In our search for great photography for the TravelMuse site we sometimes come across extraordinary photographers. They aren’t all professionals, some are hobbyists that have a great passion for the art, and strive to learn everything they can about it. While looking for images for our Québec City issue I came across Flickr user dancl, and immediately recognized the quality of his work. He was kind enough to let us use one of his images for the cover of that issue, and was excited about the opportunity to be interviewed for our photoblog. Here's what dancl, or Daniel Fuentealba, had to say.

TravelMuse: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Daniel Fuentealba: I’m from Concepción, Chile. I’m a wood engineer who studied for a Masters of Science at the University of Bío-Bío (Concepción, Chile). I moved with my wife in 2004 to Québec City, Canada to study in a Ph.D. program at Laval University. Last year we became parents of a beautiful little boy named Benjamin. Since we are far from our family and friends in Chile, we maintain a blog in order to share his growth.

TM: What got you interested in photography and why do you continue to enjoy it?

DF: In 1996, my sister Mariely gave me her Zenith 122 manual camera. As I started studying at the University of Bío-Bío, I joined the university’s photography club, which is where I learned the basics of photography and darkroom techniques. It wasn’t until I came to Canada in May 2005 that I picked up the camera again. At first I used a point and shoot Canon Powershot A510, just to document our new life and share it with our family. I still use that same camera sometimes and have taken some prize-winning pictures with it. (Canon A510 gallery)


"Grands Feux Loto-Québec", Finalist | Centre de Congrès photography contest “Nouveau regard sur le Québec”

Fireworks
1st place Club Photo Optica exposition "Rouge" | Université Laval
Technical ability mention | Interuniversity photo contest 2007-08 Montreal University

Water Drops
Finalist | Photography contest at Laval University

During this last contest I had some good friends who encouraged me to join Laval University’s photo club, Optica. A few months after I joined Optica in September 2006, I bought my first D-SLR, a Nikon D70 with a Sigma 24-135mm f/2.8-4.5 lens. This club influenced me greatly, helping me to improve my technique and increase my interest in sharing my photography. Nowadays I share my work on a photoblog at , a blog at and as always my Flickr account.

TM: What is your favorite photograph that you've taken and why?

DF: If you see my photo blog you will see that I have many, but I would say the one with the water drops on my office windows would be the most important for me as it led to my joining Optica. Through the club I have met many great photographers who helped me to recover my passion for photography and who keep me reading, learning and practicing to improve my technique and artistic side.

TM: What is your opinion on post-processing in Photoshop in terms of enhancing photos?

DF: That is a big question. I think post-processing is necessary because digital photographs are not as good as slide film right out of the camera. Digital photography is faster, cheaper and better for improving your technique though, because you can see the results instantaneously. I prefer digital photography for my own work.

Personally I would say that all my pictures have passed through Lightroom and/or Photoshop. Usually I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to correct the color temperature and then Photoshop for details and adding the signature, among other things.

I have to say that I still keep some cameras in order to shoot film because, in my opinion, digital photography has taken some of the beauty out of the essence of photography. It has eliminated the need to take the time to observe and view the picture before making it, paying attention to the framing, etc. With digital and RAW files, you do one part of the work when you shoot, but it is not finished. You have to spend some time on the computer to develop your digital pictures. Because you have a memory card which you can fill, you are able to take test shots, which, I think, can start to erode your technique. That’s why I try to balance both technologies: film as well as digital photography.

TM: How long have you been using Flickr, and what do you like about it?

DF: I’ve been a Flickr member since October 2006. I really like to share what I do with people, even more so when I know that they are also interested in photography. It’s a pretty good way to improve your photography since you can usually get the technical information of a picture (EXIF information). It has many qualities that I like so I think DanCL (Dan: Daniel + CL: .cl from Chile) will be on Flickr for a while.

TM: What kind of responses have you gotten to your photos on Flickr?

DF: As I said before, Flickr has really helped me to improve my photography. The feedback that you get in Flickr helps you a lot. There is always the “good picture,” “nice colors,” “love the framing,” but also you get real critiques that let you see your pictures from a different view point that you could never see on your own. I already have more than 25,000 visits, and I really enjoy having my pictures commented on.

TM: What kind of responses have you gotten to your photos that have appeared on TravelMuse?

DF: It’s funny, but when I originally posted the picture on October 2007 I didn’t have any comments at all. I started getting good comments from people when they knew that the picture was on the cover of your article about Québec City. I have received some e-mails in the past asking for permission to publish my pictures for free, but this is the first time that I accepted, and I think it was mostly because it was for a cover.

