Breaking wave, Nazare, Portugal. Would a video give this image another dimension?
Fujifilm X-H2, 150-600mm lens, f9 @ 1/500 second, ISO 320

Stills and video are very different disciplines. I don’t think it is possible to do both of them easily, but if you’re very comfortable as a stills photographer, I think there’s room to investigate video as a way of sharing your stills photos further or better.

As stills photographers, what we probably don’t want to do is create a documentary masterpiece of our travels. To match the production values of what we find on YouTube (the good ones) can require a lot of effort and I fear that focusing on a video in this way could take us away from our primary goals of capturing stills. It could also take us away from enjoying the travelling – travel photography can include cultural and location experiences as well. Don’t miss out on these by focusing on too much video.

Having said that, being open to capturing certain times and moments with video makes a lot of sense. Some experiences when filmed have a dimension that is not available as a single capture, so if you can capture these moments on video – a calving glacier, a ceremonial dance, an albatross coming into land – what can you do with this material?

One answer is to create a slide show (e.g. for YouTube) and combine your stills with video footage – and maybe a great sound track or even a voice-over. It doesn't have to replace your prints or your photo albums, but it’s another way to share your travel images and your experiences. And one that I think can be a lot of fun.

Gnomon Island, Elephant Island
Phase One XT, IQ4 150MP Achromatic, 32mm Rodenstock, f9 @ 1/250 second, ISO 200

I'm struggling with this edit. The bare bones are in place, I think, but the detail needs to be more carefully refined. It's taken at Point Wild on Elephant Island, the location where Shackleton left his men for several months following their 'escape' from the ice in the Weddell Sea, over 100 years ago. It is remote. It is difficult to visit and often the swells make it impossible to get this close, but there's no escaping the rock on the end of the point - Gnomon Island.

One of the challenges of travel photography is taking advantage of the light and weather conditions you find. There's no way you want to camp ashore here for a few weeks, waiting for the perfect opportunity (well, there's no way I want to in case there are some more adventurous souls reading this). Low clouds were sporadically allowing bursts of sunshine through, but from this position, the rock was back lit. I organised for the zodiac to go around to the other side of the rock, where the light was much more interesting, but the shape was completely lost. It was just a lump of rock in the water, rather than the pyramid seen here. So, you take what you can get!

The biggest struggle in editing the image was to ensure the rock itself looked hard and weathered, without allowing the clouds and water to become overly contrasty. The image has been process solely in Capture One, but with the limit of 16 adjustment layers, I'll either need to process the file and continue on with a TIF, or process and take it into Photoshop where there are no such limits. Stay tuned - I can already see a few things I'd like to do - sky top right is too heavy, islands on right of horizon too murky. 

But this is the process of photography. Not every image is easily resolved. Some take a little more time.

And if you're keen on polar photography, but don't want to wait until January 2024 to come down to Antarctica with me, why not join me on the Jewels of the Arctic voyage in the middle of the year? Lots of interesting rocks and islets up north!

Registan Square, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Phase One IQ3 100MP A-Series, 180mm Rodenstock, f11 @ 1/4 second, ISO 50

The architecture of the Silk Road is incredibly detailed and ornate. Registan Square would be immediately recognisable to most readers if a wider view were presented. In fact, the view is so famous, the local council has built a large, stepped platform from where bus loads of tourists can take in the vista.

Fortunately, the crowded tourist buses generally turn up during the middle of the day, in between breakfast and dinner! We made a couple of visits, one after heavy rain which was great for reflections and deserted of tourists, and another later in the evening, also without other tourists.

While you can shoot at night all night, most photographers aim to shoot a little while after sunset or before sunrise when the sky is practically black to the eye, but renders a rich blue. Not that it matters for this photo which has been intentionally cropped very tightly without any sky. A little post-production was needed to remove some bright flood lights, but the structure really is the essence of the buildings surrounding the three sides of the square.

These days, you can almost shoot at night or late in the evening without a tripod. Simply push up your ISO and hold your breath. Image stabilisation also helps, but if you look at the exposure for this shot (1/4 second at f11 and ISO 50), there was plenty of light to shoot with. Yes, a tripod was used, but it certainly wasn't necessary. David Oliver would have been proud of me - if only I hadn't used one!