The photography we do requires us to do a great deal of travel by road. Many locations are better accessed by road, especially with the large equipment load we need on mining and industrial photo shoots.
We often choose to drive even seven or eight hour trips rather than fly to save the hassle of transporting gear by air then transferring to hire cars. It’s always nice to simply load up the truck with everything we think we may need rather than scrimping and cutting back on gear with flight restrictions in mind.
One of the things I love about this is that we get to see many places that we would otherwise never get to see. Needing to get to a remote destination often takes you through places that most people, especially tourists, would never dream of bothering to travel to. This all works out wonderfully in line with my travel preferences. Whenever I travel on vacation, I deliberately avoid all the tourist sights. It’s a feeling that I don’t want to see what’s put on show, I rather want to see the places that most others never get to. A lot of our locations are in areas that are very far off the beaten track and don’t have definite destinations that would cause anyone to go there unless they have business there, or at least a definite purpose.
I’m not saying everyone should visit these sort of places but I do think if gives a wonderful insight into how real people live their lives beyond the cities and the tourist traps.
There is also great beauty out there that never gets seen by others and in a selfish way I feel I get to claim these experiences as my own.