How to share your travel work without looking like an amateur

If you have a personal project gallery on your website, are you guilty of having a list of place names?

EGYPT
TOKYO
ALASKA

It sounds so exotic and farawayish…but actually- does it?

Nope.

To advertising creatives, it’s like landing on a Getty library or yet another amateur travel bloggers site. And that is at best boring, and at worst terrifying.

Before you know it they’ve scurried onto the next website leaving a smattering of desert dust in their wake, without so much as opening the project.

Why?

Because people in the ad world are always hopping on and off flights to far flung places to oversee photoshoots and TV spots. And if not, they’re paid well enough to go themselves (probably with their fancy camera). They are often very well travelled and I personally know some who roll their eyes at getting on yet another plane to another destination for the next job.

This is always dependent on where they’re based (and why you should always try to understand your specific target audience), but in general, here are 3 super important things you should know about making and sharing ‘travel’ personal projects:

Unless you’re literally an editorial travel photographer don’t use the word ‘travel’ as a category name, especially in the ad world.
Give every personal project a title that creates curiosity and earns the click. Don’t tell them where it was shot. Make them want to discover it.
Plan beforehand and find something that resonates with you personally about the place. Then create a project around that. (OK so it’s Alaska, but what do you want to say about Alaska?)
Consider looking for common themes in your personal travel work and recreating projects with an international theme, one which transcends place. You can read more about being an international photographer here

Your opinion matters much more than your itinerary, especially now.