A generic Thai temple shot. Images like this are a dime a dozen these days. To be a successful travel photographer, you must do something special.

Travel photography is dead. It’s been said many times over the past few years, what with the rise of microstock, the economic crisis forcing magazines to close, editorial rates decreasing and the stunning growth of photo sharing sites where talented hobbyists with DSLR’s often let their photographs be published for photo credit, that the genre of travel photography is dead and buried. All I can say is if it is dead, then that can only be a good thing.

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Travel photography is dead. It’s a bit like Decca Records infamous rejection of the Beatles saying that “guitar groups are on the way out”. Obviously, the prevailing wisdom at that particular time and place said that they were, despite the fact that there was a growing blues scene happening in England at the time. Describing travel photography as dead in 2010 then is true then, only if you look at it from a narrow perspective much the way that the establishment recording industry did in the early 1960s.

Commercially, there’s probably not much in the way of opportunity for travel photography. The world has pretty much been fully explored numerous times by camera-wielding tourists and travellers and there’s really nothing left to photograph, correct? Or at least nothing left that allows someone to step off a plane, snap a few photos, sell them and move on to the next place.

That’s a good thing. Firstly, for people who are unable to travel to certain places, they have a wealth of imagery that they can view for free online. It’s not as good as being there in person, but if you’re stuck in a cubicle all day, it may be the next best thing. Pretty much anywhere you can think of has been photographed and photographed well by a lot of different people. Plenty of eye candy for the bored office worker.

To my way of thinking though, the best thing about the death of travel photography is that it pushes image makers to take the extra steps and create compelling work that stands out from everything else. It’s not as simple as photographing the tourist trails and well-known cultural festivals. Photographers who take the time to seek out stories and bring those tales to a wider audience, such as Mitchell Kanashkevich has been doing so well with travel documentary work from tribal customs in Vanuatu to sulphur mining in Indonesia, are the ones who will succeed. Or those who incorporate multimedia such as Matt Brandon who has been producing some incredible stories from India to Egypt and more.

The death of travel photography spurs the creative photographer into new directions. This can only be a positive development, bringing more compelling imagery into focus (no pun intended) while at the same time stretching a photographer’s abilities and pushing them to new heights.

Travel photography is dead. Long live travel photography.

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