International People is more of an idea and an ongoing collection of photos than it is a single entry about my travels. My preferred travel style is to go alone and then connect with someone in that country to show me the sites and help me get familiar with the place. Get the Local Perspective, is a short post about how I got started on this strategy. Sometimes it makes sense for me to be completely self-sufficient and not use a local guide or driver; but usually, exploring with someone who knows the people and the hidden secrets of the place is going to help me both come home with better photos and meet people who I wouldn't have otherwise. Even so; I have taken many trips where I took almost no portraits or photos of people. Bad photographer. I didn't realize this until recently while going back through photos from the last couple of years. I wasn't really looking to include people in my photos when I was first practicing travel photography.
Portraits from 2015 and earlier
During the 2016 trip to Cuba
On a trip to Cuba this year with The Giving Lens, we spent several days walking through the city in Havana and Trinidad Cuba. The streets were alive with so many rich scenes and friendly expressive people. This is a small sample. My Cuba library holds a lot more people and portraits than most of my prior trips, and I plan to continue adding to my International People collection on future travels.
I don't usually do street photography; or should I say, it's something new to my practice that I need to improve at. I can't pretend to be an amazing world traveling photographer. I'm just a guy who takes pictures when I travel, and I have a lot to learn. The folks on the 2016 Cuba trip who I learned from are all amazing world traveling photgraphers, and here I have to appreciate Kate Siobahn Mulligan, Colby Brown, Brian Matiash and Michael Bonocore. They were all very generous with their knowledge and skills about how they approach people for portraits and look for the expressive moments.
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