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Today Peter Carey explores different photo storage options for when you are traveling.
It’s very easy today to take more pictures in a single week long vacation than ever imagined possible ten years ago. For one thing, not many people had digital cameras ten years ago and those that did had a lot of problems with ample, cheap storage. Compact Flash and SD cards weren’t as inexpensive and voluminous as they are today. And yet today, images coming directly out of the camera can regularly exceed 10MB or more.
As I see it, there are two main paths to take when a vacation is planned and the camera will be tagging along. Either purchase more memory cards or purchase a digital storage device. I’d like to take a look at both options and lay down some pros and cons to help you decide which path might be right for you.
Portable Storage Devices
Portable Storage Devices(PSD) are what their name describes; a harddrive in a case that lets you transfer storage card data without a computer, and is easy to carry around. Most of these devices a bit bigger than an iPod (you can even use and iPod with an adapter), weigh less than two pounds and range in price from $100-$400.
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Photo by margré It is time for another Digital Photography School Community Workshop. This week’s question is from Sandy who is asking for some Travel Photography advice in three
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Here’s a quick Video with 10 Travel Photography Tips. Most of them are just good basic tips for all types of photography - but for beginners they’ll be helpful.
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Photo by phitar
You’ve probably witnessed the ‘tour bus photo stop’ before. It goes something like this:
the bus pulls up at the ’scenic lookout’
40 tourists pile out of the bus
they proceed to rush to the fence separating them from the castle/ruin/coastline/authentic indigenous village
they all line up in a line and proceed to snap of 10 shots each as quickly as possible
digital cameras are passed around the group so everyone can get a shot of themselves on their own cameras standing in from of the castle/ruin/coastline/authentic indigenous village
the tour guide blows a whistle, shouts out that time is up and gets the driver to honk his horn
40 tourists pile back onto the bus
the bus roars off to the next ’scenic lookout’
I’m not knocking tours - I’ve done a few in my time and know that while it’s great to travel at your own pace that tours have some good things going for them.
However, these ‘photo stops’ do no really lend themselves to creative and unique images. I suspect most of the 40 tourists on the bus end up with pretty much identical images to one another (and 99% of tourists on every other bus that goes by).
So how can you do something a little more creative on your next tour? Here are 10 ideas that come to mind:
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Photo by spidrwegian
Here’s a quick tip to add a new dimension to your travel photography.
Look for and Photograph Signs
Last time we took an overseas trip (we travelled mainly through Turkey) I set myself the task of photographing the ‘little things’ that we saw along the way.
My hope was that in photographing ordinary, everyday aspects of the countries that we were travelling through that I’d capture the essence of the country.
One thing that I was drawn to photograph as we travelled was signs.
Of course I didn’t exclusively photograph signs - I took all the normal shots of people and sites along the way - but signs were a definite theme and ended up being a feature of the album of photos I showed friends and family on my return.
I photographed Street Signs, Shop Signs, Advertising Billboards, Town Signs and more.
Why do I like signs as a subject? A number of reasons come to mind. Here’s a few:
Photo by Bright Tal
Signs give your photos context - I used my sign photos like headings in my photo album. Each new phase of our trip was marked in the album with a sign so those viewing my photos knew where we were.
Signs can be interesting subjects - I found that as I travelled that the signs themselves were often interesting subjects and said a lot about the place that they were in - ie whether the place was a modern or traditional one, whether it was a touristy place (often featuring lots of English) or whether it was a little more authentic (in the local language) etc
Signs are universal yet individual - I loved comparing and contrasting the signs from different countries. On one hand they can be incredibly unique to a location but on the other hand they can often be quite familiar and surprisingly similar to what you see at home.
Signs can be humorous - some of the funniest things that I’ve seen on trips have been on signs - whether it be a language difference humor, something that someone’s added to a sign, humorous billboards or a misspelt sign - the funny ones can add character to your collection of photos.
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An observations of fellow travelers that I made on my last trip was that most of them seemed to focus on the ‘big picture’.
When the bus would pull up at a tourist destination they always seemed to step as far back from the scene before them in an attempt to fit as much as possible into the shot. This happened whether the scene was a landscape, a building or almost any other subject.
The results of their strategy was that they ended up with lots of great pictures of distant things.
One of the aspects of travel that I enjoy to photograph the most is the ‘little things’.
While I do enjoy the beauty and challenge of capturing the grandness of the massive architectural structures that seem to be a magnet to tourists I’m aware that much of the beauty of architecture is often in the details.
A prime example of this are the many cathedrals that we saw in Europe on our last trip. They obviously have a sense of awe and mystery associated with them as a result of their size but take a closer look and a photographic wonderland reveals itself ranging from fine details in stain-glass windows, to the amazing faces of gargoyles, to tomb stones with interesting inscriptions, to the pattern of tiles in mosaics, to wrought iron door knockers and fittings to the detail in statues, crucifixes and paintings.
Similarly the details of many other types of buildings and structures reveal other small details that make them what they are and that often say a lot about the region you’re traveling in.
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