Church; Porto, Portugal I wanted a shot of this Church all alone (and I did make one early another morning), but I like the way the people in this image come together in the square in front of the church to give some “area context” [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IHAVE shot primarily nature, landscape and other outdoor venues for all the years I have been at this. And for many of those years, I worked hard to get people-free images. Still do some of the time. In popular places, it was not uncommon to sit patiently (or sometimes not so patiently 🙂 ) waiting for people to clear a scene. Later, the ability to “remove” things from images digitally softened some of the angst. But that doesn’t always work. I found myself still waiting for opportunities where the “offending” body was in a spot that would be easy to remove. And then, of course, that brings on all the “isn’t that cheating?” stuff.
I liked the way the yellow jacket contrasted with the mostly monochromatic image of Buckingham Palace. It pulls the gold gilded statue top too. I waited for her to walk into the frame and then made the image. [Copyright Andy Richards 2021 All Rights Reserved]
not every national park, scenic view, or iconic location was put there for me and my camera
THERE ARE, of course, still going to be times when you want a pristine landscape shot. Often the best time to do that is very early in the morning, before tourists and even workers are out. Getting up early takes a certain discipline, but every time I do so, I am rewarded. Often with complete solitude. Sometimes with just a lot fewer people around. Another way to get that kind of shot is to shoot scenes and places where there aren’t a lot of people. Places that haven’t been discovered yet. Or places that don’t have tourist appeal. I have found some of my best farm scenes to be places that haven’t been “discovered” yet. I have also learned – unfortunately – that it isn’t a good idea to identify those locations in this day and age. There are a couple now famous scenes in Vermont, for example, that used to see the occasional photographer in the road near them – usually during the fall foliage season. But today, everybody and their smartphone wants to photograph these places, and in addition to large numbers of people, many of them have zero respect for other’s property. Indeed in recent years, some of these once quiet, bucolic scenes have taken on a “carnival” atmosphere that is totally at odds with what drew us to them in the first place.
Sometimes the image is ABOUT the people. This close shot of the entranceway into the Buckingham Palace Grounds would be boring and static without the guard. I was really shooting the guard, not the palace, here. [Copyright Andy Richards 2021 All Rights Reserved]PEOPLE IN the scene can often be perceived as a negative. But I also have to remind myself sometimes that not every national park, scenic view, or iconic location was put there for me and my camera. Indeed, (at least before the advent of the smartphone), the vast majority of visitors to these locations are/were probably there just to see the place. And they certainly have every bit as much of a right to do that (even if they are standing in my photo 🙂 ). Tolerance does not seem to be a popular thing these days, but I still try to practice it.
This is one of my favorite images of London. The two gentlemen engaged in thoughtful conversation makes an otherwise “nice” image of the backside of Westminster Abbey much more interesting, in my view [Copyright Andy Richards 2021 All Rights Reserved]IN RECENT years, though, something that I have learned is – especially in my travel photography – putting people (or using the people that are there) in your photos sometimes creates added interest. In addition to scale, they can give perspective, and sometimes create questions. Like what is she looking at? What is he thinking? Or they can help express the pure joy of experiencing one of our worldwide wonders. So, for me the trick has now become how to best position the people that are inevitably there in the image. I have begun to look for those moments. I know I am probably late to the game (but suspect I am still with, or ahead of many of my fellow “nature” photographers). Street photographers often purposely seek out people in their imagery. I have never felt really comfortable engaging people, but I am slowly coming to grips with it. In the meantime, I often try to portray people in the image in a basically incognito way (looking away, or so distant as to not have recognizable face). But other times that is just not possible. And when people are in public, they have a reduced expectation of privacy, so I feel that as long as I am not portraying them in a negative way, it is probably o.k.
Porto, Portugal I made several images as this woman walked through the frame. I like the way in this one, she appears to hesitate, and you wonder, what is she looking at/for? [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WHILE INCLUDING people in photographs can be an enhancing factor, I also believe there is a tipping point. I have had times where the venue has been so crowded with people that I have decided not to even shoot it. Sometimes crowds can detract from a shot. Unless, of course, you are trying to depict crowds.
I made this image to illustrate the packed Wine Festival in Evora, Portugal Evora, Portugal Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved
IDON’T think I have used people in images anywhere more than my recent trip to Portugal. We were in two of the most populous cities in the country and let’s face it: there were bound to be people everywhere. Even early in the season. I think this year is perhaps unusual, as people were pent up from the pandemic, and ready to get out and travel again. For whatever reason, there were a lot of people in Lisbon and Porto in late May and early June.
