Street Photography in Hong Kong & Macau

In September of last year I visited Macau and Hong Kong, as part of a prize for winning the Wanderlust Travel Magazine photo of the year competition in 2018. As part of the competition I had to take some travel photos for both the Macau and Hong Kong tourist boards as well as the Wanderlust Travel Magazine itself. I wrote a previous blog with some of these tourist friendly photos of iconic sites including the Tia Tan Buddha in Hong Kong and the waterfront of Macau. In addition to taking nature and landscape images on my travels I also always enjoy street photography. By exploring the streets whilst travelling you discover interesting images around every corner. At the tourist attractions themselves I find the addition of a person to the frame can add some interest or humour to the photo. Capturing candid moments whilst on my travels also provides me with the best travel memories of a place. Click through the slideshow below to view some of street images I captured in Macau:

I was only in Macau for a few days unfortunately and the weather during that time was terrible: heavy rain, grey skies and high humidity making photography tricky! However, in Hong Kong the weather was much more favourable with sunshine and blue skies making it possible to capture far more photos than I did whilst in Macau. Click through the slideshow below to view some of street images I captured in Hong Kong:

My travel images available on Getty can be viewed here. More of my travel photography can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook Page and my Flickr account. If you would like any more information about any of my images please send an email to: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Geraint Rowland Photography Getty Sales, October

Over the last few months I have been spending a large amount of time increasing my stock photography portfolio on Getty images. In October of last year I wrote a blog about my experience with Getty titled, ‘Geraint Rowland on Getty Images’. At the time of writing the blog I had around one thousand images available for licence via Getty which was double the amount that I had a year before. I now have over five thousand images for licence and am attempting to upload more whenever I have some free time. Payday for stock photography via Getty is on the 20th of each month. September’s sales being paid on the 20th of October, October’s sales being paid for on the 20th of November and so on. The easiest way to analyse and view these sales is using the 3rd party website, Today is Twenty. Here are my top seven earning images via Getty in October 2019, they are in order of money I received with the first image gaining me the most. Click through the slideshow below:

In total in October I sold 48 images via Getty resulting in a personal revenue of $196.04 with an average of $4.08 per image. The first image in the slide show earned me $70.88, the teddy bear $59.24 and the remainder in the slideshow $5 - 10 each. A large number of my sales netted me less than $1 per image, a micro-stock price that would be ok if they were sold in large numbers but unfortunately they did not. My entire collection of images licensed by Getty in October can be viewed here. I have noticed that my monthly payout is steadily increasing as my portfolio grows. It can take a few weeks before newly submitted photos get seen on the system. Images that sell once do seem to sell again as they get pushed up the search criteria for buyers. Listening to the regular and lifetime sellers on the Getty Contributors bulletin board, they general consensus is that the glory days of stock photography are over, stock photographers are now selling more images and earning less than even a year ago.

However, from a personal perspective it is worth me carrying on as I have hundreds, if not thousands of potential sellers on old hard drives that can be uploaded. I believe a key to regular income with stock photography is regularly uploading a variety of images. On my latest travels in both Budapest, Hungary and Kyiv, Ukraine I started to take more stock friendly type images purely for this purpose. With this I mean images that can be easily uploaded without any legal issues, images that do not contain people, personal property or anything with a trademark. I am also going back through old hard drives and editing and uploading images which I now believe could be used for stock photography purposes.

My travel images available on Getty can be viewed here. More of my travel photography can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook Page and my Flickr account. If you would like any more information about any of my images please send an email to: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Travel Photography in Macau and Hong Kong

I recently returned from a photography trip to Macau and Hong Kong. The trip was courtesy of Wanderlust Travel Magazine following my win in their 2018 photo of the year competition. I won the ‘Travel Icons’ category with an image I had taken on a trip to Havana in Cuba the previous year. As well as receiving various photographic and storage equipment, the main prize was an all expenses paid trip to Macau & Hong Kong. Click through the slideshows below to view some of my favourite images from the Wanderlust adventure as well as my winning photo taken in Havana, Cuba:

The initial prize was for four days in Macau and a further four days in neighbouring Hong Kong. I extended the trip to two weeks to allow myself more time to explore and get more travel photos. Whilst in Macau I met up with Thomas Kast, another Wanderlust Competition winner who joined us on the various organised tours. Thomas won the People category of the travel photography competition with his excellent photo, ‘The Thinker’ captured in Jerusalem. Thomas is an illustrator and photographer who loves shooting with a long lens and tripod, more of his fine photographic work can be found on his website. As part of our prize we were given a photo assignment to produce tourist friendly images for both the Hong Kong and Macau Tourist boards. I believe some of these images will also be used in a future article about the two locations to be published in Wanderlust travel magazine.

