Travel Photography vs Photography While Traveling. What is it that you do? Well, for me, it’s photography while traveling. I’m no “travel photographer.” I’m just a guy that likes to take photos and I especially love to do it while traveling with my family. I’m not talking about pulling out my phone and snapping off shots nearly indiscriminately. I like to put a little thought into it. I don’t mean creating some elaborate plan and setup, but just a little thought.
Travel photography is a discipline in and of itself and good travel photographers are an amazing lot; talented, observant and dedicated.
But you don’t have to adopt the approach of a dedicated travel photographer to make images while traveling that are taken to the next level beyond snapping pics of the family, Mt. Rushmore or whatever. Just put a little thought into it and, preferably, get those with whom you are traveling to get on board; especially if it’s family, and you can make pics that are a bit beyond “snapshots.”
In August of this summer we traveled to central Idaho where I was born and raised. We love going there to visit family and to take in the amazing scenery. One day we took one of our favorite drives going through the rugged wild country of the Salmon River. We drove through McCall, over the mountains and down onto the main Salmon River and finally to a little town called Riggins. Amazing, wild country. After driving over the mountains and landing on the river we wanted to find a spot on the river to soak our feet, eat a picnic and just hang out. Of course, me always traveling with a rudimentary lighting setup: a couple of speed lights, stand and umbrella, I set up a bare speed light on a stand got my wife to hold still for a bit.
I threw on a 3 stop neutral density filter so I could stop up to get some blurry background, popped off the flash to fill in the shadows a bit and got this. I love this shot because it really captures the whole day, the wild country and, well my wife. There’s always that.
A couple of weeks earlier we were in driving around on the central California coast; perusing the Pacific Coast Highway. We visited a wine tasting establishment in Cambria, California and met some amazing people and had a great visit. Think about it, driving around, hitting the wine tasting joints, meeting new and amazing people.
Because I almost always have my camera with me, I got this shot:
No, this isn’t some awesome composition. It’s noisy and not technically perfect. So what. It tells a story and captures a really great memory for me. I like it because it shows my wife and son having a great time. But for someone looking at who wasn’t even there, it still shows story which takes it to a level beyond a snap shot.
This photo, from the same trip is from the Sand Dunes near Pismo Beach, California.
Again, this isn’t technically perfect as I forgot to check my camera and needlessly shot it at ISO 640. But I definitely feel that this is a far better shot than just taking pics of this awesome place. Keep in mind that I’m talking travel/vacation pics. A good landscape photographer would have a hay day at this place. But for family travel, this is the kind of shot I’m talking about. I just asked my wife to “stand there, look there,” snap a pic and call it good.
The point in all of this is that just the most minimal of effort and forethought can, I think, lead to travel/vacation photos that are a bit above and beyond.