Travel & The Sea by James Vodicka

 

I’ve always considered myself on the fringes of surf photography. The appreciation and love for the sea is deep within me, but my creative drive has pulled me far away from shooting shore breaks and layback snaps at the local.

 

Travel has been my key motivator. Australia alone has more than 10,000 beaches and 8,000 islands – that’s a lot of sandy coastline. Who would want to stick to the few local beaches overshot by photographers day-in day-out when the prospect of island-hopping is on the cards?

 

I wanted to explore. My passion for travel and adventure has always been at the forefront of every career decision, every client pitch and every to-do list I’ve ever written, and I think somehow it worked. Since leaving my agency job in 2018 to pursue photography full-time, I have photographed more Australian islands and underwater reefs than most people will visit in their lifetime – a reality that I will always be incredibly grateful for.

 

Travel photography is a difficult industry to break into, and my journey to this point certainly hasn’t been without its fair share of challenges and setbacks. For the first few years I was actually losing money on every travel job, I’ve lost laptops and camera gear to the frightening world of check-in baggage, and I’ve spent more time away from friends and family than most of the ‘regular’ jobs I can think of. 

 

Despite all this, I still return from each travel shoot keener than ever to begin planning the next one, which is why it feels so strange to be stuck at home in isolation. Similarly to a lot of people, the recent travel bans and border closures have turned my 2020 plans on their head. So, what does a travel photographer do when travel is no longer an option? Well, I guess step one is write a blog for Surf Visuals. As for step two, well, maybe come back to me on that one…