Antarctica because on his first attempt, someone actually died on his ship because the seas were so rough crossing the Drake Passage.

[00:05:25] So he came down with me, he says, I'm flying down this time. We fly down to Punta Arenas, Chile, and then we start the trip from there where the hunt is based. And then we fly down in less than two hours, we're on the ship, smallest in the industry, only 67 passengers.

[00:05:44] And what's nice about that is it allows you to get into a lot smaller bay, places that the other bigger ships can't get into. There's a treaty down there now that, only, a hundred people or less can get off one landing. So, our entire ship was able to get off, where other ships might not be able to get off at all.

[00:06:06] So that's quite an advantage. And then we spent five nights on the ship down there, but what really impressed me about it was the tranquility and silence and, the natural world. I don't know what I expected, but, it was just like, there's not an airplane contrail or a fence or any man made objects anywhere, except for the ship. Otherwise it's just pure, pristine beauty. And it was absolutely fantastic. 

[00:06:33] Tim: Sounds amazing. So what advice would you have for people who are beginners, who are thinking about getting into travel photography? 

[00:06:40] Ralph: Well, it's extremely saturated these days. No doubt about it. But there are ways to get in niches that people can find different types of specialties.

[00:06:51] I'm often asked, you know, what's a travel photographer and to me, it's a person that is a jack of all genres. Meaning that, you've got architecture photographers, people photographers, landscape photographers. But a travel photographer kind of has to be a little bit of all those things.

[00:07:13] If you want to tell the story of the place and bring back pictures that really capture the essence of the place and tell its story, which is my goal on every trip that I am on, it's not just take one particular type of picture. But to create a variety that tells an interesting story of the place.

[00:07:34] Tim: And I imagine that must be key especially with travel photography, cause you're going to so many different locations that would have different things you'd want to profile. 

[00:07:43] Ralph: Yeah. Each place has its own type of food and money, and architecture, and different people, traditions. And so trying to capture those things of each place, that is my goal on every trip. 

[00:07:57] Tim: How about for people, like, from the perspective of being customers on one of your excursions. What kind of things should they prepare for when they're taking up their first travel photography trip? 

[00:08:09] Ralph: Yeah. You know, it's about having the right equipment, although now these smartphones in our pockets are so powerful that we can get some great shots, and video time lapse slow motion sound, other wonderful features that these phones have that our cameras don't necessarily or not easily.

[00:08:30] So I think the smartphone is the best device today. It's always with us. I've been shooting with it more than ever, especially because I'm doing more video for my YouTube channel and other things, marketing and such. So, uh, I knew I wanted to make it easy on myself. So I wanted just a, like a gimbal that I could slip my phone into, easy microphone and headsets, you know, for sound because you got to have good sound. And I didn't want to have to carry a whole nother device, gear and stuff. So that's what made it work for me. 

[00:09:07] Tim: I could see that, especially with travel photography, you don't want to be lugging like five lenses and two cameras.

[00:09:13] How about if, um, you know, the person's spouse is not into photography per se. Will they still get a lot of value out of these trips? Like, is there still stuff for them to do? 

[00:09:23] Ralph: Yeah, great question. And absolutely. on a regular photo workshop, probably not. But I don't run photo workshops, I've, I've ran them before. They're very difficult to run like 10 or 12 times a year, which is what I, run my trips, cause you're talking sunrises, sunsets, photo walks, and one on ones, and it's a lot of work. So, I've tried to make my trips, not a photo workshop, but not just a regular trip either. Some sort of a hybrid. So there's something for everyone. 

[00:09:58] Tim: That makes sense. 

[00:09:59] Ralph: Even if you're not a photographer, who doesn't want to be in beautiful lights. And when there's fewer crowds and you know, the light is full, and it's the locals and not the tourist crowds. 

[00:10:11] Tim: Yeah, for sure. And then what are some tips for capturing good travel photos? 

[00:10:16] Ralph: Well, I try to keep my tips very basic so anyone can benefit from them with any type of camera. And one of my biggest tips, and one of the easiest to think about, is just being aware of your backgrounds and being aware of what's going on behind and in front of the subject as you're photographing it or them.

