I am a travel photographer because I love travel and I love photography. I get to travel to amazing places for a variety of reasons, so photographing these places is a logical extension of my life. I love photography because it is the only way I can express my creative self. My mother was a talented artist and my sisters inherited some of that talent. I inherited an appreciation for art, but not the talent. Hence I need a crutch in the form of Nikon SLR.
Thanks to the work of Trey Ratcliff, I have become a fan of the HDR technique. Many of the photos you see on this site will employ HDR, but not all. Some purists think this is cheating, but the same folks will put an ND or polarizing filter on the front of their camera. Then they will spend hours in Photoshop post-processing their images. Somehow, this is not considered cheating. Art is the business of giving visual pleasure to people. Photography is art.
I have a wonderful wife and great kids. Meryl, my wife, writes many of my blog posts. I live in Tennessee but was raised in Africa (Zimbabwe and South Africa). We are now empty-nesters so expect many of our posts to focus on travel for empty-nesters!
I welcome feedback and would love to help you become an avid and fulfilled travel photographer.
Piers van der Merwe
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