TM: What advice do you have for aspiring photographers?

DF: I’m not the one to give advice, but if I have to say something I would say to practice (using digital) but keep fresh on the basics (using film). And of course seeing/observing lots of pictures … and sharing your opinions and critiques so other people will do the same for you.


Concert / Fête du Canada

hahn on blue + fan on red + chester on white

mountains map

Alan Einstein, known as Eye of Einstein on Flickr, is one of the photographers featured in this week’s Maui/Big Island issue. As a Hawaiian local, Alan has the envious opportunity to photograph the tropical beauty that surrounds him daily. He shares his photographs with the Flickr community, where he has photos in many different pools reserved exclusively for the best of the best in the Flickr-verse. He was kind enough to also share some insight into his life as a Big Island big shooter.


Eye of Einstein with Miss Kitty

TravelMuse: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Eye of Einstein: A little about me is that I am now considered a bona-fide senior citizen and therefore have the benefits of leisure time. I am retired from being a working guy. I spent most of my life in the motorcycle industry, now I’m devoting more time to my photography. I have been fortunate enough to have lived in Hawaii for around the last 40 years, but I spent my early formative years growing up in New York City. Living in Hawaii has offered me many opportunities to honor the practice of photography. I have had some of my works published over the years: some in magazines—experimental fashion, rock concert, motor racing—and others in the newspaper. I have evolved into living in a rural, leisurely style. I live in a very rural area of the Big Island near the active volcano and convenient to all natural and wildlife observance.

TM: What made you decide to share your photography through Creative Commons?

EE: Creative Commons seemed to be an opportunity for much more equitable sharing of my work. There are literally millions of practitioners of photography on earth.

TM: I've noticed that you are very active in the Flickr community. What kind of feedback or response have you gotten to your photographs on Flickr?

EE: Activity on Flickr involves interaction just like any social network and only a percentage of that interaction is about the actual photograph. Initially it is all about the perception of uniqueness and style and the quality of image, and it segues smoothly into making new friends worldwide. It is a very complementary society and a great way to learn about the world and the world of photography. It also can be obsessive and take a great deal of time to post and interact.

TM: What is your favorite thing to shoot?

EE: I have been interested in the practice of photography pretty much my whole life. I can remember having a Kodak Brownie camera, and I recall as a child hearing someone say to me, “What are you taking a picture of ‘nothing’ for?” My absolute favorite is to capture grand vistas of landscapes and panorama in the way that my mind’s eye perceives them. Sometimes I like to capture cityscapes if I am traveling.

TM: What is your approach to HDR photography and other post-processing techniques?

EE: I appreciate HDR and other post-processing techniques. Mostly, I think moderation is the key factor in these applications. I use post-processing extensively in a great deal of my works. I see nothing wrong or weird in using the digital darkroom at my disposal.

As a side note to this, I also have been trained in the zone system of black and white photography. In the present-time, I also use my camera phone for taking photos and have been pleasantly surprised at the results.



TM: What advice do you have for aspiring photographers?

EE: Speaking to digital photographers, I would say to take as many pictures as you can each day and to find a simple editing program to get familiar with the possibilities. Also, develop some style of one's own if possible.

TM: What is your favorite photo that you have taken, and why?

EE: This is a difficult choice, as I have several favorites, and they fit into different genres in which I have found myself immersed session by session from time to time. One is called “il bacio” a photo of two pears; another is called "boris the spider" a macro of a jumping spider; still another is a futuristic skyline shot of Honolulu and another taken at Keehi lagoon of sailing craft. The why is the feeling of personal satisfaction, of technical achievement and of mating the art and the science of digital photography.

“il bacio”

“eye on relationships”

Perhaps you would like to see them on my flickr photo stream at eye of einstein?

As a photo editor for TravelMuse, I have the privilege of living vicariously through the works of photographers that we use on our Web site. However, there are few photographers that I have come across whose images have moved me as much as the work of Steve Evans, known as Babasteve to the Flickr community. He has the unique ability to capture and convey a subject’s soul in his portraits.



Evans is a research associate, communication specialist and photographer with the International Center for Ethnographic Studies and has been to more than 90 countries throughout Africa, the Middle East and South Asia for his job. He received the 2008 Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling for his work in Bhutan and an award for a collection of children’s stories. Below is a Q&A conducted by TravelMuse to learn more about this phenomenal photographer.

TravelMuse: As a travel photographer, what is your muse?

