Month: October 2018

5 Tips to Bring Home Great Travel Memories

Use these tips to improve your travel photographs.

Do you love to travel?  Of course and when you do, I bet you have at lease one camera with you, whether it’s a smart phone, a high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera with at least one lens or something in-between.  You bring your camera so that you can capture the memories of the places you visited and experiences you had.  And with a little bit of advanced preparation and thought, you can bring back pictures that are even more memorable and that enable you to relive some of those fond moments.

Where are many tips that can be given about travel photography.  Here are five that I think you will find very useful.

1. Be Prepared

Advanced preparation can dramatically enrich your travel experience,  And this can lead to more meaningful photographs because you have a better idea of what you will encounter and what to look for.

Often a big trip is a powerful excuse to convince your partner you need a new camera.   But don’t make the mistake of dashing out a week before you depart to buy it.  Rather, purchase it at least a month in advance, preferably two, so you have time to become familiar with it.  Learn its features and how to use them to improve the quality of your pictures.  Practice so that they start to become second nature.  Even if you already have a camera you’re familiar with, purchasing a new one, even one of the same brand, is often different enough that the things you normally do with your old camera have changed in the new one. You don’t want to be fumbling around with camera settings as a fleeting moment passes you by.

Another good thing to do before you leave is to read up on the areas you’ll be visiting.  Get a sense of the history and culture.  Become familiar with the architecture.  Look at photographs.  Discover events that may be going on while you’re there.  The more you know about your destination the more you will see and experience.

By all means, take selfies in your favorite places but don’t stop there.  Take city tours to get an overview of a city but then go off the beaten tourist path to see the people as they really live.  Eat in restaurants that cater to locals.  Maps can be a great help in preparing for a more wanderlust adventure.

Another good idea is to keep a travel journal.  Jot down the places you visit, dates and times and the impressions you have. This can be a big help when you’er going through your photographs after you return home.

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Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 3

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

I’m on a three-day scouting trip to photograph the central coast of California from the Sonoma Coast north of San Francisco down to Santa Cruz to the south.  I am preparing for the 2018 Central Coast and Napa photography workshop.  The first two days covered the coast north of Frisco. Today would continue south, picking up the coast at Half Moon Bay.  You can read about the first to days here:

Unlike the prior day where I didn’t roll out of my sleeping bag until 8:00, this day the alarm was set for 5:00.  That’s more consistent with what I’m used to when photographing.  I arose in the dark, took a quick hot shower and broke camp as silently as possible.  When I left the campground it was still dark.

Gleason Beach, which I had photographed the day before, grabbed my attention in the morning light and I had to stop for it again.

Gleason Beach Morning

These two sea stacks that hadn’t impressed me in the afternoon stood out in the soft morning light.  As with the first two days, there were occasional splashes of large waves.  But, from this distance what impressed the eye didn’t impress the camera.  So I was more intent on photographing the patterns made by the surf after the waves broke.

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Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 2

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

I’m continuing a three-day photography scouting trip along California’s Central Coast.  I’m preparing to lead a group here in November for the 2018 Central Coast and Napa Valley workshop.  In the previous post (Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 1), I was joined by a friend and we covered the north end of the Sonoma Coast.

Today is the second day and I’m on my own.  I enjoyed the company yesterday but today will be a more typical experience.

I started out by sleeping in.  It was almost 8:00 when I finally rolled out of my sleeping bag and emerged from my tent to a blue sky.   After yesterday’s overcast and foggy start, this was good news.   A quick breakfast and a hot shower and I was ready to go.  This day was going to cover more mileage than the day before but with fewer stops.

Gleason Beach was the first.

Gleason Beach

There were some sea stacks at this stop but they didn’t stand out.  The severe gash in the cliff that led down to the cluster of sea stacks just off shore, however, was far more interesting. I timed the shot to get two concentric rings of surf which added the grace of curved lines to an overall rugged composition.

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Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 1

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

It wasn’t long ago that I spend three days along the California Central Coast, scouting good shooting locations for the upcoming Central Coast and Napa Valley workshop.   I’m very familiar with the Big Sur coast but this was my first real exposure to the Central Coast north of San Francisco.  And I am excited with what I found.

My base of operations was the Schoolhouse Canyon Campground, a privately owned campground just east of Guerneville on the Russian River.  Clean, quite – I couldn’t have been more pleased.  But on with the photography….

The plan was to start to the north and work south over the next three day’s.  I was joined by a friend the first day which started out overcast and foggy along the coast.  That’s not a huge surprise as this area is still susceptible to the marine layer in September.  But, in this line of business, you work with what you got.  The first destination was Salt Point.  It’s hard to find because there are no marked turn-offs, just a sign saying you’re entering and another sign a few miles up the road saying you’re leaving.  So we overshot it.  And I’m glad we did because we came upon a creepy house that was falling apart.

Creeph House

My friend suggested framing the house with moss hanging from the tree.  That was the perfect touch to give it the macabre feeling we were feeling,  And the overcast sky provided the perfect light.

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