Macau

Macau (or Macao as it is spelt in English) is only forty miles from Hong Kong but the two locations are very different culturally. At only 13 square miles Macau is a small but fascinating place with a unique Portuguese-Dhnese heritage. Macau makes the most of it’s small space with an abundance of historical buildings, gardens, coastline and a wide range of new attractions including 5 star hotels, dazzling shows and huge themed casinos. Macau is located on China’s south coast at the mouth of the Pearl River and is surrounded by the South China Sea. It has been a special Administrative Region of China since 1999 and is becoming increasingly popular as a stopover destination to Australia. Most visitors to Macau land in Hong Kong international airport and either take the fast ferry or travel across the recently finished Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the World’s longest sea crossing bridge.

Unfortunately whilst we were in Macau the weather was not ideal with heavy rain for much of the trip. Heavy rain combined with high humidity is very problematic for photography and camera equipment. As any photographer knows: the weather (and lighting) is a fundamental factor in capturing the best images. However, we did the best we could in our short but interesting time in Macau. My favourite images included: the sunsets taken down by the sea & the night images of the casinos, the iconic UNESCO list building, ‘Ruins of St Pauls’, and the interesting & colourful churches that could be found in the centre. You can view some of these Macau images in the slideshow below:

Hong Kong

After four days in Macau we moved to Hong Kong where we had both better weather and more time to capture some travel photographs. Hong kong is a Special Administrative Region on the Eastern side of the Pear River estuary in Southern China. Compared to Macau it is much larger and more populated with over 7.5 million people living within a 426 mile area. In addition to the mainland areas there are many islands, some of which me managed to explore off the coast of Hong Kong. With the high rise buildings and huge modern shopping centres it also appears very different to neighbouring Macau. My favourite images from Hong Kong are from the Tian Tan Buddha located on Lantau island which was published by the Sunday Times, the night time Dragon festivals in the City, views over the city from the adventurous Suicide Rock hike, and various street photos I captured during my time exploring the Hong Kong Streets. Some of these Hong Kong photographs can be viewed in the slide show below:

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to both Macau & Hong Kong and would love to return in the future. More of my photography from the Wanderlust trip can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. Here is an article written by Wanderlust travel magazine on entering and winning a photo competition. The win has given me the confidence to enter a few more competitions and the motivation to travel in the future and take some more! If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Silhouettes in Kerala, India (Photo Essay for Dezine Magazine)

I have recently finished a six month voyage through India. It is a great country for photography offering a variety of landscapes, amazing architecture and a variety of interesting cultures to capture. Wherever you go in India there is always something to document photographically. Whilst I was in the South of India in the state of Kerala I spent a few days in Fort Kochi. This small coastal city is a great place for both street and architectural photography with a huge mix of different influences from throughout the ages. The area is famous for it's Portuguese, Dutch and British architecture, as well as the elaborate Chinese fishing nets which were introduced by Chinese explorers in the 14th century.

I'm sure that in the right conditions the Chinese fishing nets can be photographed beautifully, but during my time there the sky was dull and the vibrant sunsets lacking! Instead I decided to experiment with some silhouette style images along the coastline. I enjoy taking silhouette photographs, I feel that their simplicity adds to their overall beauty and the addition of people can add a lot of emotion.

When taking silhouetted images, as with much of photography, the most important element is light. The subject that you want to be silhouetted should be directly in front of the light source. In addition, the background needs to be lighter than the foreground to create the silhouette. In these images the late afternoon sun was directly behind the people making it perfect for the high contrast silhouetted results. Choose subjects that are easily recognisable as your silhouettes and keep it simple. Try to avoid distracting elements within the frame and make use of the surrounding negative space. The subjects I took here were on a coastal walkway and I was slightly lower down on the beach shooting up. This angled technique ensured I had no distracting noise in the background of the frame. These images were taken using a Canon 5D4 and a Sigma 135mm 1.8 art lens. The extra range on the lens allowed me to stand a little further back and photograph away comfortably. However, any type of lens can be used successfully for silhouettes, practice until you create the perfect shot and have fun doing so.

