Xairete!

New travel photographers are always coming in here and asking for advice; which tripod to carry, what camera will capture the bears, how do you change the aperture on the new $5000 camera they have bought. We oblige by supplying the answers; the lightest one you can get away with, anything with a long lens, and don't change it...you'll never manage to get it back on the right setting...

Of course eventually they learn their own lessons:

First they get the spindly tripod and shaky pictures and then they take the heaviest tripod they can manage...and get good pictures and a a bad back.

They get a long lens and a short camera and try to take bear pictures from half a mile away. After they see the results they go out and bait a tree with a side of bacon and take pictures with a wide angle and a macro. And the bear follows them home and lives in the guest bedroom for a month.

And eventually their finger slips, the aperture dial moves, and they are launched out into the wide world of photography.

Now I can offer real-time technical advice for travellers here in Australia to ensure that their photos will be game-changing, iconic, world-beating,  judge-pleasing, classics of the visual arts. It is simple. Whenever you go anywhere foreign - Mozambique, Memphis, or Melbourne for instance, find someone whose name is Georgio, and ask him where the Greek restaurant is.

The menu may not be in English, but if you point to anything on it and ask for bread and salad as well, you will get a good meal. There will be dessert and coffee. There will be wine available. You may go deaf from the noise of other people screaming as they eat, but you will be nourished.

Note: Goat is good but composed of 92% bone.

How does this improve your photography? If you are well-fed you are content. If you are content you have a benign outlook. Your bokeh is far smoother. You do not shake with hunger, thus are able to use slower shutter speeds. The landscape is rosy, particularly after the retsina kicks in. - you do not need warming filters.

Final note: if there is no Georgio look for a Lucca. He will direct you to the Italian restaurant and you will be equally well fed and deafened, but with more of a tomato flavour.

Kalh Oreksi!