Steve Evans: There is a biblical proverb that says, “There are three things which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the middle of the sea, and the way of a man with a woman.” It tells me that God is a photographer at heart! Or, at least, He has a photographer’s eye! ... I am astounded by this amazing world that we live in. My faith shapes how I see people, how I act toward them and how they respond to me.

In addition, I am inspired by the works of great photographers, such as Steve McCurry.

TM: I love your portraits. How do you approach people when you want to photograph them, and what is the usual response?

SE: First I try to be at ease, and I try to be friendly. It’s amazing how a smile and a friendly demeanor can cross language barriers. I usually gesture with my hands and camera that I would like to take their picture, and I am sensitive to their response. If it’s clear that the person does not want his or her picture taken, I normally don’t take it. I would say, though, that at least eighty percent of the time, people are not opposed to having their picture taken.

Sometimes it’s the context in which a person is found that draws me, that unique cultural environment that identifies someone, who they are and where they are from. This may be conveyed through a veil, turban or headdress, facial scars and markings, traditional jewelry and clothing, the surroundings of a market, workbench, or unusual architecture.



TM: What made you decide to share your photography through Creative Commons?

SE: Since I am paid for my job and don’t have to earn a living through my photography, I don’t feel compelled to charge for the use of my images, nor do I have the need to cling to them! I do however like to be recognized and acknowledged when one of my images is used. I was stunned when I saw the number and breadth of requests for my images, from major universities and museums to governments and non-profit and religious organizations. I was honored when Yahoo named me and one of my images in its top ten of 2006. Then Flickr and JPG Magazine chose one of my images for an advertisement, followed by Nikon. Recently Adobe Labs used a series of my shots to promote a new software program they developed! Click here to see a page with a compilation of these advertisements.

TM: What kind of equipment and software do you use?

SE: I feel extremely fortunate to use the equipment that I do. I have some of the best camera gear in the world.

Canon EOS 1 Mk III body
Two Canon 5D bodies
Canon 16-24mm 2.8 L series lens
Canon 50mm 1.4 lens
Canon 85mm 1.2 L series lens
Canon 70-200mm 2.8 L series lens
Canon 100-400 4.5 L series lens
Two Canon Speedlite 430EX flash units
Photo Mechanic software
Photoshop CS3 software

Let me quickly say, however, that I strongly believe that it is not the camera that takes good pictures, it’s the photographer. Anyone who works at developing his or her “photographer’s eye” and follows a few simple rules in shooting and composition can and will take better photos.

TM: What advice do you have for aspiring photographers?

SE: 1. Develop your photographer’s eye. Learn to see the world in a different light, from a different perspective. Intentionally look for that certain something to photograph.

2. Follow these simple rules and guidelines when shooting.
•Learn to read the light and remember that your best pictures will be ones taken in early morning or late afternoon.
•Go by the rule of thirds, dividing the frame into thirds both horizontally and vertically.
•Avoid placing the subject in the center, but move it to one of the four areas where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect.
•Shoot close up to avoid distracting backgrounds, or at least see to it that the background contributes to the image and what you want your photo to say.

3. Shoot, shoot, shoot! In this digital world where the expense of film and processing are no longer factors, shoot to your heart’s content, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

4. Make yourself and your work available to those who need your images. There are a lot of worthwhile organizations and causes out there that can’t afford to hire photographers or buy photos. By offering your stuff to them, you are able to build up a resume and get your work seen at the same time.



TM: Do you have a favorite story from your travels?

SE: There are some amazing photographic journeys that will always stand out in my mind, like a fabulous five-day drive from Asmara, Eritrea, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Wow, the amazing scenery of that high-altitude country is phenomenal, and to see the people and culture there was incredible. Then there was the drive from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Mazar-e-Sharif. Another journey I shall always remember is the drive through the Himalaya Mountains from Srinagar, Kashmir, to Leh, Ladakh. When I wasn’t fearing for my life and hanging on to my seat for dear life because of the sheer drop-offs along the unprotected side of the road, I was basking in the beauty of the mountains and valleys, rivers and glaciers, and enjoying the stark change of moving from a pure Muslim culture to a pure Buddhist one. My multiple trips to the mountain kingdom of Bhutan are nearly indescribable. Bhutan and the Arab country of Yemen are two of the most unique places I ever been to.

In addition to some great photo journeys I’ve taken, there are a few incidences that will always stand out in my mind. I remember having to shoot the fatal crash of a U.S. Air Force training jet one time. … Another time I went to Angola during the height of its horrific civil war to document the civilians there who were caught between two warring factions. … I remember the Rwandan genocide and the refugee camps located in the Congo where a million Hutu refugees fled Rwanda. I was there to document the one-year anniversary of the genocide and the plight of the refugees in the camps.