I have written several previous travel photo essays for Dezine which can be found on their website. More of my travel photography can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Photography in and around Fort Kochi

Last year I set off on a six month journey around India. I didn't really have a plan aside exploring and taking lots of photos on my travels. After a couple of weeks settling into the Indian way of life in Bangalore (also known as Bengaluru) I decided to fly to Kochi. Kochi (also known as Cochin) is a coastal city in India’s southwest state of Kerala. I always prefer being near the coast and the area had been recommended to me by both tourists and Indians alike. As a bonus, India’s largest arts event was being held in the city whilst I would be there, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018.

I spent a few days on the mainland of Kochi in the Ernakulam area before moving to the coastal area of Fort Kochi. Whilst in Ernakulam I experienced one of the elephant festivals which are popular throughout the state of Kerala. The festivals contain a large number of decorated elephants, elephant handlers, music and dance. Scroll through the slideshow below to view photos from the Elephant Festival:

Fort Kochi is a fascinating area by the sea, rich in history and well known for its Portuguese, British and Dutch architecture. Another attraction of Fort Kochi are the large Chinese fishing nets positioned along the beach. The Nets look picture perfect on the right day but I didn’t see a good sunset in the four days that I was staying there. I did however manage to capture some minimalist style silhouette photos above Kochi beach one evening.

As part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale being held during my stay, there was an excellent photography workshop that I attended in the Jew Town area of Fort Kochi. The full day event was presented by Nick Ut And Mark Harris. This pair of world renowned photographers told us their incredible life stories and guided us with concepts, ideas and techniques to help guide our photographic goals. Both of the presenters were extremely helpful and motivational in their delivery. At the end of the event, inspired by the masters, I joined another photographer on the course to explore the area and take some photos. Sri Harsha Pamu (Instagram: shellzero) from Hyderabad but now living and working in California is a big fan of street photography and made the visit to Kochi purely for the workshop.

Fort Kochi is an excellent place for photography. It is a small area which can easily be explored on foot. We wandered around for a few hours following the coastline and explored the many streets and alleyways within the town. Due to the Biennale there was a lot of art work around which when combined with people can make for some interesting street photography. The area has some beautiful old buildings as well as an interesting mix of Churches, Temples, Mosques and a Synagogue. The small town is still a place of work for the people who live there so there is plenty of authentic photographic opportunities to capture. The people are also very friendly and open to having their picture taken. Click through the slideshow below to view some of my street photography and street portraits taken in Fort Kochi:

I enjoyed my time in Fort Kochi but it was time to move on so I took a taxi a couple of hours south to my next destination, Alappuzha (also known as Alleppey) in the south of Kerala. Alappuzha (or Alleppey) is a coastal city who’s area is best known for it’s rustic backwaters, a network of tranquil and picturesque lagoons and canals. More of my travel photography from India can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email at: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Sunset Silhouettes in Kochi, India

Last year I began my six month travel around India. I started my trip in Bangalore (also called Bengaluru) which is the capital of the southern Karnataka state. Bangalore is well known as being the centre of India’s high tech industry. I enjoyed my time in the city and managed to get some great street style photography especially around the busy markets. After a couple of weeks in Bangalore I flew to Kochi, in the state of Kerala.

Kochi (also known as Cochin) is an interesting coastal city in the south west of the Kerala state. It has been a port town since 1341 and has been the centre of India spice trade for many centuries. Whilst in the area I stayed in both the Ernakulam and Fort Kochi areas. Ernakulam refers to the mainland portion of the city of Kochi and is where the majority of trade and business in the city occurs. Fort Kochi is a charming seaside area which is becoming more popular for tourists. Although Fort Kochi has no beach as such it is famous for it’s British, Portuguese and Dutch colonial architecture, it’s Chinese fishing nets and the Biennial art festival.

