Photos

Thank you to the many talented photographers that generously made their photos available. Photos distributed by the following:

• Flickr. Various licenses as noted, such as Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY).
• Shutterstock. Images used under license from Shutterstock.com.
• Wikimedia and Wikipedia. Various licenses as noted, such as Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY).

Text

Text copyright of Wikipedia editors and contributors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA).

Maps

Map data from OpenStreetMap and its contributors. Open data licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL).

Cover

Cover image by Bolobolo/Wikipedia.

Back cover image by .

• Front matter
  • Gallery
    • Gallery by Rank
    • Gallery by Time of Day
  • Copyright page
  • Disclaimer
• • Contents
  • Maps
  • About PhotoSecrets
  • Foreword
• • Welcome
• • Introduction
• Views
  • South Putuo Temple
    • Heaven King Hall
  • Gulangyu Island
    • Lin Qiao Zhi Monument
    • Shuzhuang Garden
    • Urban Area of Amoy from Mount Riguangyan
    • Zheng Chenggong
    • Koxinga statue
    • Sunlight Rock
  • Tong’an Confucian Temple
  • Xiamen University
    • Xiamen University
  • Haicang Bridge
  • Huaqiao University
• Back matter
  • Credits
  • Index

A great travel photo­graph, like a great news photo­graph, requires you to be in the right place at the right time to capture that special moment. Professional photo­graphers have a short-hand phrase for this: “F8 and be there.”

There are countless books that can help you with photo­graphic technique, the “F8” portion of that equation. But until now, there’s been little help for the other, more critical portion of that equation, the “be there” part. To find the right spot, you had to expend lots of time and shoe leather to wander around, track down every potential viewpoint, and essentially re-invent the wheel.

In my career as a professional travel photo­grapher, well over half my time on location is spent seeking out the good angles. Andrew Hudson’s PhotoSecrets does all that legwork for you, so you can spend your time photo­graphing instead of wandering about. It’s like having a professional location scout in your camera bag. I wish I had one of these books for every city I photo­graph on assignment.

PhotoSecrets can help you capture the most beautiful sights with a minimum of hassle and a maximum of enjoyment. So grab your camera, find your favorite PhotoSecrets spots, and “be there!”

Bob Krist has photo­graphed assignments for National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Travel/­Holiday, Smithsonian, and Islands. He won “Travel photo­grapher of the Year” from the Society of American Travel Writers in 1994, 2007, and 2008.

For National Geographic, Bob has led round-the-world tours and a traveling lecture series. His book In Tuscany with Frances Mayes spent a month on The New York Times’ bestseller list and his how-to book Spirit of Place was hailed by American Photo­grapher magazine as “the best book about travel photo­graphy we’ve ever read.”

The parents of three sons, Bob and his wife live in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Thank you for reading PhotoSecrets. As a fellow fan of travel and photo­graphy, I hope this guide will help you quickly find the most visually stunning places, and come home with equally stunning photo­graphs.

PhotoSecrets is designed to show you all the best sights. Flick through, see the classic shots, and use them as a departure point for your own creations. Get ideas for comp­osition and interesting viewpoints. See what piques your interest. Know what to shoot, where to stand, when to go, and why it’s interesting. Now you can spend less time researching and more time photographing.

The idea for PhotoSecrets came during a trip to Thailand, when I tried to find the exotic beach used in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun. None of the guidebooks I had showed a picture, so I thought a guidebook of postcard photos would be useful for us photographers. Twenty-plus years later, you have this guide. Thanks!

Now, start exploring — and take lots of photos!

Originally an engineer, Andrew Hudson started PhotoSecrets in 1995. His first book won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book and his second won the Grand Prize in the National Self-Published Book Awards.

Andrew has published 38 nationally-distributed photo­graphy books. He has photo­graphed assignments for Macy’s, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Men’s Health and Seventeen, and been a location scout for Nikon. His photos and articles have appeared in Alaska Airlines, National Geographic Traveler, Shutterbug Outdoor and Nature photo­graphy, Where, and Woman’s World.

Andrew has a degree in Computer Engineering from Manchester University and a certificate in copyright law from Harvard Law School. Born in Redditch, England, he lives with his wife, two kids, and two chocolate Labs, in San Diego, California.