Rooms: A Travel Photo Documentary
SO, I wrote down some random thoughts on documentary photography and my ongoing series “ROOMS”…
Airlie Beach, Australia.
More than a year of traveling… how many rooms do you think we’ve stayed in? Honestly, I don’t know myself… I didn’t keep count but it’s a lot. From the beginning of our trip, I had the idea to make a documentary project about all those rooms. It became an unusual sort of travel diary as I began taking images of every single room we stay in. Now, I have a collection of rooms from India, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the US and Colombia. Over the next decades, this series will probably continue to grow.
Koh Kong, Cambodia.
I developed the ritual of photographing every just before checking out. I always look forward to set up my Pentax medium format camera and capture the room. I love to explore these temporary spaces that everyone forgets after coming home with photos of beaches, landmarks, selfies, and museums…
Like people, a room has a personality, and they all look different. The problem is that most people never really experience or see that. I try to notice details, light and atmosphere and—most of the time—I don’t even mind if there’s something “wrong” with the room, it just adds personality. The second thing is that booking websites or travel magazines almost never show the room as it is. They strip it down from all atmosphere. Photoshop, 3D renderings, everything is used to make the photos look slick and boring.
Bombay, India.
Documentary photography: Keep it simple…
I love to shoot documentary photography but projects like this I like the most. The simplest idea often grows into an interesting project and the funny thing is that those ideas almost always hit me by accident—or, I start shooting something and then a while later I think: “Hm, that could be a great idea for a documentary project.”
I think the reason why a personal photo documentary is so interesting, is that the idea comes and grows naturally. The project starts with one photo or a vague idea and grows into a documentary. Nothing’s forced and that’s something the viewer probably can see.
Luang Prabang, Laos.
When I deliberately try to look for a subject, I often get stuck. I start to overthink the whole idea and end up thinking that it’s not a good idea after all. That doesn’t happen when I find a subject by accident or when one photo grows into a photo documentary over time.
Write down your ideas
That’s why I always write down my ideas. They can hit me any time anywhere. Often, I write down just a few words in my phone and that’s it. Those words stay there for a while and usually, I add some things in the weeks or even months after. That’s when the idea starts to grow.
Bukit Lawang, Indonesia.
Sometimes, I have a few different ideas but that doesn’t mean all of them grow into a photo documentary. Even if they don’t right away, I keep the ideas because years later, that one idea might start to grow. A lot of times, an idea hits you when it’s not the right time to execute it. Don’t worry, just wait…
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that if a create a simple series like this—an idea that grows into a documentary naturally—people pick it up more often without me having to do all the work to get it out there. The series got featured on Booooooom.com and on Fubiz.net without me having to send it to them... It’s a nice change when people contact you because the’ve noticed your project…
Full series on my website.
Are you working on a project right now? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it.