[00:10:40] And, um, you know, some, sometimes we get so focused on the subject, we forget what's happening behind them. And how that might affect the picture. And we've all gone back to pictures later and said, Oh my gosh, how did I not see that tree branch coming out of their head or, something else.

[00:11:00] So obvious in hindsight. But while we're standing there, maybe we're a little nervous or we're rushed. So we take the photo very quickly. And then we realized later that. With a simple step to the left or right or up or down, asking the person to move, we could have avoided that major mistake.

[00:11:19] Tim: That's great. Yeah, I heard that our feet is one of our most important pieces of photography equipment. 

[00:11:25] Ralph: That's right. 

[00:11:26] Tim: Just can make such a difference in where you're positioned versus the person. Can create like, you could say a whole different vibe to a photo. 

[00:11:34] Ralph: Yeah, ansel Adams says good photography is about knowing where to stand.

[00:11:39] Tim: Yeah, absolutely. How do you think AI might affect travel photography? 

[00:11:44] Ralph: You know, digital photography obviously affected photography a lot because we all became some sort of a photographer.

[00:11:53] Now we can all manipulate photographs very easily right on our phones. That's another benefit of the phone you've got these different ways to share and to edit and to create movies and all kinds of things. 

[00:12:06] You know, that these phones that are, that are in our pockets are so powerful and allows so much, so quickly that I don't see any reason to go back to the micro four thirds or the mirrorless cameras, or certainly the DSLRs. Yeah. There's always a trade off. 

[00:12:27] You know, these smartphones are probably never going to be quite as good as the main big boy cameras, but I think there's a trade off and for me, it's well worth that trade off.

[00:12:38] Tim: Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of phone apps now, you can get the, the pro camera apps where you can actually manipulate or simulate manual mode settings within the app. So, yeah, you can certainly do a lot. 

[00:12:50] Ralph: They're getting better all the time. 

[00:12:53] Tim: And I think, the other thing about travel, photography and, you know, how it, it's kind of insulated from AI to some extent because so much of it is about the experience as opposed to just an image itself.

[00:13:07] Ralph: Yeah, no doubt about it. As far as AI goes, it's something incredible what we can do already at this point. And what's going to be possible in the near future. It's pretty incredible. So, we're just gonna have to decide, what we're gonna stand for.

[00:13:25] When it came to stock photography, which was a big thing, I'd say like 15, 20 years ago, the bottom's fallen out of that because of, smartphone photography and the ease of editing Now, everyone's got a decent picture. We may not wanna pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for, that perfect picture, but tens of dollars might be just sufficient for that brochure or whatever stock we're buying. 

[00:13:53] So I think our level of, you know, thinking of what's good photography, the bar is going down a little bit. 

[00:14:00] Tim: it's true. across a lot of categories of content creation. I was looking through your site and it seems like you're into, a range of different things. How do you balance it all? How do you keep it all going? 

[00:14:11] Ralph: I try to pepper in, things that I'm interested in more, I enjoyed the podcasting part of it and the video photography, the travel, of course. And it all works together, right? these are all things that, work in concert with each other. 

[00:14:29] Tim: Yeah, I saw, too, you had like a travel, you have a travel affirmations book, that's come out. Could you talk a little bit about that? 

[00:14:36] Ralph: Yeah, you know, as a photographer, we're kind of the worst when it comes to being present when we travel. We end up going to these amazing places and seeing them through the viewfinder of a camera.

[00:14:52] So we're constantly looking through the back of a camera and experiencing this place. The more I travel and I'm lucky to travel quite a bit every year, the more I'm interested in just slowing down and really taking in a place. Just sitting in a pub, having a beer, or in a cafe, watching the world go by to me, that's travel. It's not trying to tick every bucket list item off or see everything. It's about, experiencing the place. Truly. And I often come back from these amazing trips and I'm like, was I really there? I've, got the pictures and the video to prove it. I was physically there. But was I mentally there? And so I'm learning to appreciate more and more the idea of just stopping, looking around, listening, feeling, touching, seeing, hearing, the place and absorbing it that way. And that's the idea of the travel affirmations, the gratitude book that I came up with. 

