David Hobby is the co-founder of the X-Peditions travel photography workshops, which have a simple mission: to help travelers become more observant, thinking photographers. Over eight years leading the program, he shaped it into something rare — an experience where, as he puts it, the photographs are almost beside the point. He led the workshop through its fall 2025 session and the ethos he built carries on. Before X-Peditions, David spent 20 years as a staff photojournalist at The Baltimore Sun, followed by 15 years teaching photography online through Strobist.com — a lighting blog that at its peak reached more than 300,000 photographers a month across 175 countries and was named one of Time magazine's 25 Best Blogs. When Strobist reached its natural end, he did what any thoughtful photographer would do: kept the journalism, kept the travel, kept the teaching and poured all of it into X-Peditions. His book, The Traveling Photographer's Manifesto: A Guide to Connecting With People and Place grew directly out of the X-Peditions pre-trip handbook — which every workshop participant receives as part of the program. David has since stepped back to pursue his own adventures, which feels entirely fitting for someone who spent years teaching other people to go find theirs.

The Traveling Photographer’s Manifesto is available as an audio book and as a paperback/e-book.

All images on this page © David Hobby