The secrets to great travel photographs

Great travel photography captures the essence of a place, its culture, landscapes, and people. Here are the secrets to achieving stunning travel photographs:

1. Research Your Destination
2. Travel Light
3. Master Lighting
4. Plan for Composition
5. Capture the Local Culture
6. Tell a Story
7. Include Human Elements
8. Experiment with Perspective
9. Use the Right Settings
10. Embrace Spontaneity
11. Respect Local Customs
12. Focus on Details
13. Shoot in RAW
14. Be Patient

Bonus Tips:

• Stay Curious: Explore backstreets and lesser-known spots for unique images.
• Pack Smart: Keep a microfiber cloth for cleaning lenses, especially in dusty or humid environments.
• Wake Up Early: Avoid crowds and catch serene moments.
• Learn Local Phrases: Knowing how to say "hello" or "can I take your photo?" in the local language can open doors.

By combining technical expertise with a genuine interest in the places and people you visit, your travel photography will stand out as a rich and authentic representation of your journey.

I hope you enjoy the podcast

Graham

It's time for another podcast...

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:17

Hello again, and welcome to the podcast. Now what I thought I would do is run a series of podcasts that take more of a deep dive into different types of photography. So I put a shortl list together and I've got 21 different types of photography. So I probably won't be going into every one of them over this short series. But I'm definitely going to dive in a bit deeper. So the idea behind this really is that with any kind of photography there are the basics. And it's really important to know those before you dive into any kind of niche area of photography. And as luck would have it, I know somebody who's put together a great photography course and it's available online and it assumes no knowledge at all. So you can jump in and go from knowing nothing, going from zero, to being able to very competently and confidently dive into any one of these niches. So that of course is my online courses. So one of them is for smartphone photography, the other is for DSLR and mirrorless. And if you haven't had a look, please take a look. And they're all on my website. And ah, would luck you'll find that if you go to www.ge.photography and it shall all be there, laid out before you. So with these different niches, what's the point of diving into specific niches? Well, there's a couple of things really. Although there are a lot of things that are in common or that different niches have in common, there are also specific things to bear in mind when you're doing different types of photography. So in this podcast I'm going to focus on travel photography. Now this may not be something that you do yourself, it might not float your boat. But the reason for listening, I hope to all of the podcasts ideally, and diving into or looking at areas that you wouldn't normally get involved in. So you might not be into travel, you might not be into landscape, you might not be into sports photography. But what I found is that when you do dive into a different discipline, I find you kind of come at it with your eyes open. So when you're doing the thing that you normally do, it's kind of like getting on tram lines, you're sort of kind of cruising and you go through set routines. Now this is speaking personally, you might disagree with this, but this is what I found anyway. So doing the same thing day in, day out or with all of your photography is one particular type you tend to get not in a rut. But you're definitely on these sort of tram lines. And every now and again it's good, I think, to stop, step back and maybe approach things from a different direction. And the best way I found of doing that is to look at a different discipline, a, ah, different photography discipline. Listen to what the recommendations are for that, the kind of things to think about. And I found almost pretty much without exception, I'm just trying to think of an exception. It's made me just step back from what I normally photograph. And there's always something that comes up that I can incorporate in my normal style of photography. So that is the background to, doing this. And also you might be really into travel, so that's all good. So first of all, what is travel photography? Well, to me it's when you go anywhere that's not your normal kind of haunt, the places you normally hang out. And one of the real benefits I think, of doing this and learning about travel photography is it means that you can look at where you hang out through new eyes. Just go to, your hometown, whatever it is, the kind of places you go regularly, but look at them as if you were a traveler arriving in that place for the first time and think about how you approach new places. What do you do? Do you at everything? Do you look at, buildings? Look for history of buildings, the hints of history in buildings, landscapes, what's in the background, all these different elements that kind of get us to start to see a place as it really is. And I think there is real value in looking at places that you see every day, particularly if you've grown up there and just look at them through the eyes of somebody who might be visiting. So what are the kind of things to think about? Well, one way of thinking of it is to capture the essence of the place. Now, I often talk about being a visual storyteller, so definitely that is very relevant to travel photography. And in fact, one thing to think about when you approach a photography is to approach it with the end in mind. What do I mean by that? Well, how do you plan to use the photographs that you're taking? Are you going to drop them onto social media? Will this be, Instagram? Will it be a Facebook series? Will it be something else? Or are you hoping to get that really iconic shot of somewhere that you've