The festival known as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale is the largest art exhibition in India and the biggest contemporary art festival in Asia. Whilst I was visiting in 2018 the Water Town Fest was being held alongside the Kochi Biennale in the Jew Town area of Fort Kochi. It was here that I attended a fascinating full day photography workshop run by world renowned photographers Nick Ut And Mark Edward Harris. During the workshop Nick Ut talked about his fascinating life and his award winning photo ‘Napalm Girl’ the powerful photograph that many say went on to help end the Vietnam war. Mark Edward Harris, an award winning photographer gave a hand on approach to travel and documentary photography. He explained several key shots and concepts to master when producing photo essays. Both speakers were incredibly friendly and down to earth while they offered us their combined wealth of photographic knowledge.

The days following the workshop I remained in Fort Kochi taking photos and enjoying the atmosphere. The area is great for street photography and also has some great architecture in the old town. Many photographers go to Fort Kochi for the Chinese fishing nets but in five days I didn't see any impressive sunsets to capture these. I did have some fun down on the beach however catching some silhouette images at the end of the day with the Sigma 135mm 1.8 Art Lens. Click through the slideshow to view these sunset silhouette images taken in Fort Kochi:

I took the silhouetted images on the beach close to the fishing nets. A walkway follows the coast around with a pathway leading to the water. With the telezoom range on the lens I was able to stand a little further back and snap away comfortably. The sun was directly behind the people making it ideal for high contrast silhouette style photos. I especially like the minimalism of these silhouette images with little clutter in the frame and a large amount of pleasing negative space. Here is an earlier blog I wrote with some tips on taking silhouette photography. After spending an enjoyable few days in Fort Kochi and Ernakulam I continued my journey around India by heading south to Alleppey.

More of my travel photography from my India travels can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email at: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Marina Beach and Birds at Sunrise in Chennai

Chennai, on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India, is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. Marina beach is a huge natural beach in Chennai, at around six kilometres in length it is the longest natural beach in India. It is also one of the most crowded beaches in the country with up to 20,000 visitors daily during the summer months. It is not only people who flock to the beach each day, every morning at sunrise thousands of birds can be also been seen at Marina Beach. Click through the slideshow below to view the birds at Marina beach, the volunteers who feed them and the people who visit early enough to see this fascinating sight:

I stayed in Chennai for a few days on my travels around India this year. I liked the city and found it a great place for photography especially the beach area which is always full of life. I discovered the feeding of the birds one morning whilst I was at the beach ready to take some photos of the sunrise. There are volunteers daily at the beach as part of the Marina Beach Pigeon Feeding Centre. They have a designated area and feed the birds daily on a designated section of the beach. The volunteers control the area and make sure nobody gets to close to disturb the feeding birds. Along with pigeons there are also a large number of crows.

If you want to view this spectacle it is best to arrive at the beach early in the morning before sunrise. The beach is already starting to get busy at this time of day with a yoga class taken place by the Ghandi statue and several people running or walking along the promenade. Further along the beach during the summer months is a small funfair which is a great place to take documentary and street photography.

I spent six months traveling around India from South to North via Bangladesh before a brief visit to Nepal and finally Sri Lanka. I have literally thousands of photos from the trip which now need editing and I plan to write some more blog posts in the coming weeks. More of my travel photography from my India travels can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Travels Around Morocco (Photo Essay for Dezine Magazine)

Morocco is one of my favourite places to visit and is excellent for photography.  It has a variety of landscapes from the rocky coastline, empty deserts, snow capped mountains, and bustling towns & cities.  The people are friendly, the food delicious and the travel is cheap.  For people in the UK I always think of Morocco as being the closest place that you can fly to that has the biggest cultural differences to home. This blog was published as a photojournal for the online magazine Dezine.  Click through the slideshow below to view my travel photographs taken around Morocco:

The first time arriving in Morroco can be a bit of a culture shock!  Marrakech for example is an ambush on the senses: street performers approach you with snakes and monkeys, dark twisting alleyways entice you until you get lost and a constant buzz seems to radiate throughout the city.  However, it is good fun, safe and always makes for interesting experiences.  A few years ago I returned to Morocco for a couple of weeks with a friend.  Starting in Marrakech we moved on to the Atlas Mountains for some solitude before heading to the coastline and visiting the cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Kenitra and Meknes. Below is a description of the photos in the slideshow above in the order they are seen with links to the individual images on my Flickr account:

1.  Golden hour at Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main square and market place in Marrakesh's medina quarter.

2.  Berbers, are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa.  Three locals enjoying the view from their backyard in the Atlas Mountains.

