Travel Photography Masterclass: Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, David Ward and others [Paperback]

I've long felt that travel photography doesn't exist as a separate genre and it's nice to see that the editor and authors of "Travel Photography Masterclass" agree with me. Instead they feel that travel photography is really several separate genres and they include each as a chapter of their book; the chapters are Landscape, People, Architecture and Nature.

The authors are some of the best photographers in Great Britain, like David Ward, Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite and Niall Benvie. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction by the editor, Alisa McWhinnie, followed by a short essay with photographs by one of the authors. The chapters then include a series of pictures by photographers who are unknown to me, and who, I suspect, may be students or workshop participants of the authors. These latter photographers describe their inspiration, the situation when the image was captured, camera data, post-capture work and later reflections. There is a short column of top tips, and then another essay with images, by another author. The images are quite nice but there is little synergistic effect or organization of teaching points from these pictures.

The essays are quite pedestrian. For example, Ward, who has waxed eloquent elsewhere, essentially says that he travels to find something new and that the photographer should be critical of his own work; should keep an open mind; and should match the images to the light. There is nothing of a technical nature, little to help the reader find his vision and even less to inspire. In fact, this book seems less like a class, master or otherwise, and more like a collection of random pictures. The images are excellent but relatively unconnected. Where several images appear in a photo book, I expect them to reinforce each other, and for something beyond the individual image to accrete. That didn't happen here. Even the top tips are not very significant, like shoot slow for landscape and architecture and shoot fast for portraits and wildlife.

If you hunger for images to look at, this book may be worth purchasing. On the other hand, most of these authors have published other books that deal with the specific areas they write about here that are far better than this, either to appreciate for the images or from which to learn.

"Travel Photography Masterclass" combines the work of eight, mostly British, travel photographers who have covered the earth to bring back images that range from stunning to intriguing, but that are all a wide cut above what most folks return from vacation with.

By zeroing in on composition, these eight experts create a world often unseen by those who rush through a trip, coming up with striking images of everything from extreme landscapes and the vicissitudes of nature, to the essence of native people, to the uniqueness of the world's architecture. All along, each of the lensmen stress that it's all about the relation of the camera to the subject - getting inside the shot.

Each chapter begins with an overview while each of the photos is explained in technical detail at the chapter's end. But what comes across most in this volume, is not the technical setting of getting the right shot, as much as creating the `eye' in the mind of the photographer as to finding the best subject to begin with (or as photographer Clive Minnitt describes in the book, "the road less travelled.")

I really like very good and very interesting photographs in this book. Authors describe shortly technical details how photos were taken and how they eventually were digitally processed. They give also a short description visited places in different countries around the world where these photographs were made. Fortunately most of the book are great photographs, not essays about photography.