1. Start With the Kids
by Phil Borges
When traveling, I've always been envious of the universal language that musicians and magicians have at their disposal. However, if you're like me and not a musician or magician, you can use photography to break the ice and have a deeper cultural experience when traveling. I am often asked how I get access to photograph the indigenous and tribal people. Quite simply, I start with the kids. Children are typically open to new people and experiences, and they love being part of the photographic process. So I actually use photography as my own magic show complete with lights and images on liquid crystal displays (LCDs), Polaroids, or inkjet prints. The local children take the prints home to their parents, and I am inevitably invited into their huts or homes as well. Before long, I am a welcomed member of the community. What's more, some of the kids want to be part of my production crew as I go about making my portraits in their village, which gives me more time to interact with the community.
Phil Borges in the field in Kenya with his photo assistants
And remember, most everyone loves photographs. Initially I was surprised at how much people enjoyed seeing photos from my life, but now I make it a habit to carry photos of my family and my community.
2. The Gift of a Photograph
by Phil Borges
When trying to integrate myself into a village or tribal community, I find it extremely helpful to give photographs to the local people. Yet I'm constantly meeting local people in the field who have had photos promised to them that were never sent. It's understandable when you get home from a trip to find that you have over committed. However, it reflects on all photographers. It's important to not only take a photograph but to give a photograph to your subjects.
Quechua mothers and a young boy are very pleased, or not, with Polaroid photographs of themselves.
In the past, I've always carried Polaroids for my Hasselblad. The Polaroids served both as a check of my lighting and composition and as a gift for the person I made the portrait of. Today, digital photography makes giving a photo much easier because you can immediately show the person the LCD. I constantly find myself in situations with 15 to 20 kids around me screaming with excitement at seeing themselves or their friends on the screen. And if you really want to be a hit, it is now simple to make a 4x6 print in the field. I carry a small HP 325 Photosmart Ink Jet Printer. It has a rechargeable battery so I can use it in the field or back in my room. The cost of ink and paper run about 30 cents per image, which is much better than the dollar-per-image Polaroids. The printer measures 4"x 4" x 10" and actually takes up less room than the stack of Polaroid packs I used to carry.
The HP 325 Photosmart Ink Jet Printer
3. Battery Woes and Strategies
by Phil Borges
Digital photography has so many advantages. Its Achilles heel, however, is its dependence on power, and one of my pet peeves is the amount of luggage space I have to devote to the various battery chargers. I carry different chargers for my camera, laptop, digital wallet, strobe batteries, AA's, mini printer, and cell phone. I wish someone would come up with a universal charger with multiple attachment lines, but until that happens, I encourage you to bring along a multiple outlet, power strip/surge protector because most of the rooms you stay in may only have one outlet. To recharge everything at the end of the day would mean getting up all night long to switch chargers. Also, make sure the power strip is rated for 220V and be sure to carry the plug adaptor for the country you are traveling in. (You can pick up a universal plug adaptor set at any Radio Shack or travel store.) Today, most battery chargers are universal—110V to 240V compatible. However, always check on the side of the charger. If it is only rated for 110V, you will have to bring a power converter (step down transformer), which you can also find at any Radio Shack or travel store. Just make sure to read the side label of the charger to ensure that the power converter can handle the amperage that your device draws.
Battery woes - this is what Phil carries around the world to keep his gear charged.
4.Lighting in the Field
by Phil Borges
I used to light my portrait subjects with a Lumedyne 400-watt second battery pack. It is relatively large and its battery charger is also sizable, so it was a lot to carry. Today, however, I find myself shooting with digital 35mm SLR's and using their dedicated flash units, in my case a Canon 550 EZ with my Canon Mark II 1ds. I can use it on or off camera in manual mode or in TTL metering mode. Canon has a dedicated transmitter—the Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2—that allows the flash to be used in TTL metering mode off camera.
Canon Mark II 1ds
To power these flash units, you can rely on rechargeable AA's or an external battery pack. With an external pack, you get the advantages of a faster recycling time and many more flashes. Unfortunately, the packs are relatively large and have to be attached to your belt with an annoying power line. But there is a relatively unknown company that makes an external battery pack the size of a deck of cards, which can be attached to the bottom of the camera or to the bottom of the strobe for off camera use. Best of all, their universal battery charger is small! I use these battery packs all the time now. Check it out at http://www.underdog-battery.com/
The Underdog battery
When using the flash off camera, you can soften and beautify the light by shooting it through a silk disc. The TTL metering will automatically compensate for the light absorbed by the silk.
Using a silk disc
5. Backing Up Your Work in the Field
by Phil Borges
Much of my work takes me to remote places where it is essential that I have a fool-proof system for backing up my photos in the field. I constantly save my work in two places. Here, I'd like to outline my workflow for backing up in the field. Once I have filled a card, I download those images into a digital wallet. The digital wallet that I use is a 40-gigabyte (GB) Epson PV2000; it has a nice big screen which allows me to show images to my subjects. It takes about 4 to 5 minutes to download a 1 GB card. In the field, my images are in both the cards and the digital wallet. When I get back to my room, I download from the digital wallet to my PC, which has a 60 GB hard drive. Simultaneously I download to a 60 GB external hard drive using a software program called SyncToy, a new tool that I recently downloaded from the Microsoft ProPhoto Web site. SyncToy automatically sends my photos to the external hard drive as I am downloading from the digital wallet to my PC. Even better, when I edit my photos and delete others from my PC, SyncToy will delete those photos from the external hard drive.
6. Unusual Shooting Opportunities
by Susan Olivier-Hirasawa
As the director of Bridges To Understanding, I work with many photographers who are traveling internationally. Often the most unusual photographic opportunities are presented because they are traveling as volunteers who have a connection to the community. There are so many opportunities for volunteering internationally. Whether you’re volunteering as a photographer or helping to build a school, you will find that the relationships that you develop with people in the community will take you to places that are inaccessible to others. On one memorable day in Dharamsala, India, our group of 12 photographers spent the day on a photo shoot with the Tibetan teens that they were mentoring. At the end of the day, each one came back with a great story of where they had been. Guided by their Tibetan friends, they had photographed the kitchen of a nunnery, a home for disabled children, the arrival center for refugees, a shared meal with a student’s family, and a monk who lived in a cave in the forest.
This monk lives in a small home that has been carved out of a cave in the forest above McLeod Ganj. He invited the photographer and Tibetan student in to share tea and a song.
For more information about Bridges International Workshops please visit: http://www.bridgesweb.org
