Whenever I travel, I take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
I mean, I’m still editing the photographs from my trip to Egypt almost two months ago! It can take forever and it is extremely tedious after a while, especially if you’re like me and your editing is formulaic.
Usually I just put on a podcast or some good jams and power through. But I don’t want my editing to feel like a chore. I like to play and be challenged. That’s why I’ve been working on something completely different than what my work is usually like.
My favorite thing to do is travel, for many reasons. I love experiencing new things, of getting out of my comfort zone and being rewarded for it with awe-inspiring sights or great food or amazing people. Travel is extremely weird, though; you go to a new place, sometimes where no one speaks your language and you can’t read the signs and it’s a little anxiety inducing. When you travel alone, traveling is introspective and even a little lonely. There are so many weird, surreal feelings you encounter when you go to a new place.
That’s why I’ve started taking a mixture of my travel photography, stock images, and design principles to create a new body of work currently titled “Surreal Explorations”. I wanted to try and capture the excitement and surreal qualities travel affords.
These do take a while to create, but I’m always excited with the results. They are a bit tricky, though, as my impulse is to use maximalism but in some cases, not incorporating a lot of elements does the place better justice. I also need to be conscious of my image choices, as I don’t want to disrespect the place I visited by accidentally making a negative commentary via juxtaposition. Big OOF.
I’m working on more, including explorations of Paris, the Philippines, more of Egypt, and a couple more of Tokyo. Keep an eye out!
Happy Shooting!
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