This week I am vacationing with my family in Canyon Country. I am blessed to have dear friends who are loaning us their cabin for the week, which is nestled nicely between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may recall a post of mine from last year titled, “Summer Vacation – Telling Your Story.” In the post I offered some tips on how to use your camera to capture the story of your vacation from beginning to end.
This year I would like to offer 7 tips on Photographing Vacations.
1. Homework. Before you leave for your vacation destination, do a little research about where you are going. Check out online travel guides (or in my case, the National Park Service’s web site) and make note of any special events, landmarks or other points of interest you and your family may wish to visit.
2. The Golden Hour. Anyone serious about photography knows that the golden hour occurs an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset. I utilized the website http://sunrisesunset.com to print up the calendar with all the sunrise and sunset times for my vacation location. It also displays the times for Moon rise and fall for those ambitious photographers wanting to try their skills at night photography.
3. Local food. One thing many vacationers do is seek out unique and different foods while traveling. The best way to remember those tasty delights is to capture them with your camera. You can use the camera on your cell phone. Or you can use your digital camera to move in close and fill the frame with those yummy morsels.
4. Back-ups. If you’re like most people, you tend to take more photographs while vacationing. Two important things to remember: a) make sure your camera is always fully charged and/or have extra batteries and b) you are also going to want enough memory cards to capture all your precious memories especially you’ll be shooting in RAW.
5. Accessorize your camera. I, for one, will be bringing my tripod. I will also be bringing my remote release so I can make it into a few family photos and try my hand at some night photography. And other important accessory will be the lenses. Having a variety of lenses will help you capture the details. I have rented a Tamron 18-270mm telephoto lens from LensRental.com so I can get close to where I can’t get close to. I also got a wide angle lens to help the capture the vast beauty of Canyon Country.
6. Tourist Traps. You might want to think outside the box of it comes to capturing the “landmarks”. Get creative with your composition of the landmark. Get high. Get low. Capture it from a different angle.
7. Protect your camera. Remember that your camera is susceptible to the elements such as wind, rain, sand/dust and the heat of summer so avoid these element if you can. And if you should leave your camera behind while on vacation there’s one thing that you can do to increase the chances of having your camera returned to you. Before you go on vacation take a photo of yourself holding a sign with your phone number or email address so that whoever finds your camera can contact you. This has been known to work when leaving your camera behind on vacation.
I hope these tips will help you on your next family vacation. Do you have any tips or advice to add? I hope you will add your tips in the comments below.