Outdoor/Travel

More than his perspective changed; there were also adjustments to the way he worked. "I had to shoot first and ask questions later. Usually I keep the cameras in the bag and walk around for half a day and just get the feel of a place. But on this trip as soon as I'd walk out of the airport terminal, I had my camera ready to go--in Egypt there was a band of drummers and dancers performing for us outside the terminal. I had to be ready to shoot at any time. I'd be eating lunch, and all of a sudden there'd be musicians coming out and playing, and that's a shot. It's not the contemplative, ideal way to work, but I got used to it. It trained me, and it brought me back to my newspaper days, when I had no time to think of anything--it was just grab what I could grab. The important thing I found was not to rue what I'd missed but to celebrate what I could get."

India

He kept his gear to a minimum: two Nikon D200 bodies, three zoom lenses--12-24mm, 17-55mm, and 70-200mm--and an SB-800 Speedlight. "I knew I couldn't go back to my hotel room and take anything out of the hard case and put it in the shoulder bag, so everything essential went in the bag." The hard case at the hotel held a spare flash, a D70s body, a few smaller, lighter zooms as backups, and a small, lightweight tripod.

With the adjustments made, the rest was pure photo opportunity. "The advantage of this trip is that it's National Geographic and very high-end," Bob says, "so things happened that never happen when I travel alone. In Egypt they actually opened the Temple of Luxor at night and had it all lit up for us. Now, ordinarily no one opens the Temple of Luxor and lights it just for me."

Australia

That kind of access comes at a high price. "Private Jet Around the World" passengers paid $46,000 each for their seats on the plane. "I know there's the question, is this travel that enriches or is it just a Whitman sampler of world culture? I can tell you that these trips draw people who are really interested in being educated. The long plane rides are filled with lectures from the top people in the field. It's not a cruise-ship mentality, not like where they spill people out and the first thing they want to do is buy T-shirts. You've got people who, by the time they landed in Morocco, had detailed lectures about the country's archeology and history. The people on the tour were highly intelligent and highly motivated to learn. They just didn't have that much time, and most of them preferred to travel with other people who were as serious as they were.

"But there is still that element of being at a cocktail party in Palm Beach and saying, `When I was at the Temple of Luxor last week....'"

Which is the kind of thing that only travel photographers usually get to say.

Note: Bob's website, www.bobkrist.com, features information about his workshops and books as well as a gallery of images.