AAA News
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The Last Word in Photography Tours - About Ewen Bell
Monday, 23 November 2009
You know that feeling you have when you're sitting in front of a menu full of delicious dishes but your eyes keep drifting over and over the same couple of pages and just can't find find the meal you really want?
That was my life. I had all the choices in the world, all the freedom to choose a career of my own making – but nothing I tried was exactly what I wanted.
And then I went back to the camera. We were old friends in fact, but over the years had gone our separate ways to broaden our horizons. By the time we met up again I had grown a little wiser, and the camera had grown digital. All those years of delving in the darkroom, dancing with the enlarger and flipping through multi-grade paper were over. Not even Stanley Kubrick saw it coming.
I did. I had trained as a Biologist and to me the digital era looked a lot like ecological succession. The forest grows a little taller with the next generation of trees.
Biology had taught me that photography is a tool, a device to help document and record. The real world told me otherwise. Life on film is not about pixels and kelvins, it's about meaning and understanding. Art is not a science, it's a philosophy. The real beauty in the world is understanding what makes it beautiful to you.
Seeing pandas in a bamboo forest is a lovely sight, but knowing a little bit about them makes the experience far more engaging. Did you know they have an opposable paw, and that it's unlike the tactile hands of any other animal? It is uniquely capable of stripping bamboo leaves in a way that few other claws or paws can do.
As a photographer it's helpful to know that the panda paw is special. Otherwise you could spend all your time photographing their cute little faces and their laconic loping about and never take a closer look at the pandas thumb. And that thumb tells an evolutionary story that remains the source of drama across the world.
I've never studied photography at university, never earned a degree in fine arts or even written a thesis. I have, however, learned from people who know more than me. I was lucky enough to have a strict teacher for dark-room techniques, a masterful mentor for studio lighting and encouraging colleagues who shared a passion for digital technology.
I had exhibited my work many times before I discovered the art of travel, and after many years of shooting brochures, ever improving and ever learning about the craft, I decided that travel was more than a career, it should be a lifestyle.
Since then I have become a regular contributor to travel publications in Australia and across the world. The highlight of my career was in October 2007 when I was awarded Travel Photographer of the Year by the Australian Society of Travel Writers.
One thing made my photography improve dramatically in the years before that award, and that was the photo tours. Every time I am joined by a small group of travellers on a photographic journey I am instilled with their enthusiasm, their inspiration and their desire to learn. And I learn too.
Teaching has made me a better student.
Fly through the best of outback Australia with Ewen Bell as your personal photographic coach! Click here for the details.
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