wanted to visit for maybe many, many years and that photograph gets, printed on your, gets printed and put on your wall somewhere? Or maybe you're going to put together a travel Book something that you share with friends and family, or it may be something that you, once sell commercially. So each of these kind of endings, if you like, or final destinations for these photographs have or place a different emphasis on how you shoot. So it can be the format you're shooting in. So I was shooting Raw because that gives you, the maximum flexibility. And in fact pretty much all of the things I've mentioned, how I use my photographs, so I shoot for the format, the end result that requires the most detail, the biggest format. So do have a think about that. And this amazing online course I've spoken about goes into that, a lot more detail. But this also is something to think about when you're doing your photography. So a great thing to do is to do a little bit of research before you go. Now the chances are when you're going somewhere, you're going there because it's a place you know of, even if you don't know, from having been there before. And, because you know that there are certain reasons why you're going, certain aspects are drawing you there. So a good thing to do is to do a little bit of research before you go. And that will just include things like the view, landmarks, different viewpoints. Have a look at, perhaps the regular tourist photographs. I used to love, going when I get to a place, I'd dive into a news agent or a tourist office, something like that, and just have a look at the photographs they had on postcards, because they're obviously selling those. And what I tended to find was there would be certain views that kind of encapsulated the place. And I just work out where those views were taken from. I might even buy one or two postcards and just go back to a hotel room with, a map and work out where they were taken from and perhaps look for variations I could do on that particular photograph. So that's the first thing. Just understand landmarks, things that you will want to come back with as photographs. The culture is important, so local traditions. There might be festivals that are on while you're there or that you might want to take part in. there might be aspects of how people live that really do capture the place. And these can be day to day. So a great thing to take, I think visually are, things like markets. If you've got a lot of produce, say a lot of fruits or fish, things, like that, they can be visually very interesting and when it comes to composition, so I'll talk about that later, but you can get These really interesting compositions from just everyday things light the stalls in markets. So check that out, have a think about where you can go. presumably you've got a limited amount of time and not everything's on every day. So a little bit of research can help you to prioritize what you need to do. Another thing that I like to do when I visit city for the first time, it's not always possible when you get away from cities but a lot of them these days have these sort of hop on, hop off city tour buses. Or you might not be able to do hop on, hop off. But sitos are great and I tend to go to them on my first day or first afternoon, whatever. Normally they're an hour or so. you need to check if there is such a thing where you're going and then how long. But what I find they do is they tend to take in the main tourist spots and also you will get a bit of a commentary on history around that point or the significance of these places. And quite often I found that there are little details that I'd missed and these little tools kind of bring them out so I can then decide where I want to go for the rest of the time I'm there. I might use hop on, hop off if that's an option because it's just one way of getting around. but it may be that I get to from using other means of transport. But it's a great way of getting a bit of a heads up whether it is another important thing to consider not only for whether or not you need to dress for rain, but obviously the weather will impact the light and what kind of light you've got. So while bright sunshine is great for bringing out colors and it's nice and warm and all those kind of things, can also find that you've got quite a hard light, particularly in the middle of the day. So shadows tend to be very hard. You'll go very quickly from sort of bright to very, very bright, very dark. Whereas if you've got more of an overcast you've got a more even lighting. So depending on what it is you're photographing, that might be a, ah, better sort of lighting situation to be running with where you've got a more even light. And also things like rain could be great because you can get really atmospheric shots by photographing in rain, particularly at dusk, things like that. So have a think about that. Have a think about the kind of atmosphere you Want to capture? How do you want, what sort of field do you want your photographs to have? So bit of research, travel light, I always recommend that. So just bring what you need really and that will be what you need to stay mobile, to take a backpack. But I don't really like to carry much more than that. You may well find that you can get away with if you're using a DSLR or a mirrorless camera that you can get away with the body in one lens that might be a short zoom, something like 24-70mm, 18-135, something like that depending on what you've got and the kind of camera you're using. And always remember that the chances are that you own a smartphone and smartphones are great. So treat the camera part as you with your regular cameras, keep the lenses clean, that kind of thing. So it's good to have a microfiber cloth, something just maybe some cleaning fluid to keep the glass on the lenses as clean as possible. But always remember that in addition to your, I'm