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When travel and photography are combined into a profession, the word home, for professional travel photographers, can only be counted as a temporary berthing harbor. Travel photographers always have only two working states, at the travel shooting site or on the way to travel photography. Professional photographer Zhang Dagun is such an excellent creator who has worked hard and produced a lot, and he never knows the hard work on the road of creation, in his words, all of which stems from his love of photography.
By chance, we took advantage of the gap between Zhang Dao's transfer to the airport and had a simple exchange. As a senior photographer with rich experience in traveling at home and abroad, Zhang Dao shared with us what he saw, felt and realized during his travels, and talked about his views on how to select equipment for travel photography and how to prepare for going out.
1
Those stories of travel
Q.Let's talk about your profession first?
I changed careers in 2013 and started to be a professional travel photographer, currently a signed author of a number of travel platforms and galleries, good at travel scenery shooting and humanistic records, from the change of career to now to more than 50 countries and hundreds of cities, overseas travel experience is still relatively rich.
Q.What are the characteristics of shooting at home and abroad?
In terms of natural scenery, because you have more places to go and see more scenery, you will gradually have the view that the earth is symmetrical. For example, like in previous years, when I went to South America, I saw that there were a lot of snowy mountains and lakes there, but later I found that the landforms in Tibet and Qinghai were actually completely consistent with South America, and some things in South America were also available in China. For example, go to Peru to see the Danxia landform of Rainbow Mountain, in fact, in our domestic Zhangye and other places, the geomorphological characteristics are also very similar to Peru.
The humanities part, in fact, each country has its own unique culture, this is completely different. In the past, I have actually focused on taking photos in the past, and ignored the experience of local cultural customs. Later, because of the epidemic, I could not go abroad, so I had time to sit down and reflect on this problem. Many times before I took the photo, the film felt good, but the story behind the photo lacked some deeper understanding, this is in the past travel shooting, I think there is no good place, is to see the more characteristic things, the photo is taken back, but the depth of the story behind the excavation is missing. Maybe in the future I will gradually weaken the shooting and use more time and energy to focus on the experience.
Q． What was the most memorable experience during the shoot?
There are actually quite a few unforgettable experiences during filming. I'll give you an example, or related to our Chinese elements, once I was shooting in the United States called Canyonlands National Park, you know that foreign national parks are very large, very desolate environment. Because I am often alone when I travel, I sometimes feel lonely when I travel outside for a long time. That day I photographed a relatively good lightning sunset material in Canyonlands National Park, which was quite rewarding.
After finishing work, I drove to the parking lot, ate some bread and drank some water, rested for a while, and suddenly saw a caravan next to me, they were starting to cook, from the smell, it should be Chinese food, probably onion fried meat. I was far around the caravan, I imagined that the Chinese inside the caravan would see a lonely Chinese outside, would greet me and ask if I had eaten, and it turned out that the owner of the caravan did not have the enthusiasm to meet his compatriots in a foreign country.
At that time, it was also dark, I was alone so far away from home, surrounded by exotic scenery, suddenly smelled the taste of our traditional Chinese cuisine, plus a person came out for more than twenty days, along the way in order to shoot, the needs of life dropped to a very low, often with water and bread to fill the hunger. Smelling this hometown instantly made my homesickness rush into my heart, and the tears almost broke the embankment. That image can't be forgotten in my head for a long time, which is a relatively memorable experience in my shooting.
Q.How did you overcome the language barrier when shooting abroad?
Most national languages are not a barrier for me. Probably in Iran, when I needed to go to a place to watch the sunset, when I was stopping a taxi on the street, I met an old man driving a car, he couldn't speak English and couldn't Chinese, and there was no way to communicate with him in language. In the end, there was really no way, I used pen and paper to draw cars, draw mountains, draw suns, draw routes, probably like this while drawing and adding body language, and finally I successfully expressed the idea of chartering a car, and then negotiated the price of the chartered car with him. I still feel that this thing is still more magical.
Q.What is the most memorable scenery for you?
