Travelling is one of the most common things that people do these days and for good reason. There’s nothing quite like taking off to a foreign land with nothing but the clothes on your back and a backpack full of other essentials to really get the feeling of being free as a bird. Of course as well, you will want to capture some of the key moments on the road through photography, so how do you do it? What’s the best way? Here are a few key tips to remember:
Waterproof Everything
Inevitably, you will run into rainy, wet weather on the road. This is why one of the key points you should consider to prolong your ability to take photographs is to keep your camera and camera equipment in a waterproof bag. If you’re planning to snorkel at all, you can also get waterproof photography bags that allow you to take non-water friendly cameras into the sea with you to get a few snaps of the aquatic life you enjoy to share with friends back home. When you aren’t snapping away, having a waterproof bag will keep your camera safe from any snafus – like your houseboat flooding while staying on a lake in India (don’t laugh, it happened).
Get to know your camera
Getting to know your equipment before the big show is a huge part of making sure you get the best pictures possible. Things like shutter speeds and exposures as well as tones can really create some amazing pictures that really capture the moment or allow you to photograph things like lightning, shooting stars or marketplaces with really cool effects.
Shoot, then select the best
When you’re standing on a beach in Thailand and watching the sunset it can be tempting to take a million photos of the same sunset because it changes minute to minute. Go ahead and do it if you want to, but if you really want to capture the majesty of the moment, select only the absolutely best ones to share with others – otherwise it turns into just a hundred pictures of a sunset with no real contrast to help people understand the moment. For example, you might share one or two while the sun is still above the horizon, one while it’s midway down, and then the remnants of the light as it fades to black – this would help convey the sunset in a way that doesn’t tire the viewer out and make them bored of sunsets before you get the point across!
There’s no shame in stopping
If there’s something you really want to take a photo of and you’re on a bike trip, there’s no shame in pulling over and taking the photo. It’s your trip, so make it yours. If you’re on a bus that’s less likely to pull over, you might consider trying to shoot the subject out of an open window – shooting through the window can create unnecessary glare which ruins the photo unless you’re really lucky!
So overall, the best tip for the most iconic photos on the road is to know yourself and your camera, and not to use up all your film or space on a thousand sunset photos – haha! Also remember – and this is one of the best pointers ever given to me – some moments just can’t be captured on film, so don’t even try. Like swimming with locals in a river in Laos, a great moment, but photos just wouldn’t do it justice. S just enjoy the moment, that’s what you’re there for after all!