Travel Photography

Travel Photography

The majority of the travel photography featured on Earthly Photos is the result of a ten-year, 150,000-mile mountain bicycle journey through Southeast Asia, China, numerous Pacific islands, South & Central Americas, the Caribbean, and ending where it all began in 1985, in Costa Rica. Beginning this bike journey in the mid-80s, travel photography was much more of a challenge than it is today. Digital cameras didn't exist, nor did the internet, photography existed because of film and its development. For those who never bought a roll of 35mm film, it came inside small cartridges of 24 or 36 exposures. The 35mm film format was initially popularized at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries by the well-known inventor Thomas Edison and lasted for approximately 100 years. In the 80s and 90s, three companies commanded the photography market: Eastman Kodak, Fuji Film, and Agfa.    Traveling from country to country, it was not that hard to find "One-hour" development, but the film canisters were lighter and less bulky than carrying a stack of 4X6 prints and protective sleeves with processed negatives. But rumor had it, that the longer exposed film went undeveloped, its quality slowly diminished. The average cost for the film was $2.50-$6 a roll and then another $8-$10 to develop it. In other words, about $0.35 per exposure.    But travel photographers not only had to deal with film but with camera equipment as well. Pre-digital age, quality cameras used interchangeable lenses. In my case, I carried the main camera body, a 24mm wide-angle lens, a 50mm lens, a 45-90mm zoom lens, a 90-150mm zoom lens, and a 500m tri-mirrored lens. Besides being bulky, it was heavy as well. But then I needed filters of all sorts:

polarizing, close-up rings, indoor filters, and more. A photographer could do without all this stuff, but every photo opportunity was a different situation, and like many cameras of that era, my Olympus was fully manual. I also had an external flash system and a couple of different mini-tripods. It was a lot to carry, but most of the time it was strapped to the bike.

The majority of the travel photography featured on Earthly Photos are the result of a ten-year, 150,000-mile mountain bicycle journey through Southeast Asia, China, numerous Pacific islands, South & Central Americas, the Caribbean, and ending where it all began in 1985, in Costa Rica.

Beginning this bike journey in the mid-80s, travel photography was much more of a challenge than it is today. Digital cameras didn't exist, nor did the internet, photography existed because of film and its development. For those who never bought a roll of 35mm film, it came inside small cartridges of 24 or 36 exposures. The 35mm film format was initially popularized at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries by the well-known inventor Thomas Edison and lasted for approximately 100 years. In the 80s and 90s, three companies commanded the photography market: Eastman Kodak, Fuji Film, and Agfa. 

Traveling from country to country, it was not that hard to find "One-hour" development, but the film canisters were lighter and less bulky than carrying a stack of 4X6 prints and protective sleeves with processed negatives. But rumor had it, that the longer exposed film went undeveloped, its quality slowly diminished. The average cost for the film was $2.50-$6 a roll and then another $8-$10 to develop it. In other words, about $0.35 per exposure. 

But travel photographers not only had to deal with film but with camera equipment as well. Pre-digital age, quality cameras used interchangeable lenses. In my case, I carried the main camera body, a 24mm wide-angle lens, a 50mm lens, a 45-90mm zoom lens, a 90-150mm zoom lens, and a 500m tri-mirrored lens. Besides being bulky, it was heavy as well. But then I needed filters of all sorts: polarizing, close-up rings, indoor filters, and more. A photographer could do without all this stuff, but every photo opportunity was a different situation, and like many cameras of that era, my Olympus was fully manual. I also had an external flash system and a couple of different mini-tripods. It was a lot to carry, but most of the time it was strapped to the bike.

The photographs featured here sat in a non-insulated backyard shed for over 20 years of freezing and blistering temperatures before being digitally scanned with an inexpensive scanner.  Many of the stored images were stuck together and could not be rescued. The rest were individually Photoshopped to see what could be saved. Considering I took several thousand travel photographs on this journey, that became a full-time job.

Had digital cameras existed 45 years ago, these images would be of higher quality no doubt, and a lot more of them.

For more on the history of 35mm history, visit:  https://lenshunters.com/history/35mm-photography-leica-contax