By definition, a travel photographer is going to do quite a bit of travelling. In an ideal world, all our flights would be on time, and our connections would connect - and our luggage would travel on the same plane as we do.
But we don’t live in an ideal world and sadly, post 9/11 security checks have made travelling even more complicated. Anyone travelling regularly with cameras, lenses and computers has developed all sorts of strategies to deal with the new regulations.
The advent of the budget airlines has revolutionised travel for most of us, but the downside of the cheaper fares has always been that the service is more susceptible to delay and cancellation than that offered by the mainstream carriers. This was brought home to me forcibly last week when, out of the blue I received an email from Sterling to tell me that my flight from East Midlands to Stockholm (booked last October) is not flying on the day that I want to travel. Usually my travel plans are pretty flexible, but there are two assignments this year that have been fixed for over twelve months. The trip to Stockholm is one of them.
I wasted a whole day trying to re-book my flight. Ryanair had a flight, but to an airport a long way out of the city, and their weight restriction on carry-on bags make life almost impossible for the professional photographer. Some budget airlines also have a sneaky way of adding extras to the cost, and those ‘cheap’ tickets are then sometimes quite expensive. Eventually I found a flight with British Airways for only a few pounds extra than the cheap flight. It goes into Arlanda, the main Stockholm airport, and there are even free refreshments on the flight!
So that is now all settled, and I can look forward to several days in Sweden where I will be covering the World Dog Show.
















