Taking a gap year was the most creatively fulfilling experience of my life.
My name is Mark Tytell, I'm 19 years old and right now I'm in my freshman year of college at Tufts University. Last year, I spent over 7 months traveling the world solo, and I'm here to share my story and hopefully inspire others to get out and explore.
For as long as I can remember, I've always been fascinated
by travel; from small family trips and watching travel
content online, exploring new places was constantly in
the back of my mind.
So, when I was 14 years old and first
came across the concept of a travel gap year, I decided
to keep my mind open and start saving up, just in case.
It was always more of a dream. Fast forward a few years,
after I'd applied and gotten accepted to university,
I realized that the thought of going immediately into
more school was extremely unappealing to me.
I needed
a break, and luckily my parents were supportive
(as long as I kept it to only one year). I went with
my gut, deferred my admission for a year, and bought
a one-way flight to Amsterdam.
But this is a photography website, so let me backtrack
a bit. In my sophomore year of high school, I discovered
and fell in love with digital street photography.
I'd spend any afternoon I could wandering all across
Boston, learning how to read light, shoot from the hip,
and capture the beauty in everyday life.
The thing is,
there was only so much interest I could get from wandering
the same streets time and time again (a better photographer
than me wouldn't have this issue), and soon I lost passion.
So the thought of being in a new city every couple of days,
with new streets and new subjects, was a huge influence
in deciding to go abroad for a year.
My trip started in Western Europe on the cusp of autumn:
in Amsterdam, Berlin, and then Paris.
These three cities
are vastly different: Amsterdam is quaint and quirky,
Berlin is gritty and eccentric, and Paris is romantic
and beautiful.
Yet all three have very distinct
personalities, tied together by their busy, beautiful
Western European urban environments.
I spent these first
two weeks finding my footing photographically, and
learning how to manage the routine of living life
solo on the road.
After I left Paris, I felt that I'd shaken off the rust
and was fully in the groove of wandering European streets
with my camera.
Since I was traveling by bus and train
and staying in hostels, I only had so much space in my
bags: I needed a small, light kit.
So, I shot all my
photos on a Sony A6700 and a Sigma 18-50mm F2.8.
This camera and lens combo is small enough to fit in
a hoodie pocket and easy to carry around, but sharp
and versatile enough that I never really felt like
I was missing anything.
I have nothing but adoration
for this camera setup, especially when you're living
out of a backpack.
Speaking of my camera, I quickly learned that it's
important to always have it with you, wherever you go.
After leaving Paris I found myself in Barcelona, and
after a dinner with some friends from a hostel,
we stumbled into a festival called the Correfoc de la Mercè.
This event was genuinely a photographer's dream:
actors in devil costumes dancing and waving fireworks
in the middle of the city square. In the span of
20 minutes, I captured tons of images I'm super proud
of at the expense of my eardrums.
Moments like this
do not come often, and if I hadn't brought my camera
to that dinner, the golden opportunity would have
passed me by!
After Western Europe, I spent a month traveling
North-to-South through Italy.
I could write about
Milan, Florence, and Rome, all great cities with tons
of incredible street photography opportunities,
yet the place that stood out most of all was actually
the small coastal city of Rimini; I literally stopped
here by accident, and it ended up leading to some
of my favorite images and encounters of the trip.
Street photography, for me, is reliant on my confidence
and ability to actively engage in the present moment.
Some days I'm feeling good, other days not so much.
Rimini, with its colorful houses and large fishing jetty
and sparkling Mediterranean sea, inspired me into a
spree of active, productive street photography.
I'll also shout out Bologna, another Italian city
that blew me away with its architecture and its
interactions with light.
I finished off Europe in the East, most notably Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Budapest. These cities had a much different feel to the larger Western European cities I'd spent time in at the start of my trip: more Slavic in their architecture, but still just as interesting to shoot on the street.
I have a cousin who lives in Tbilisi, Georgia,
so of course I had to make Tbilisi my final stop
on the initial Europe leg.
What a wild place
to photograph, very different from the European
cities I'd been to thus far; with its tumbling,
busy streets and its abundance of cats, every
street corner turns into a composition.
This is a city I'd highly recommend for photography,
and one I definitely plan on returning to in the future.
During the middle months of my gap year,
I pivoted and spent a while solo traveling
New Zealand and Australia. Here, I found myself
less drawn to street photography and much more
captivated by nature, and I learned more about
how vast the medium of photography truly is.
I've yet to really touch most of the genres
it contains. As much as I love street photography,
nature (and the forms of trees) were equally
captivating to me while I was here.
After Oceania, I returned to Europe - this time
to the Iberian Peninsula - because I was missing
the passion I had gotten from the European dense
city-to-city photography in the fall.
Powerful
images are those that tell a story, and it's up
to the photographer to find the way to best
represent it. Out of the many images I shot,
I felt that the shot below, in Madrid,
was the most powerful.
Finally, I took a short flight down to Morocco
and spent a week in a rusty old van with 15 strangers,
driving across the country's southeast.
Morocco is a place everyone should visit;
the bustling atmosphere of Marrakech's medina
and the mud streets of Aït Benhaddou are both
great for street photography, but I found myself
most drawn to the Sahara Desert.
Photos here
have a sense of timelessness that's not easy
to replicate in many other situations.
I believe the point of street photography is to turn
everyday life on the street into art, and capture
images that haven't been taken before, and won't
be able to be taken again.
You can find more of
my street photography, my blog from my gap year,
and even my earlier Boston street portrait portfolio
all on my website:
www.marktytell.com
.
My gap year also opened my eyes to other genres
of photography, and that's the beauty of travel:
you never know how your perspectives and inspirations
may evolve.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this article inspires you to get out of your comfort zone, buy that plane ticket, and devote yourself to a craft for an extended period of time. Don't forget your camera!
EXPLORE MARK TYTELL'S PHOTOGRAPHY MARKTYTELL.COM
INSTAGRAM: @MTYTELLPHOTO
