Building a Travel Story

All too often, I find myself guilty of concentrating on hero images — the one phenomenal image that will get noticed by the right people and will propel my career. In this video, National Geographic photographer Susan Seubert talks about the process of creating a story.

I remember being heavily impacted by this video when I watched it in 2015. At the time, I was a full-time travel photographer, but my focus was on the commercial sector. I would always finish a trip with the feeling that I could have done better, that my shoot felt incomplete. After watching this talk, I changed my approach to focus less on hero images and more on building a story. This approach opened up new experiences that were not on the shot list. It made me open to discovery and to spontaneity. The net result of focusing on building a story was that my work felt more complete, and ultimately, even my "hero" images improved.

I particularly enjoyed the story of the horses being washed in the sea. It reminded me of unique experiences I had while traveling. Do you have similar experiences where you followed a story and ended up with something special as a result?