The most memorable scenery should be Turkey, which many people should have been to. The most famous point in Cappadocia, Turkey, is the hot air balloon. When I got there, the weather was just right, and I saw dozens of hundreds of hot air balloons lifting off together, and there was morning fog and sunshine that day, and the scenery was really shocking. I've been to a lot of places, natural scenery or island deserts, and I don't feel like I've seen the scenery here, seeing these hot air balloons take off together and then look down on the earth from the sky together. The whole picture is my favorite and I will definitely go back again if I have the chance.
Q.Did you encounter anything more thrilling during the travel photography?
I'm still more Buddhist, and I still haven't encountered that particularly thrilling scene on my journey. However, I have encountered this situation, for example, I went to a certain camera position during the day, and after shooting, I found that I could not get down after dark. Because I usually shoot alone outside, I have to solve all kinds of difficulties by myself. In the back, I carried a lot of equipment on my own, groping down the mountain in the dark night, although the whole process was very thrilling, but fortunately I could climb down safely every time, which I thought was still more thrilling.
Q.Which of your works are you most satisfied with? Pick one or two pieces to tell us the story of the shooting process?
In fact, there are still many works that I am satisfied with. My most satisfied work is probably the kind that I have taken some scenery that ordinary people can't see, such as on an island called Tana in Vanuatu, which has an active volcano all year round and has been erupting, and I am more satisfied with the photos taken there at that time.
First of all, it is very difficult to get to this place, it takes 8 planes to get there, and then to the island to take a pickup truck for more than two hours, get off the car and hike, before and after spending a lot of time not to say, the road is also very difficult to walk, to go through a lot of hardships to go to the crater to see the volcanic eruption. I had never seen a volcano erupt before, and when I walked to the middle of the mountain, I had already begun to smell that special smell, and when I saw that smoke, my heart had already begun to get excited, and when you really stood on the crater and saw the volcano erupting, a lot of gorgeous rhetorical language didn't apply, and the super shock at that time could not be described in words.
2
Experience using the device
Q.How to match the host and lens when shooting out?
My works are mostly based on travel records and humanistic photography themes, and the preparation of equipment will also be matched according to the needs of some cooperation projects, such as video needs or a large number of photo needs, I will choose different combinations. Take a video, before I would take panasonic S1R and S1H, now I use more panasonic S5, S5 will be lighter than that.
Once Panasonic full-frame micro single weight is a little heavy, touched the size and weight of the S1 series, and then pick up the S5, you can feel its lightness. When it comes to shooting out, many photographers should have a deep understanding, in fact, sometimes there are more equipment, which may become a burden, and the more the machine will affect the shooting, so I often struggle with what lens to bring or what support equipment to bring today. If there is a machine that can meet my requirements for image quality and shooting, but also free up my burden, then this kind of equipment must be my first choice. Later, I will slowly simplify the equipment, mainly lightweight, anyway, enough is good, now is this mentality.
As for carrying lenses, didn't Panasonic have some shots before, which is slightly heavier for micro-singles. As mentioned earlier, I now like to carry lightweight equipment for the convenience of travel. For example, I often go out for 10 days and half a month, and the equipment in the bag is really a burden.
Isn't Panasonic starting to produce the F1.8 series of lenses now, which are light and at the same time excellent in picture quality, so what I often carry in my bag now is these F1.8 series of lenses. Panasonic F1.8 lens is also gradually improving, zoom coverage of the focal length from 16mm to 300mm, fixed focus like 24mm, 50mm, 85mm to use the image quality are relatively excellent, these focal length lenses, has been enough for my use in various scenes, this new series of lenses, the weight is also a certain reduction, to go out to shoot to reduce the weight.
Q.Do you have any special preferences for the focal length of the lens, and what are the applicable scenes?
I used to like zoom and found it convenient, but now I always have a fixed focus in my bag. Focal length 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm these are more commonly used. In fact, everyone knows that the fixed focus is stronger than the zoom, and then these lenses, I think, are enough to cope with all the needs of the journey. These F1.8 fixed focus lenses have a similar appearance, and the size and center of gravity are the same, the overall small and light, the focus is fast and accurate, more suitable for shooting some daily, humanistic and street sweeping themes. Paired with the S5, the size and weight are harmonious.
Q.How are the preset parameters of the camera set?
I don't set the parameters specifically, because the environment and light are different every time I go out, but I basically shoot with A-stop, using aperture-first mode. Moving the aperture or adding or subtracting EVs when shooting can be more convenient and fast shooting.