going to call it the main camera, that's how I think of mine. But there's also the smartphone and if you're want to do street photography and that will be another one of these kind of niches that I'll talk about later. the smartphones are really good because you can be really anobtrusive by using the smartphone whereas standing there snapping away at people with a DSLR or a mirrorless, you're a little bit more obvious. other things to carry around. Do you want to carry a tripod or do you need extra batteries or memory cards just to keep you going? I'm a big fan of wiping cards before I travel anywhere. And for me I tend to use the memory cards for acquisition on the camera but not for long term storage. And I like to take a laptop with me. And also I've got a couple of very light solid state drives. There are a couple of one terabyte drives that I've had for a few years now and they're normally with me. So what I will do whenever I stop shooting for the day is to back up everything off the camera onto the laptop and then back up off the laptop onto these solid state drive so that I've got at least two backup sets of images on the solid state drives. And because they're really small and light, they're very easy to sort of keep with me. If you want to keep one with me, you can use them. They really take on aircraft as Carry on, there's no big issues there. So it's a great way of having a reliable backup, by having that kind of device to hand. the other thing is portable hard drives. So solid states are a little bit more expensive. I haven't checked the prices recently. When I bought mine, the one terabits were the biggest I could get and they were relatively new. So they were quite expensive compared to the portable hard drives. But depending on what your budget will allow, think about an external hard drive just to attach to your lapt a laptop, but one that's a bit more ruggedized so that it will take a little bit of bouncing around. Okay. lighting is the other one. Now I've already mentioned lighting in terms of weather, but also think about golden hour. So golden hour is that hour before sunset, that hour after the sun has risen where you get these lovely oranges. The sun's quite low so you get these lovely warm colors if everything is working for you. And of course you've also got clouds. So if you're shooting a sunrise or a landscape or a view of maybe some well known landmark use clouds. If you've got good cloud cover, but with breaks so that the sun's coming through, you can get some spectacular sunrises and sunsets. So one of the things to think about is getting up early and just being ready to go. Maybe head out before dawn, find a spot where you can take some photographs, go out before dawn, grab some photographs and then go off and get breakfast somewhere. Ah so it's a great way of starting your day. blue hour, if you're not familiar with that is the hour just after sunset and the hour before Sunri. So it's that sort of pre dawn light which again is really atmospheric. And the same with post sunset. You get into that hour where the sun's gone but you've got there's still quite a, of light there. And as well as using your camera, your main camera, think about using your smartphone because smartphones because of the technology can get you some really good photographs as well. as I've said, the other thing to be conscious of is harsh light where you've got really hard shadows. But again you can use those. So always remember there's no kind of rights and wrongs. Generally speaking, at least in photography you can use light to, it will give you a certain look, certain feel and if you're telling the story of a place and as I said, when I talk about visual storytelling. It doesn't have to be a long story. It can be quite short. But you really want to capture particularly the things that are characteristic of where you're going or at least the time of year when you're going. So grab everything is the really short answer. And if you take lots of photographs, then when it comes to kind of curating them at the end, when you get back from your trip, you're likely to have a lot of material you can sort through and tell stories with. So I'd always recommend taking, a lot of photographs. Obviously, composition is a very key point of how you take in your photographs. So, rule of thirds is one that is a great place to start. In fact, it's a very good composition technique. Think, about how you're using empty space. Because all of this contributes to the feel and the story that your image is, delivering. Usually, you'll have things like leading lines. You'll have things in the foreground, things you can use to frame the image. So there's lots and lots of options when it comes to compositions. So it's always a good idea to have a few in the back of your mind. And again, by researching photographs before you go, it can give you some ideas about maybe time of day for certain shots and how you're going to put them together, how you're going to introduce leading lines. For example, when it comes to framing, you've got look out for things like arches or trees or anything that's just there that you can bring into the shot to just give it that, extra depth. so that anybody looking at that image can connect with it more than they would without that framing. I'm a big fan of framing photographs where I can. I think it makes images a lot more interesting. And, once you start thinking about what you can use to frame, you'll probably find there's quite a few, options. Usually when we travel, we're looking at, local culture. Often. Well, I don't know. Mean, certainly the places I go, quite a lot of people I know would never go there. I tend to. I like going to places that are a little bit off the beaten track. So in some ways it's more important in those situations to tell the story of the elements that make up that place. So I could kind of break