TM: What is your favorite photo that you have ever taken and why?

SE: I was living in Zimbabwe and had the chance to go way out into the bush to visit with the Tonga people, who live in the remote Zambezi valley. Here was this tribal people living as they had lived for hundreds of years in their traditional clothing and jewelry, smoking their “dagga” pipes and living in huts, but they were literally starving to death because of a severe drought that had hit much of Africa during that time. We were some of the first foreigners most of these villagers had ever seen, and the children were especially curious. I snapped a shot of some young boys covered in dust and lined up along a mud wall who came out to get a look at the strange outsiders who had come to visit. As I said, the image isn’t technically all that great, but I love the haunting, isolated, melancholic feel that this picture has. It will always remind me of my sixteen years spent living in Africa and how special the people are there.

Creative Commons Licenses

Photography is a big part of the TravelMuse site. We make a great effort to find interesting and intriguing images to accompany our articles, and have been lucky to find many stunning images that are available for use, thanks to the photographers that share their images under Creative Commons licenses on Flickr, the source for many of our photographs.

As one of the largest photo-sharing sites on the Web, Flickr has made it easier for photographers to get their work seen. Creative Commons licensing provides a simple and customizable way for photographers to control the usage of their images, while retaining their copyrights. Now that Flickr offers users the option of releasing their images under CC licenses images can be freely shared on a large scale, and new and unknown photographers can gain exposure.

When we notify the photographers whose work we have chosen that their images are going to be published, we often get very positive and enthusiastic responses. We have received many e-mails from Flickr users who were thrilled to see their images on our site, thanking us for choosing them. We should be thanking them (and do, every time we use an image) because without their participation in the Creative Commons community, the TravelMuse site would not have the wealth of beautiful images it does.

Understanding Creative Commons

There are several different options for how to license your work through Creative Commons, but I’m only going to discuss the options that pertain to photographs.

Attribution (by) License
The least restrictive license you can choose is the Attribution (by) license, which requires the user to give credit to the person that created it. Under this license users are free to “distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.” Most of the images on the TravelMuse site are licensed under CC ‘by’ licenses, as these are the only images we can use without first asking for special permission from the photographer.

Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) License
The Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) license allows users all of the same liberties as the Attribution license, but has the additional clause that requires the user to license any work they create with your work under the same license. So, if someone uses one of your Attribution Share Alike licensed images in a collage, or as cover art for their album, they’re required to release the entire work under a CC Attribution Share Alike license. This license ensures that the amount of work available under Creative Commons licenses will continue to grow, creating more opportunities for creativity. While ensuring that works remain available and in circulation, this clause also prevents magazines and periodicals with copyrighted articles (both print and online) from using them on their pages, since they’d lose the copyright to their content, which is why TravelMuse can’t use images under this license.

When we find images with Share Alike licenses that we feel would be great on the site, we contact the photographer and ask permission to disregard that clause. Many photographers have been happy to let us use them under an Attribution only license, but it has become clear to us, after several photographers have expressed surprise that we were asking permission, that many people don’t understand or realize the conditions of the clause.

Attribution No Derivatives
The third type of Creative Commons license is the Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd) license. This license allows users some of the same freedoms as the Attribution and Share Alike licenses, but stipulates that the original work cannot be altered or changed in any way. This means that despite the fact that at TravelMuse we usually do not change the images we use in any way except to crop them to fit our format, we cannot use images with ‘No Derivatives’ licenses. We certainly understand the reason for this clause, as there are definitely many things that can be done to an image to change its meaning and message. Luckily for us, as with some of the Share Alike images we have found, photographers have been happy to allow us to disregard this clause and use their images on our site.

Other types of Creative Commons licenses include Non-Commercial clauses, combined in different ways with Share Alike and No Derivatives clauses.

Getting Your Photos Published on TravelMuse

Photographers who are willing to share their work have made it possible for TravelMuse to feature the beautiful imagery it does. We hope that the number of images available under Creative Commons licenses continues to grow, and photographers continue to be excited about being published on the TravelMuse site. If you are a photographer, amateur or professional, feel free to let us know if you would like to share your images with us. One good way to do that is to join our Flickr group TravelMuse. We often invite Flickr users whose images we like to the group, but if we haven’t noticed your photos yet, don’t wait for an invitation! The group is open to everyone, and you can submit as many of your favorite travel photos as you want. We monitor the pool, and select images from it for publication on the TravelMuse site.

Thank you, and keep shooting!