Personally, I cannot travel without a camera. Manias that we have? I love exploring new landscapes, capturing colors, portraying people and their customs.
On my last trip to Vietnam, I came across some tips related to the topic that I would like to share with you in today’s article.
- 1) Choose a “photogenic destination”: A “serious” photo journey requires that the choice of destination be based on the photos you want to take.
- Almost always when we chose a travel destination (vacation.
- Etc.
- ).
- We do it according to different criteria.
- And we only remember the photos at the last moment.
- When we packed.
- If you want to enjoy a good travel photography.
- Try to choose your destination according to the type of photos you want to take: unspoiled nature.
- Desert landscapes.
- Local markets and ethnic customs.
- Etc.
- Find out before making a decision.
- Are there specialized forums and websites where you can find itineraries and photo trips recommended by other photographers Are you impressed by travel photographs featured in guides and magazines such as the National Geografic?These photos were not taken by the photographer during his vacation.
- But quite sought after and premeditated destinations beforehand.
2) Avoid overly tourist destinations: In a correct travel photograph, tourists cannot appear in the background. The figure of the tourist that appears in the background pollutes the essence of the place we represent. Sometimes there are a lot of tourists who completely spoil the panorama. My advice is to avoid such destinations or at least try to go in low season, so that you can enjoy some quiet moments.
3) Get up early (then go back to sleep): when you get up early, you will find natural (and urban) scenes that you couldn’t even imagine, really, some landscapes that look ugly and uninteresting throughout the day become photographic attractions real at dawn. This is due to the soft effect of sunlight during sunrise. Getting up early also allows you to get different images of what others are doing: deserted and empty streets, markets that open and close early, etc. : for this advice to be “possible”, it is essential that you think at night that you are going to get up early, and above all that you have the idea that after a moment of photography, you will go back to bed a little more. that’s what I do: I get up very early, do a photo session, and calmly return to regain strength for the rest of the day. If you don’t do it like that, chances are good that you can ‘Do you wake up at dawn and that everything will be a frustrated intention?
4) Choose a good backpack: Choosing a good backpack to carry your camera and especially the objectives you are going to use is essential for the correct development of a photo trip, if you use 2 or 3 different lenses, you risk going crazy: whenever you need it To change your lens, you will waste time looking for a place to hold the backpack , open it with one hand while holding the camera strap with your teeth, remove the lens with your other hand, try to pick up the other lens from the backpack?Oh, the lens has the sunshade, you have to drop the backpack in order to handle the lens. grrrrrrrr !!The most frustrating part. A good backpack will help you organize your goals and make them easily accessible. Think about it, investing in a good backpack can be a bit of an expensive investment, but it’s worth it. It’s one of those “secondary” things that help improve our photographic experience and will therefore impact the final photo we take.
5) Tripod . . . Yes or no ?: There is no single rule here, the use of a tripod may be necessary or totally unnecessary and only you can know. If you are going to take a lot of landscape or night shots, I recommend you bring a tripod (here are some tripod recommendations), even if it is small, because of the stability, balance and control that a tripod gives you. Let’s not go there to get another way. Also, if you travel with a large suitcase, it is easy to store the folded tripod in it. On the other hand, if what you are going to photograph the most are people, portraits, daily life in the markets of the city, then you may not need a tripod, in which case it is better. do not take it because it would bother more than anything.
6) Stolen portraits: what would travel photography be without these portraits of the typical faces of the indigenous inhabitants? This type of portrait must be spontaneous, without the person noticing. Hence the name “stolen”. To achieve this type of portraits, it is advisable to anticipate a little, use a lens with a long focal length (between 100 and 300mm for example) that will allow us to photograph from a distance without the knowledge of our subject. It is also advisable to choose a place that is frequented enough to have a good number of potential subjects and settle there for a while. Note: Before doing this exercise, it is advisable to know the particularities of the country in question. In some countries, photographing women is frowned upon and can lead to complications.
7) Make constant backups: During my first photo journey (Berlin, 2008), I committed the madness of filming the whole trip with a single memory card. On the penultimate day this terrifying phrase appeared on the camera screen: “You can’t read the memory card. Do you want to practice?” My whole trip had been ruined because I had made two mistakes:
And one last tip: change the chip. If you want to do travel photography in a serious way, you have to start thinking about it in another way: when we are on vacation at the beach house and we have the camera nearby, we can take occasional photos with friends, family, aunt, dog, etc. , but a photographic trip means going a little further: it means completely planning the trip around the photos that we are going to take, it is studying the itinerary, looking for photos as an example or inspiration in forums, blogs and social networks. Networks like Flickr, does it mean searching, asking questions, seeing if the destination in question offers better photographic results in summer or winter, preparing the necessary equipment and sparing no effort?
Yes, that’s a big drawback, but is the end result more than rewarding?