The line (or “qeue” as they say in Europe) for getting into Lisbon’s popular Belem Tower historical site was long. The lone person standing near the water attracted my attenion. Another one of those “wonder what she is looking at” people images. Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]SOMETIMES PEOPLE and their behavior make an otherwise uninteresting image worth a second look. I was walking around St. Kitt during one of our Caribbean Cruise stops and looking for color and interest. The obviously attractive young woman in this shot caught my eye. If the shot were about her, though, having her walking out of the frame is just not very good composition. As much as it may seem so, she is not the true subject of the image. I had all I could do with the fast moving action and my widest zoom to catch the entire important parts of the scene. But mine were not the only eyes she caught. Do you see it? 🙂 I couldn’t resist making this one.
Double-Take St. Kitts [Copyright Andy Richards 2014 All Rights Reserved]THE “SELFIE” has become (for better or worse) a common occurrence in these times. There are times when people compromise privacy, safety, and property in there unending quest to produce the best Instagram selfie. But sometimes it is just people trying to capture a memory It certainly speaks of behavior. The gondola scene at Piazza San Marco on Venice is iconic. Most of us shoot it trying to exclude outside elements. I was doing that one early morning – making a motion-blur image of the rocking gondolas. When I arrived, I saw this young woman who I believe was making a selfie with the piazza and St. Mark’s in her background. It gives great human interest to the image, in my opinion.
Piazza San Marco Venice, Italy [Copyright Andy Richards 2013 All Rights Reserved]IHAVE made numerous cruise ship pictures over our years of cruising. I am usually shooting either the landscape, or action on the ship. I am never the only one doing so, though most often it is folks with their smart phones (or even tablets sometimes). I love to make images of a harbor as we enter it and dock. As I was doing so in the very picturesque Cobh, Ireland, I noticed the gentleman below doing likewise. I have gotten smarter about my photography over recent years, and was glad I had the presence of mind to capture the scene, which certainly tells a better story than my “solo” images do.
Cobh, Ireland [Copyright Andy Richards 2019 All Rights Reserved]OF ALL the imagery I have made over the years, a substantial majority has been landscape – and of that, more than anything, fall foliage. Mountains, reflections, closeups, barns and farms all make wonderful context. Occasionally, people in the image add color, or interest, or even scale and perspective. I shamelessly confess that I totally “copycatted” the following silhouette image, after seeing a colleague framing it up. But what a great storytelling idea. The photo is another “ho hum” fall foliage image without them.
Hiawatha National Forest Lake Munising, Michigan [Copyright Andy Richards 2012 All Rights Reserved]SOMETIMES STAGING people in an image works. During my trip to Vermont in October, 2021, we were composing and contemplating shooting an uphill Vermont back road, framed with colorful foliage. I made the point that this one needed some interest – a person walking up the road. On of our friends offered to “model,” wearing a bright yellow raincoat I had (which was the brightest “prop” we could find). I think the photo worked well. But when I got home, and reviewed the image on my screen, it occurred to me that red would have more impact. So I made it red. I know. That “cheating” thing again. 🙂
Pudding Hill Road Burke, Vermont [Copyright Andy Richards 2021]IAM certain that I miss many opportunities to use “models” in my images. I am, by nature, not an outgoing person when around strangers. Again, sometimes, I just get lucky. I was walking in the St. Kitt Cruise port area shooting some of the colorful buildings. This young shop employee asked me out of the blue if I would like her to pose for me. I am no portrait photographer, but I thought this was a kind of fun image that would not have been the same without her in it.
St. Kitt [Copyright Andy Richards 2014 All Rights Reserved]AS OFTEN as I get “unlucky” or even annoyed with the people in a scene, sometimes I get lucky. The scene in Rome was interesting enough to capture my attention. But when the young man walked into the shot, it seemed like a case of “right time; right place” for me.
The man in the center of the street gives this image a sense of scale City Center Rome, Italy [Copyright Andy Richards 2013 All Rights Reserved]LOOKING FOR opportunities often begets opportunities. In case of the photo below, we were on a street art walking tour in Cape Town South Africa in January. While mostly shooting the street art imagery, I am always on the lookout for colorful subjects. And – lately – also for human subjects of interest. Here I found both and couldn’t help but wonder if the conversation was about our group?
