What Does "Exotic" Really Mean in Travel Photography?

If I had to sum up in a single word what I'm searching for when I travel, it's 'the exotic'.

The word "exotic" gets a bad reputation. People hear it and think of postcards, palm trees, and a slightly uncomfortable way of looking at other cultures. I understand why. But I think the word deserves better, because it points at something real that sits right at the heart of travel photography.

Here is what I mean when I use it.

Exotic means "unfamiliar," and that's the whole point

At its root, exotic just means foreign. Not lesser. Not strange in a bad way. Simply not what you know. A photograph becomes powerful when it shows you something you have never seen, in a way that makes you feel it rather than just note it.

A market in Algiers is exotic to me. A rainy grey street in Manchester is exotic to someone who grew up under the sun. The beauty exists because the thing is unfamiliar. Take away the unfamiliarity and you take away part of the wonder.

It works in both directions

This is the part people miss. Exotic is not something I do to my subjects. It's mutual.

I think when I'm photographing fishermen in Cambodia or an old woman in Angola, I am as exotic to them as they are to me. A bald British bloke with a camera is not part of their ordinary day. We look at each other across a gap, and that gap is where the interesting pictures live. If I forget that I am also the odd one out, the photography goes wrong. It becomes taking instead of meeting.

Exotic is not the same as staged

An exotic photograph doesn't mean a colourful backdrop and a posed smile. Some of the most exotic images I've made are quiet ones. A face half in shadow. Hands doing work you've never done. The point is the honesty of the difference, not the volume of it.

Steve McCurry is the obvious reference here, and he's the one who shaped how I see. His portraits are exotic in the truest sense: human, emotional, rooted in a real person, and completely unfamiliar to most of the people who end up hanging them on a wall. That combination is what I chase.

Why this matters if you're buying a print

When you put a travel photograph on your wall, you are inviting a piece of the unfamiliar into a room you know very well. That's the appeal, hopefully. It reminds you daily that the world is bigger and stranger and more beautiful than your commute suggests. Although I admit I've had a customer return a print before, as their partner found the larger-than-life portrait of an unknown stranger's face too imposing to hang on the bedroom wall!

At Nomad Prints, this is the thread running through the portfolio, whether it's a portrait from Africa, a temple in Asia, or a beach in Latin America. I'm not printing pretty scenery. I'm printing the moment two unfamiliar worlds looked at each other and something seemed to pass between them.

So, is "exotic" a good word or a bad one?

It depends entirely on how you hold it. Used to flatten people into decoration, it's ugly. Used to honour difference and admit your own foreignness, it's one of the best words we have for what travel photography can do.

I keep using it because I don't have a better one. And every time I raise my camera in a place I don't belong, I'm reminded that the wonder cuts both ways.