The ridiculous story behind this photo
Taken in Paris with the ridiculously large Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens © Joe Newman
I’ve had to learn some things the hard way.
Like the time I rented a premium wide-angle Nikon lens for a trip to Paris — the kind of glass that makes the cognoscenti nod respectfully and everyone else wonder what’s up with that lens? It was a marvel. It was also roughly the size of a bowling ball. The thing weighed 2.2 pounds.
I’m still not sure what I was thinking when I rented it, because I only ended up carrying it for a day. I don’t think the photos I got with it were even that good. I probably would have done better with something a normal human could carry.
That lens was, perhaps, the first step in my evolution as a traveling photographer.
So were the chargers that couldn’t keep up, the bag that didn’t quite live up to the hype, the jacket I left at home because it was too bulky. Lessons learned. They’ve directly shaped the less-is-more philosophy behind the travel photography workshops we’ve organized for the past 10 years. Traveling light, being less encumbered, and the confidence that comes with it, is something we don’t take for granted.
One of our top priorities is making sure our workshop participants arrive prepared. Not just passport-and-visas prepared — actually ready for the heat, the jet lag, the 4 a.m. market shoot and the moment the rain comes in at blue hour and you have 30 seconds to decide whether to keep shooting or take cover.
That’s why we created a detailed handbook that goes to everyone who joins one of our workshops. It grew out of years of our personal experience leading trips to Vietnam — everything from visas and vaccines to things like knowing which apps to pre-load on your phone before you land.
We’re still debating whether to make the full handbook available as a download. But while we ponder that, we wanted to at least share some of the stuff we keep in our personal travel kits. (Yes, another gear list.)
It seems like everyone’s got a gear list these days — most of them conveniently linked to an affiliate program that pays out every time you click through and buy something.
This isn’t that.
Our Stuff We Love page is exactly what it sounds like: gear that we have personally used, on real trips, in real conditions. No affiliate links, no sponsored posts, no products that arrived in a box with a note asking me to say something nice. If something hasn’t fully earned its place yet, I’ll tell you. First-hand knowledge only.
We wouldn’t expect anyone to replicate our entire kit recommendations. These are just our honest thoughts on specific items you might already be considering for your own setup. Maybe you're looking for a multi-port charger and are unsure what you need. Maybe you're working through rain coat options. These are things we’ve put to the test and can recommend without hesitation.
That said — we’re not naive enough to think we’ve found the best version of everything. There’s a lot of gear out there we haven’t tried that likely performs just as well at a much better price, or solves a problem we didn’t know we had. We plan to amend this page as needed, adding new things we try and like and taking things off that no longer make sense.
If you’ve got something you swear by, we want to hear about it. We’re always up for checking out something new.