Cape Town, South Africa Copyright Andy Richards 2023 All Rights Reserved
WHILE SOMETIMES, a photo leaves you wondering about the people in the photo, other times it’s just obvious what the person is doing in the photo – and yet still adds interest. This young woman was one of another couple that joined us on the street art walk recently in Cape Town. The focus of the day, of course was the street art itself. Usually in context. But this opportunity presented itself and I liked the symmetry (physical and figurative). There is little doubt in my mind that the inclusion of the photographer adds interest to the already visually compelling subject.
Cape Town, South Africa Copyright Andy Richards 2023 All Rights Reserved
O
VERALL, I think there is always going to be room in my portfolio and shooting style for both. I will always want to at least try to make “clean” images. Sometimes that means waiting. Sometimes using content-aware processing. But what I have learned is to look for both opportunities. I think both views, for example, of the Pink Street below are interesting. I had to go very early in the morning to get the empty street. But the people in the second image are always there, beginning in the early evening, and by nighttime, the place is packed. That’s reality and if you are going to portray reality, you are going to have people in the picture. 🙂
The Pink Street Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved][Tomorrow, I head to Ft. Lauderdale to board a cruise ship bound for the Caribbean for a few days. When I return, I am going to take the blog in a slightly different direction – temporarily. See you in a couple weeks]
The Pink Street Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE NORMALLY plan our trips well in advance (like sometimes a year or more). It helps with airline costs, and often the guided tours we like are booked well in advance. So when our friends invited us to join them on a trip to Portugal only 2 months beforehand, it was a less familiar experience for us. For the most part, we were able to plan and have good experiences, just as we have on other trips in the past. Unlike most of our travel, this was land based instead of on a cruise ship.
Port of Lisbon Cruise Terminal Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]FOR ME, there are pros and cons to this, and I like the fact that we have been able to mix up some of our travel between land-based and cruise ship-based over the years. One of the positives is that we spend more than one day in each place, giving me the ability to do my favorite thing; get out early and walk around with my camera. It also affords the opportunity to get out at night and do some night shooting. And it gives us the opportunity to get to know a place in more depth than a day-excursion allows.
Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE SPENT a total of 6 days in Lisbon (4 at the beginning of our trip and 2 at the end), 4 in Porto, 2 in Evora, and 3 in Lagos. They were 4 quite different venues. Lisbon is a modern European city, with a lot of “old” built in. Porto – Portugal’s second largest city by population – is much more traditional, and though there are modern touches, an overall older feeling city. In Evora, we didn’t venture outside the old walled city (our hotel was inside) except once to go to a restaurant just outside the entrance. Lagos was a beach vacation area.
Belem Tower Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ONE THING that seems to be a common bond wherever we went in Portugal was food. They have a number of their own special favorites (sometimes regional) and they eat big. We did a walking food tour our first morning in Lisbon and a cooking “class” in a local resident’s home in Porto. The like appetizer type foods, which greatly endears them to me. They especially like sausage and two of my favorites are a smoked chicken sausage and their unique smoked chorizo. The latter is done by slicing a chorizo sausage crosswise into small pieces – but not quite through. It is then placed on a special ceramic bowl that has strips across the top to suspend the sausage above the main bowl, which is then partially filled with high proof liquor and lit on fire. Great presentation and great taste. I came home with one of these bowls. I think it will work for almost any kind of hearty sausage. In addition to sausages, they also love other traditional cured meats, like Iberian Ham, and other similar meats.
Smoked Chorizo Sausage [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]PORTUGAL HAS a great variety of specialty foods, also. One sweet and delightful treat is their signature pastry, the pastel de nata. It is essentially a mini-custard pie. Fresh from the oven, they are delicious, and we had a number of them during the visit. They are everywhere in the country.
Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ANOTHER REALLY tasty and ubiquitous Portuguese dish is their Piri-Piri chicken. If you like chicken, you would love this. It is actually just their own variation on a pretty common preparation; a spatchcocked whole chicken is grilled or broiled after the chicken is marinaded in a Piri-Piri pepper sauce. Originally discovered and grown by Portuguese explorers in Portugal’s former Southern African territories, the piri-piri (or peri-peri) pepper is a chili pepper. Like most chili peppers, piri piri is descended from plants from the Americas, but it has grown in the wild in Africa for centuries. It is pretty spicy, but the sauce is probably mild in comparison to a few other well-known varieties. One measure of “heat” for peppers is the Scoville scale. The piri-piri measures between 50,000 – 175,000 heat units on the Scoville scale. For comparison, the jalapeno measures between 2,500- 8,000 units. Cayenne measures between 30,000 – 50,000, while Habanero is between 100,000 – 350,000. But it is really, really good. We ate it at a highly recommended local family restaurant just outside the old walled city in Evora. Being seaport cities, 3 of our stops (Lisbon, Porto and Lagos) had a plentiful and good variety of seafood. I love seafood – especially shellfish – and prawns were always on the menu and generally fresh, large and very good. Usually they were prepared the Portuguese way, sauteed in garlic and olive oil. I am not one of those guys who shoots and posts my food all the time, but I made this image for my son, and decided to include it here as an example of the wonderful seafood we encountered in Portugal.
Prawns (piri-piri chicken in the background) Algarve, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]OTHER FOODS appear to be more regional. While you can find them all over, they tend to be specialties of the regions and best when enjoyed there. In Lisbon, I fell in love with Bifanos, a popular street-food. They are a very simple sandwich of marinated and tender pork on a crusty roll. Most eat them with mustard. The best ones had very tender chunks of pork that were juicy and melt-in-your mouth. Unfortunately, in the tourist restaurants and often restaurant in regions other than Lisbon, the pork was often dry and sliced. But if you get to Lisbon, here is where to get the best. And don’t necessarily believe everything you read in the comments. We ate at one of the other highly recommended Bifanos spots and it was touristy and the sandwiches o.k., but on the dry side and sliced. Sardines are also considered a great delicacy in Portugal. My only problem with them is that in most places, they are not fileted, and bones are no fun to pick around. But Bruce ordered them a couple times, and he didn’t have any problems working around them. On our food tour we stopped at a place known for small bites appetizers and had the sardine taste shown below. My comment: “interesting.” 🙂
Sardine Small Bites Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]SANDWICHES DO not appear to be a real popular thing in Portugal, for the most part. They do have hamburgers and the bifanos. Most of the eating establishments offered what I often call “big food” (more like entrees) and/or appetizers on their lunch menus. But sandwiches? Not so much. Except for one huge (literally) exception. Porto is know for its Franchesina sandwich and it is always on the advice-list: “you have to try the Franchesina when in Porto.” I wanted to try it. Our travel mates did two and they split one. My wife didn’t have any desire, so I “had” to order my own full one. 🙂 I couldn’t eat it all. I struggled through 1/2 and probably should have stopped at 1/3. Good? As they say on line: OMG!. There are variations, but generally they are comprised of bread, several kinds of meat (usually heavy meats like pork belly, steak, bacon, savory sausages), cheese, eggs, and a tasty sauce. They are usually served with a generous side of French Fries. The translation of the name is “Little French Girl.” But as you can see from my plate, there is nothing small about the sandwich. It is essentially a Portuguese (Porto) variation of the French Croque Monsieur. But oh, so good! My own advice: plan to split one with at least one other person.
Franchesina Sandwich Porto, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]IN THE south, another traditional food (of Spanish origin, but Portugal’s own spin), is Migas. In Portugal, Migas is traditionally associated with the Alentejo region in Southern Portugal, It is a “hash” made from leftover bread crumbs that is seasoned and cooked. Garlic and olive oil are always an ingredient. Other ingredients such as pork meat drippings, asparagus, tomato, and seasonings such as red pepper paste and fresh coriander are usually included in the Alentejo version of this dish. We had it as one of our choices from the menu in a Tappas restaurant in Lagos, in the Algarve. I thought it had a wonderful, smoky flavor, and reminded me of stuffing. It is apparently a popular breakfast food and is commonly served with eggs. I can see that!
