Jack Hollingsworth

I was on the road almost nonstop during November and December last year, shooting in exotic locations like Tobago, Barbados, and the South Pacific. I shot for Tobago tourism and several luxury villas, plus for my usual mix of travel/lifestyle stock. Along the way I saw tons of tourists and vacationers—well, hundreds at least—and what I realized as I watched them taking pictures was...

I’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.

They’re people like me—professional photographers, and I see them at shows and workshops, drop in on their conversations on web forums, and exchange e-mail with them. Problem is, what they talk about, for the most part, is the business. And while the business is a real concern, it’s not what I want to talk about.

Once in a while the idea for a column comes with a little help from my friends. This one did. A writer I know, viewing photos I'd taken on a recent trip to India, said, "You know, you really have a way of handling backgrounds. You should write about that in one of your columns."

My first thought was, do people really need more advice about...

When I started out, I was strictly a travel photographer, and naturally I tended to see and depict people according to the demands of the market. I'd often be in a place that was new and different, and I'd be seeing people whose lifestyles and culture were different, even exotic, and it was my job to bring to the market images that reflected and revealed those...