Connecting with Place & People: Traveling the World with a Leica

Keith Sbiral

Keith's photography started at a very young age when he got his hands on a Kodak Instamatic 126, followed by a Kodak VR35 K12 automatic, and eventually a Canon AE-1. He rolled some B&W film and used a Pentax K-1000 to learn about light and exposure. Abandoned railroad tracks and his rural Iowa community provided the subject matter for lessons in light and composition.

A love for photography is perfectly matched with a passion for travel; over the last two decades Keith has had the opportunity to travel extensively both domestically and internationally. Recently he has traveled a dozen times in just five years to Cuba, leading photography instruction for Complete Cuba. Keith recently completed his first full circumnavigation of the globe as part of the Red Dot Blue Dot project and has visited nearly 40 countries, most of them multiple times.

Keith's current photography mixes components of documentary photography, street photography, low light photography, and travel photography. He states, “My goal is to create a genre of photography I call RedDotBlueDot Photography that combines key aspects of several well-known genres in order to connect people to each other and connect people to places. There are many photographs of beautiful places, perfect landscapes, and amazing exotic subjects. We have, however, entered an age where walls are more common than welcomes. The key to RedDotBlueDot Photography is capturing people, our environment, and the affect and effect of both in a way that connects us to everyday life and emphasizes the vast connectedness of our world.”

You can learn more about Red Dot Blue Dot at reddotbluedot.com, and more about Keith R. Sbiral at keithsbiral.com