those down really, to people. Primarily, it's people and landscapes, then what the people are doing. So I've already mentioned markets. So with people, it could be the clothing, the way they dress just the way they interact. If you can get candies, that's great. But I think a really important thing here, and I kind of stress this a bit, is to always respect where you are and respect local customs so there can be the legal side of what you'photographed. So in a lot of people, a lot of countries, it's illegal to photograph government buildings. So again, when you're doing your research, just check what the rules are for photographing in different places because you don't want to get hauled off and spend time in prison as part of your trip. even though, although they'd probably take your camera from you, but you don't really want to come back with a set of photographs taken your prison cell. So do check what the rules are. In a lot of countries when people are in the street, the kind of fair game. so, candids are okay, but always remember, in some cultures, they have certain beliefs around photography and people don't want their photograph taken. when I talk about street photography, I talk about how to approach people to get their photograph. And certainly in Western countries it's generally not an issue. And people can be quite flattered that you wanted to take their photograph. But always ask first. I always give, them my card, because I'm a legitimate photographer. And, if they wish, they can give me an email and I'll email them, a copy of the photographs. They've got it so they can use it. but it's about connecting with people. And I think one of the nice things about photographing people you don't know is you can make that connection. And it's just a nice way of connecting in a deeper way with the culture that you're visiting. So think about that. But be very aware of the rules around photography where you're going. So do what you can to research that and also respect people's beliefs. And if people don't want their photograph, then I absolutely respect that. I do know people who will just take photographs anyway. To me, that's quite disrespectful. And particularly, I found this in countries where there's a lot of poverty. to me, when tourists take photographs, a lot of it is these people become curiosities. People can go home to, they're relatively wealthy, the, place where they live and, share these pictures of these sort of quaint people in this place they've just visited. And again, if it's out of the way, that tends to happen more often. But, you've got to remember these people, they liveiving their lives. This is the reality of their lives. And I think it's really important to respect people and where they're at. If you're lucky enough to live in a wealthy country and if we're traveling, probably we are to some extent, even though we might not feel particularly wealthy, but relative to how other people live, I think it's important to remember that. And these people aren't curiosities, you, they have all sorts of problems going on. They might be the kind of problems we never even now deal with. So just treat people with respect. I think that's really important. I've already mentioned things like markets, but obviously you might have festivals going on. so again looking at time of year, the best time to go think of festivals for. But again, respect people. Now if it's something where people are dressed up in costumes and stuff like that, you'll probably find there's no issue at all with taking photographs. In fact they'll probably love it. But it's always good to make sure. And one of the best ways is to just talk to local people. If you've got either a local guide or even in a hotel where you stay, if there's somebody can give you a little bit of heads up on how people are where you are, that can be very helpful too. So you know, chat, make connections with people and just you connect people I think like it when you make an effort and you likely to get more help from them as well. Maybe you might get little tips or heads up that other tourists don't get because they're just doing their tourist thing and local people really, although seea tourists is useful for the economy, perhaps they're not that welcoming otherwise. In fact I'm just thinking there, places in Europe, Spain in particular where they're getting a bit fed up with tourism. So be very sensitive to that as well that you might not be especially welcome by certain people in certain areas as a tourist. So I've spoken about keeping the end in mind and I think this particularly applies whether it's social media or a photo book. But do tell a story and if you're telling a story, just think about how you're going to structure it. So it could be like a diary, a day by day thing or it might be an area that has some particular history to it so you're perhaps walking through in a particular order. The way you're looking at things, however you're approaching it, if you are telling a story, presumably that story will break down into different chapters. It's good to have what I refer to as link photographs. They'll take you from one chapter to the next. So it might be somebody walking out of a building or walking into a building. Just as an example of how you might do that visually. But have a think about how you can put together ``rt of this visual story of the place that you're in. you might have certain types of event together. So for example markets, maybe urban scenes together. And then going out in the country and see what's there might be another one and then the beach might be another one. So whatever it is, but give it some thought because that also will to some extent drive the photographs you take. Particularly if you are recording specific link photographs when you're putting this all together in terms of people, I think people, if you can photograph, is ah, a