[00:16:04] To tell a quick story. When I was in high school, I was a volunteer in Peru. And we were 15, 16 year old boys from my high school. It's an all boys high school. we were kind of moaning a little bit after a while about, you know, missing her mother's cooking and our own beds and our friends and family back home, cause here we were on the other side of the world in this very different place.

[00:16:30] And one of the proctors on the trip, he said, be here now, make an effort to be here now. Take advantage of this incredible opportunity to be in this strange place, to learn all these different traditions and cultures and food and things and, and make the best of that. 

[00:16:54] And I always thought that was such great advice and something I never really forgot, but it's something that I did get away from now and then. the more I traveled, the more I was just kind of touching the surface and I wanted to get away from that. So that's why I wrote these books, for myself to be more present.

[00:17:17] And not to be, not really physically there, I guess. 

[00:17:21] Tim: And I imagine it leads to better photography too, when you're more present. 

[00:17:25] Ralph: Absolutely. 

[00:17:27] Tim: Certainly experienced that, on a smaller scale with, my photo drives in the local area. if I'm trying to race from one location to the next to get, that next photo and you think, oh, there's a better photo, just, one town over.

[00:17:39] you're not seeing things, and it's when you slow down and take your time, that's when, the better photos emerge, the things that aren't obvious to us when we're, as you say, trying to rush around or we're trying to check boxes, like, what are the photos I need on this trip?

[00:17:56] Ralph: Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. 

[00:17:58] Tim: So what's your process for deciding if you're going to say yes or no to new opportunities with your YouTube channel and travel business. You must get options to do different things and, you know, as, as content creators get, more traction, they're faced with this, decision.

[00:18:13] Like, suddenly you can't say yes to everything anymore because there's too many things. So how do you decide what's a yes and what's a no? 

[00:18:20] Ralph: Yeah, it's tough because, as, someone who's self employed, you're constantly, worried about where the next check is going to come from. So you want to take everything. But I think after a while you realize, you can't do everything, certainly can't do it well. So you have to pick and choose, and, sometimes, that's very difficult to say no to what could be, good money, but maybe isn't taking you in the right direction. It's more of a short term thing. 

[00:18:53] Tim: So I'm trying to think of, how things fit in to my long term vision for, for me and my business, where I want to be. And, so that, that's how I really try to determine what I'm going to say yes or no to, is how does it fit into my long term plan. Such great advice, I think, a lot of times, when creators start out, they don't necessarily have that long term plan, except in the most, nebulous kind of way. And I think the sooner we can develop, you know, where, where is it that we're going, figure that out, and then you can almost, you know, you can almost use it to work backwards to figure out, what makes sense and what doesn't. 

[00:19:32] So, where would you like the business to be like in the next five years? 

[00:19:35] Ralph: Yeah. So, I have had several brands over the years. I started out as Ralph Velasco photography, realized that was making the business too much about me and if I ever want to sell or hire other people that might make it difficult. So I changed the name to photo enrichment programs that I had, photo enrichment adventures, experiences, but I always had a continental drifter. And so I wanted to bring everything under continental drifter umbrella. 

[00:20:12] And I finally had an opportunity to do that last year. I got rid of the other two websites, all the other social media. Trying to simplify my life, but also easier for people to not be confused by all these different brands and what's he trying to do. one of the things I'm doing with this new series of books, which I call the Mindful and Intentional Traveler series, is to, bring people back to present, to make them more mindful travelers and to learn the benefit of that idea.

[00:20:48] Because we go to these places and want to see and do everything. But in the end, did we do anything? The idea is to slow down, absorb the place more intentionally. And get a lot more out of your trip than you probably would have otherwise. So you're getting more bang for the buck.

[00:21:08] So what I'd like to do is with these books, and I've got several ideas for other books in the series. I've got one for, meditations for travel and some other ideas. What I want to do is create some retreats around these. 

