Posted by cucicov in 
Although spring has barely started, some might decide to take some leisure time away from work, for a day or maybe a whole week-end. It is always a good idea to have a camera with you, so that you can share the impressions with your friends or just back-up the memories. But how can we take the right photos to catch the vacation atmosphere ?
Go ahead and ‘google’ the place you are visiting, so that you find out about interesting places to photograph. On Google Earth you can explore photos from that place, so sketch a route of the places of interest and make a basic plan about what you want to visit.
In case you have a DSLR camera, I would suggest, for the lens, something in the range of 17-50 mm or 24-70 mm. These will do just great with the landscapes, portraits and urban sites you’re visiting, without making you carry a lot of equipment. It is a good idea to have some extra memory and batteries, so that you don’t happen to see the Big Foot and run out of battery just before taking the first pic.
Some lens suggestions:
Tamron AF17-50mm F/2.8 Di-II LD Aspherical
Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC Macro HSM
Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM
When you take photos of people smaller than you, get down to their level. It is especially important when photographing children, so you get their real face expression and smile, and also don’t make them seem even smaller in the photos. Watch the background - pick a nice one, you don’t want buildings or trees growing out of your models heads.
nice portrait with the model on the first plan, you can also see the Tower quite well
Try as much as possible to get close to the people you are photographing; it isn’t cool to see a photograph where the Eiffel Tower is in full height and the character in the photo is a dot somewhere at the horizon. Close-ups are also more interesting to look at, and to make them even more attractive, try to catch the moment: improvise, shoot under different angles.
Group jump is a largely used technique, however you can always get good result with it
Come with something different than the usual ‘cheese’ for group photos, and take some real smiles from your models.
It is best to shoot portraits on cloudy weather, as the light is soft, while on sunny weather is recommended to take landscape pics.
The clouds work here as a natural studio soft-box and provide a soft light - it’s perfect for the portraits.
When photographing landscapes, try to make them not look like standard postcards - look for the unusual, fill the photo with other elements, like people, or make a depth of field ‘game’ with things like trees, bushes or anything you have under the hand.
For the portraits, shot on a sunny weather; try using a flash - it eliminates the hard shadows on the subject .
The flash fills in the normal sun shadows and highlights nicely the model’s face
And for the all photos - try to create art, rather than just pressing the shutter like a mad, without giving a simple thought on the final result.
First of all, when you take a photo and do not like how it looks on the camera screen - erase it ! There is small chance that you will like it better on the computer screen, and it saves you time when you have to sort the hundreds of photos you’ve taken. Later, when you already have them on your computer - make a selection of the best photos and erase the duplicates or the ones with a bad quality, you don’t want to fill your hard drive space with useless files.
When you share the photos on the internet, try to make an even smaller collection, of about 20-25 photos, because people usually get bored by viewing a big amount of photos, especially if there are series of similar ones. It is a good idea to write a description at least for some of the shared photos - tell what happened or your enthusiasm about what you’ve seen, it helps people understand better your experience.
That’s about it, have a great vacation !
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