Q.How did you feel about the Panasonic lens?
Panasonic's main machine I use more, starting from S1 S1, GH5 and S5 I have used, including some small machines I have also used. Panasonic's lens is also used a lot, take the recent 24mmF1.8 fixed focus lens, this lens I think is quite practical, the image restoration is good, the bokeh effect is also very good, and the applicable scenes are quite many. There is also a feature, this F1.8 series of lenses, designed to take into account the user's use, almost to achieve the button position, lens center of gravity, color style, bayonet position are consistent, so that in the use of the process of changing the lens will be much more convenient.
Q.How do you evaluate the overall quality performance of Panasonic lenses?
The fixed focus I often use, such as 24mm, 50mm, 85mm, from the resolution characteristics, dispersion control, etc., in my work are still quite good, sharpness is also outstanding. Of course, it is not a good work that the camera and lens are excellent, in addition to the quality control of the camera and the lens itself, I think we must also take into account the photographer's expression intention, what information to convey, what mood to express, and composition design, it can be said that when the excellent quality of the camera and lens itself is combined with the solid basic skills of the creator, excellent works can be produced. It is not possible to separate the equipment from the personal qualities of the photographer.
Q. Looking at your work, the light and shadow colors are very beautiful, do you prefer to go straight out through the preset parameters of the camera, or post-production?
In fact, there are post-production, just like cooking, the camera is like a tool to prepare raw materials, the material is like an ingredient, if you want to taste good, you must also have post-processing, so that the color and flavor can be complete. This point is to praise Panasonic's machine, it has a very good tolerance, as well as excellent picture quality, for post-production is left a lot of room and space, I can have a lot of space for secondary creation and design adjustment when I adjust in the post.
3
Photographer's sharing
Q.Has the current epidemic affected your filming work? How do you resolve these contradictions?
The impact of the epidemic on me is actually very huge. Before the epidemic came, I basically had seven to eight months a year abroad, from the epidemic to now almost a year and eight months have not been abroad, now whether it is travel or shooting projects, many of the shooting that needed to be done abroad before are basically gone, that is to say, the cooperation of overseas tourism bureaus has basically stopped. The epidemic has had a huge impact on my work abroad, but in fact, it has no impact on normal work. Because now, for example, cars, and some digital, these promotion cooperation can be completed in China.
Like these months, I have run many times in Qinghai, Tibet, and Xinjiang. This piece of natural scenery, which used to be filmed abroad, is now also photographed in China. Because you can't go abroad now, a lot of photographers are all gathered in these places, which is also an impact.
Q.What platforms do you generally sell your works to, and do you have any skills for communicating with Party A?
In fact, I don't sell many things on the platform, and there are many platforms that have signed up, such as platforms like Visual China and 8KRAW. My works are basically assigned by Party A, and then I go to work to finish shooting. The sales of works are the platforms mentioned above, but they are not sold much. As for communication with Party A, I will sometimes be more stubborn, for example, Party A wants me to complete a project, Party A may be mixed with a lot of their opinions, I will usually be more stubborn to insist on following my ideas to carry out this shooting, will not let Party A affect the creative intention to affect the entire trip. I'd rather not cooperate, and I'd rather have my trip more focused on creation, work first.
Q. What homework do you need to do before going out to shoot, do you need to pay special attention to the problems, and share it with other friends who have travel shooting plans?
There is actually a lot of homework to be done, because going abroad is actually no matter how to say, although it was not difficult before, but it is also quite far, before going to think about what you can photograph in that place, or what you want to shoot there. At this point, you need to read the information in advance, determine where to go, determine the route, and the most important point is to calculate the time in advance. What does this time mean?
It may be a lot of times the starry sky shooting, so it is necessary to calculate the time of the full moon or the first moon in advance, and also consider the local weather. Let's say you go out for a week, but you have to take into account the factors that affect the shooting for two weeks before and after, and then you go to the route. Prepare for homework and you may take a look at it on domestic platforms and foreign platforms. I'm going to add my own ideas to the places we're going to, excluding some common cameras, or adding places that are different from the images we've taken before, which is something that must be considered before departure.