[00:21:23] Right now, I create tours and experiences that, you know, bring people say to a 11th century castle at South France. And then we go see all the nearby villages. We'll do, some journaling and exercises and learn how to be more meaningful and intentional traveler. And then we go into the local villages and put that to practice. So that's the idea of what I have planned for the next three to five years.

[00:21:53] Tim: Yeah, it's great the way, it all fits together What you're doing is aligned and I think that's so important for, creators to figure out "how do you bring it all together."

[00:22:00] So that sounds exciting. I just had one follow up question about that. are you going the self publishing route, or had you considered, using, a more traditional publisher for any of those? 

[00:22:11] Ralph: Yeah, I've gone the self-publishing route. it just allows me to be in more control, get things out a lot faster. And, you know, it can take a couple of years to get a traditionally published book out. And by that time, the way things are changing, you know, that subject could be gone. So I think that self-publishing is much more quick, and it's just as great. You can get in front of just as many people with, Amazon. So, I've really enjoyed the self-publishing route. 

[00:22:43] Tim: Good. Yeah, and I guess it lets you more adapt those to your specific trips that that you're doing and things like that, too you're so much more in control of everything. 

[00:22:53] So how do people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your content or your services?

[00:22:59] Ralph: Sure, so people can go to continental drifter dot co and find everything there from my podcast to my experiences, Blog posts things I'm selling like my books and, different, merchandise that I have there. But, everything's under continental drifter dot C O.

[00:23:18] I've also got my YouTube channel, youtube. com slash continental drifter. It's got a lot of my past trips there. I hope to, come up with a mindful and intentional podcast and some other, ancillary products and services, for the mindful and intentional traveler series too. 

[00:23:39] Tim: That sounds exciting. Well, thank you very much, Ralph. I really appreciate, you spending some time with me today. 

[00:23:45] Ralph: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Tim. This was great.

[00:23:47] Tim: So talking with Ralph, one of my big takeaways from today's episode is just the importance of slowing down. And I can't tell you how many times as a photographer that I would be at a site and, you know, feel that pressure of the fact that you're only there for a limited amount of time. So you're trying to focus on taking a large volume of pictures in the hopes that, you know, some of these photos are going to turn out really well.

[00:24:14] When really what we often need to do in these situations is slow it down a bit, really observe the world, really get into that flow state of creativity where we can apply, you know, our unique perspective and really think about the photos that we're taking. 

[00:24:31] That's what ultimately is going to make the difference and help us come up with. better results rather than, you know, frantically running around trying to snap photos every, uh, few minutes and just, you know, as I said, producing a large volume of photos that are, you know, okay to mediocre, um, and occasionally you get lucky and hit some good ones. But, you know, the best results really come from being more mindful about what we're doing.

[00:25:00] And I think this applies also to social media in many ways. You know, there is often this algorithmic pressure to produce more and more content and do it on a consistent basis so that consistency almost becomes more important than quality. Um, whereas if we again just pulled it back and slowed down a bit, put a little bit more thought into each post, um, we can produce much better results.

[00:25:30] And that's not to say we should let, you know, perfectionism take over because that's the other side of this. Always trying to be, you know, too perfect. That could work against you in another way. So it is about kind of striking that balance. But my experience is that most of us are pushing too hard on the other side where we're trying to create a lot of, uh, volume in order to, you know, feed the machine, as it were.

[00:26:00] And, uh, more, uh, especially now when there's more and more competition out there, more and more content, volume is not necessarily the best way to compete. The way to stand out is to produce better quality. 

[00:26:14] You can even apply this to comments on other people's posts on social media. You know, just rushing through and leaving, you know, generic comments is going to produce a lot worse results than really putting thought and trying to add value, um, and build relationships with other creators, with potential customers, or with whoever you're interacting with. 

[00:26:38] So I think that's a great thing to take away from this episode. I hope you found it helpful. If you want to see more content about photography, check out one of these next videos here. Thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next episode.