really good way of introducing a new place, a new culture. some people are happy if you pay the money. If it's more touristia, if you take pictures of them. I certainly done that. If you can get people in the picture with other things to provide scale or just some idea of whether it's a busy place or it's very remote and you might want candid pictures, just people doing their everyday thing. I love looking at particularly older pictures of particularly place I know actually. But you know the kind of thing where you've got a picture of a, a particular town Cent Centre 100 years ago, that sort of thing. So it's interesting to see just what's there. If it's 50 years ago, what sort of cars are being driven, how people dressed, what sort of thing they're doing. Is it really busy, is it really crowded? What are the buildings like? Ah, how much has a place changed? So all of these things are more of a kind of documentary, type of photography. But again they also have a place. So again, if you're telling a story they may well have a role to play. Now I've spoken, just diving back to the photography a bit more on the composition. Think about your perspective. So a lot of people just shoot from head height, the way you would normally see things as you're walking. But if you're a bit more switched on, you'll be looking for other ways to capture a scene. So it might be to get down low, which might allow you to bring in some object in the foreground which just creates interest to the shot or maybe tells more of a story. Or you might find somewhere where you can get a higher viewpoint where you can maybe look down on a street and see what's going on. So think about changing your point of view and maybe using things like reflections. they can be very helpful as well and they might give you more creative and more interesting photographs. So think about how you can use those different elements and build them in. Obviously when you are photographing you need to think things like depth of field, how you're using aperture, your shutter speed. Do you want, to capture motion? Something might be going on where you want to actually freeze it. Or you could create a more kind of ethereal feel by using a slower shutter speed. Just either prop the camera up somewhere or have it on a tripod and do a long exposure with people walking through a street. Things like that, you can get. Again, they're more interesting, they're different sort of photographs. And again, to me that's what it's all about. So know your exposure triangle. And once you know your exposure triangle, you then got access to all of the creative options that your particular camera gear can provide you with. And then you're limited really by your imagination and how you use that, camera. Another thing is just be ready. Be ready to catch scenes as they happen. You don't know. it's always good to be ready to go. So always make sure you've got your camera with the right kind of settings and probably have it in your hand while you're walking about. do be aware though, just from the perspective of not getting either the cameras stolen or being hassled too much by locals. In some places, if you're walking around with what's perceived as an expensive camera, that can make you a bit of a target. So just be conscious if that is the sort of environment you're in. And you might need to be a bit more discreet about how you're using your camera or maybe just use your phone. because the last thing you want is to get into any sort of trouble locally. Whether it's having something stolen or even getting into an unpleasant situation. All of those things are good. to bear in mind, one tip I had actually. this was more with, ah, just being hassled by street vendors in one particular place. And it was quite a poor place. But, I'm white, I stood out a bit and people just would not leave me alone. And I'll be polite with people but it just became tedious and in the end the tip I got was to take a photograph of them and just say, look, if you don't leave me alone, I will go to local police and report you. Now I've really got no intention of doing that but, I'll chat to people, I'll go along with it. But if you're in a place for a few days and you're just getting here all the time and you might have other things going on. So it's not always the ideal. So look, it's just one little tip to bear in mind. Another great one, another great thing to think about. And I got this from working with we observers and Shane and Collins. So if you know we're observers and you're in Sydney, do look them up. And that's just to look at details. And this also applies particularly, I think if you're photographing where you live, maybe as a way of just practicing and getting in the habit before you go away. But look for details. Look at things you walk past every day and are there small details there that everybody misses? And one of the things that in fact Shane pointed out to me, I'm pretty sure and this was in Circular Keyay in Sydney. There's a lot of ferries there and people use ferries every day to go to and from work. So you can imagine when people are knocking off. Well, even the tourists, a lot of tourists use them as well. So it's basically a very busy place and you've got literally thousands of people going through every day. And there were some railings, at the end of the wharvess and if you actually took the time to look at them, you'd see in a certain place there were little dolphins in there. So it's just stuff like that. They're kind of fun. It's nice to spot these things and you could even and put it out as a competition locally, you know, who can tell me where these are without giving too much away about where they are. So do have a look. another place I like to look when I'm in cities. I remember this in London is just to look up a little bit. So don't approach everywhere eye level, just look at what's one or two floors