There are no Sacred Places anymore. 🙂 All the wonderful food in Portugal and I am very proud to say this is the closest I ever got to McDonalds! But I love the Jacaranda blooms [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]CODFISH IS a staple in the Portuguese cuisine. They are 100’s of ways to use it, including in soups and stews, Broiled, and in my favorite: codfish cakes. The Portuguese call it bachalau. So the codfish cakes are bachalau pastiche. I like fish, but generally cod is not on my favorites list. Too dry for me. The pastiche was just right for me. Ironically, with all the wonderful, fresh seafood caught locally on a daily basis, cod is not among the catch. The cod is caught either in the far North Atlantic (Nova Scotia and Newfoundland) or in the North Sea off the U.K. Because of the distances and time, it was traditionally salted down and dried to preserve it. It is still done that way in Portugal today. To prepare it to be edible, it must be soaked in fresh water (and the water changed frequently). Depending on the salt content, it may soak for hours, or for even days. The accompanying photograph is dried cod, which just sits out on the shelves of the market. Can you see that food was a central theme of the trip? We started in the evening of our first day, and pretty much didn’t stop eating the entire trip! But food was not the only component. We had a driver pick us up at the airport and he gave us a 3-4 hour tour of the city. We kind of saw the “high” (again, literally in some cases) points.
Dried Codfish Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]ON OUR arrival in Lisbon, we started with a tour/overview of the city we would be spending the next several days in. Our first stop was the famed Belem Tower, and then moved on to the Monument of The Explorers. Both are, well, “monumental,” and impressive. For early season, there were lots of people around. I found the Explorer Monument particularly challenging to photograph, at least from the viewpoint of being on the ground next to it. I only made one image that I though was a “keeper,” and even that one doesn’t represent what I think of as my best work. But seeing it is pretty amazing.
Monument of the Explorers Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]OUR DRIVER next took us across one of only 2 bridges that cross the Tagus River as it flows into the Atlantic. To the east is the Vasco Da Gamma Bridge. We didn’t really see it. The main bridge is a more traditional suspension bridge that crosses over to Almada, a relatively large community, which is home to many commuters to Lisbon for their daily jobs. The bridge and a ferry system are essentially the only way the two are connected. Fortunately for us, both crossing over and back were done during a time that was not “rush hour.” Our driver told us that commuters often spend an hour each way crossing this bridge. On the other side we went to Sanctuary of Christ the King, a monument which overlooks not only Almada, but the entire area, including across the river to Lisbon. The view is dramatic. I made some wide images of Lisbon, and of the bridge, including a container ship making its way into – presumably – the Port of Lisbon.
View of Lisbon across the Tagus River, from Christ the King Monument [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved] Almada, PortugalKEEPING THE spirit of the topic of food, at lunch time, our driver took us to a trendy spot (it turns out only a few minutes’ walk from our motel) and dropped us off for a bite. The place is called Time Out Market, which is a food hall (we refer to them as “food courts” in the U.S.). Originating in Lisbon in 2014, the concept has since gone national, and since 2019, similar venues have been opened in Miami, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Montreal. Lots of good and interesting food, but the place was a zoo. There were not places where 2 couples could sit together. We ended up getting a sandwich and splitting it and sitting outside on a bench in the little park across the street. There was a small kiosk selling drinks that was associated with Time Out. A pretty nice park. One of the first things we noticed in Lisbon (and it would continue throughout Portugal during our trip) was the beautiful purple blossoms of the Jacaranda Trees, that seemed to dominate the landscape everywhere.
The much smaller, outdoor version of “Time Out” Food Court Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]WE FINISHED our tour in mid-afternoon, at an impressive church, up on one of the hills. Lisbon’s city-center is in a valley between two low mountains or hills. The hills are very steep on both sides. The good news there is that from up those hills there are wonderful viewpoints (the formal ones known as miradouro in Portuguese) from which you can see – and if you are like me – photograph the city with great perspectives. The bad news? To see the views, you have to go up the hills and that is a daunting task, even for reasonably fit people. I remember our first trip abroad, to Venice. For those who have been there, there is zero vehicular traffic on Venice’s streets. You walk everywhere you want to go. We spent 3 1/2 very full days doing that and I still remember how much my legs told me they needed a break when we finally sailed away on our cruise ship. Now factor in very steep hills. Legs, knees, feet all were talking to us a couple days in. But it was worth it, and during the week we actually learned about a couple local “shortcuts” (elevators) up some of those very steep hills.
Church Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]O
UR DRIVER dropped us off at our hotel, which was right in the heart of the old city. We got situated, and then met for a celebratory drink and some food along one of the many outdoor restaurants just outside our door. The next day was planned pretty full. Mid-morning, we were to meet our guide for the walking food tour, about 10 minutes from the motel. That evening Bruce and I were going on a walking night photography tour. More to come ……
Lisbon, Portugal [Copyright Andy Richards 2022 All Rights Reserved]
LightCentric Photography Blog 