3.  Locals play on the beach at Casablanca while the sun sets.

4.  The Hassan II Mosque or Grande Mosquée Hassan II is on the coastline of Casablanca and is the largest mosque in Morocco.  

5.  A man enjoys nature and solitude in front of the Atlantic Ocean on the coastline close to the city of Rabat.

6.  A bodyboarder heads to the beach for a surf in Kenitra in the North of Morocco.

7.  A local enjoys the view of the coastline from the colourful cliffs of Rabat.

I have written several previous travel photo essays for Dezine which can be found on their website. More of my travel photography can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook and my Flickr account. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or collaborating in any way please email: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com. 

Winner of 'Wanderlust, the Original Travel Magazine' Photo of the Year 2018

Whilst I was recently travelling through India and Bangladesh I received the fantastic news that I was one of the winners of Wanderlust's 2018 Photo of the Year competition.

Winner of 'Wanderlust, the Original Travel Magazine' Photo of the Year 2018

One of my favourite images taken on a previous trip to Cuba was the winner of the 'Travel Icons' category. My photo taken of a brightly coloured pink classic car in front of a white Orthodox Church taken on the seafront of Havana took the prize!

Here’s what one of the judges had to say about my image:

“A classic car with an extra splash of photographic flair. We loved the originality of this: the low viewpoint, the water splashed up by the wheels. Crucially for the composition, there’s space for the car to drive into (giving it a sense of motion) and no other colour to compete with that pink.”

For the prize I will be flying to Hong Kong and Macao for a photo commission supported by the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Macao Government Tourism Office. I am extremely excited about this as I have never been to those destinations and always enjoy traveling to new places. So… more pictures to follow later on this year! My winning photo has also been used as the header banner on the Wanderlust results page which can only be good for further publicity.

I rarely enter competitions because you often have to pay, and I rarely win! However, it just goes to show that the extra effort involved can often be worth it in the end! I thought that the entries to the Wanderlust photo of the year competition were amazing, you can view the beautiful winning entries here for some inspiration.

My winning Cuban image was previously selected for a travel exhibition at the PhotoPlace Gallery in Vermont, the photo also gathered a lot of praise on social media so I had a feeling it was a well liked photograph. A trip to Cuba can produce a treasure chest of travel images, I wrote a couple of previous photography blogs about my time in Havana including ‘Cuba and Cigars’ and one on the many colourful characters to be found there.

More of my travel photography from Cuba can be found on my website, my Facebook and my Flickr account.  Several of my Cuban travel images are available as prints. If you are interested in purchasing any prints, using an image online or would like further information please send me an email at: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.  

Giving Back via Photography - Pondicherry in India

A couple of months ago I spent a week in and around Pondicherry taking photos and relaxing. Pondicherry or Puducherry as it is officially known was an ex French colony until fairly recently. It is a nice place to visit especially if you are on a round trip of India as it is a small quiet town that caters for tourists well. You can feel spoilt eating European breakfasts daily and enjoying Pizzas, chips and European beers in the evening!

As with most places in India it is also a great place for photography. Like the majority of tourist places you do not have to venture far out of the bubble and as a westerner you become a rarity! This was true on the outskirts of Pondicherry where I walked to one day and discovered a quaint fishing village where the locals were as interested in me as I was with them! I returned to the area a couple of times that week with fellow photographer and couchsurfing friend Soufaine Ghzal who I had met in Varkala on a previous adventure. After sending some of the parents the images we took of some of the families we decided that it would be nice to print some of the better images and return to the village to give to those involved.

After getting around sixty different photos printed up we ventured back to the village to distribute them. It was a little difficult locating all of the children in the images but we had a lot of fun trying! The parents were genuinely appreciative of the gesture and the children seemed incredibly excited to see themselves in print for perhaps the first time. A lot of people in India will ask you to take their photo and many ask for a print or copy so it was nice this time to be able to return with what they had asked for. Click through the slideshow below to view some of shots we took of the local people living on the outskirts of Pondicherry:

After handing out the images and interacting with the locals we both agreed that returning with gifts of photography was much more beneficial and thoughtful than simply handing out money to strangers. It also enabled us to get some nice portraits and street style photography in this part of India.

More of my travel photography from Pondicherry can be found on my website, Instagram, Facebook Page and my Flickr account.  If you would like any more information about any of my images please send an email to: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.