above. And you might find all sorts of interesting things. So do be very aware and focus on details in terms of what you're shooting. always shoot in raw. So I've covered that again talking about where you're planning to use the photograph. But my recommendation is to always shoot in raw. Shoot the Largest file type that you can, or the largest file size. Because if you do decide that you've got a picture you really like and you want to blow it up so that you can put it on a wall somewhere, the bigger that original image is, the better. And if you've got raw, it means when it comes to post processing, you've got a lot more options and you can get a much better result if you switch to jpeg. look, JPEG is fine in as much as you'll probably get more of them on your memory card. But remember, JPEG is a compressed file format. And what that means is that in that compression process, a lot of the detail in the photograph gets dropped in order to keep the file size really small. So if you are going to try and do some editing on the photograph, editing on a JPEG is definitely not ideal. You're going to see a lot of artifacts. Anybody who knows anything about, photography can immediately tell whether the original, that was used as a JPEG or if it's raw. it's quite a big difference. So, always shoot raw. Shoot the largest file that you can. I think, just the other things are to be patient. So if you can't get a shot one day, just go back and have another go. It may be that the weather isn't right or something else is going on, but yeah, know, be patient and also work with whatever's in front of you because you might find things that other things you hadn't thought about. So I remember going to Singapore once now. I really wanted to go to the Raffles Hotel because it's kind of, one of those landmarks. And when I buzzed down there, the whole thing was boarded off because they were doing major renovations on it. So that was a bit disappointing. But it did make me go for a walk elsewhere and I found some really interesting things that I hadn't talked about. So stay curious wherever you are. I guess to recap slightly, be smart with your packing. Be smart when you're out and about. if you've got a backpack, keep it on your shoulders. or even keep it in front of you so that zips and things people, if you're worried about people getting in, they can't do it without you seeing. again, cameras, it's best to have them sort of around your body so that people can't just grab them if it's that sort of environment. But do just be very conscious. Be sensible about where you're at and what the, the Dangers might be, do think about getting up early. you'll likely to get some more interesting photographs. You might also avoid the crowds. And, I personally like that. I'm not one for crowds. And I guess the final tip is if you're going somewhere where they do speak a different language, just learn a few phrases. I use, an app called Deep L on my phone. And, it's one of the better translators. And one of the things I like about it is that it will just record your voice. You just speak into it in your normal language, and then it will translate what you've just said into the other language and it comes out as a text. And obviously you can get other people to talk to it in their language and translate the other way. So these days it's, a lot, lot easier to visit and ask questions and understand and be understood in countries where you don't speak the language than it was a couple, certainly a decade ago and definitely 20 years ago. So you're not sitting. You don't have to take a little phrasebook or anything. It's nice to learn a couple of phrases. You know, just hello, good morning, good evening, all that kind of thing. Learn how to order a beer or a coffee, whatever it is that takes you fancy. But I think most locals, appreciate it when people do take, do make a bit of an effort to meet them, use their language, just be polite to them, that kind of thing. Because unfortunately there are a lot of people, a lot of, tourists out there who are quite arrogant and frankly, rude. And you can understand why some people really don't like tourists. If it wasn't for the money, they probably wouldn't let them in at all. Okay, so that is it for this podcast. So I've done a little bit of a dive into travel photography. Hopefully you've found some useful takeaways in that. As I say, if any of the things I've spoken about like, exposure triangle or depth field or anything, and then the technical things are not making sense, then do go have a look at this really good course, even if I say so myself, but check it out. it is there. It will teach you everything you need to know. And I think that's really important because once you do understand the fundamentals, then you are off. And, you can really enjoy your photography, get as creative as you d like, and, I think just have a huge amount of creative fun with your photography, with your camera gear. So do have a look at that. And, thank you for listening to the podcast. I will speak to you on the next one. Bye for now. Well, thank you for listening and, just before I go, I wanted to let you know that I'm running my first live webinar for, almost a year and that's happening on the 26th of February. So it's happening in the evening, French time, but it will be recorded. So if you can't m make the live, webinar, you can definitely, register and listen to the recording. You can also send me questions if you're not going to make the, live event. So all the details are on my website and, you'll also find the event listed on Eventbrite. So please take a look. And, I'll be really talking about how to think like a wildlife photographer. But of course that planning and the approach is pretty much the same for, quite a few other types of photography. So, thanks for listening and hope to see you or hear from you on the 26th. Bye for now.