THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE TRAVELING AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
Exploring the world as a photographer is a dream. In and of itself, traveling is a dream, but traveling with your passion makes this experience even sweeter. Traveling the world is that one cliche dream that everyone has and we all know sentences that start with “When I retire…” the truth is that you don't need to have lifetime savings or retire to make this dream happen but hey, let’s talk about how you can accomplish this goal in another blog post.
As a photographer getting involved in different cultures, capturing different lifestyles in unfamiliar environments is a fascinating experience. You have a limited amount of time to explore, capture, and enjoy the moments, and some of the things I suggest may save you stress or time.
The Camera Bag.
I was on the last minute flight that was booked for me to arrive from Toronto to Germany to start a 20 day journey through some of the best spots in Europe. Several hours into the flight, I was excited, as always...I can never sleep on a flight. I’ve reached into my backpack to grab my laptop and find my external drive to get through some non-client edits throughout the flight. Everything was so nicely placed in my bag, I’ve taken my external drive out and zipped up my bag, and; oh no! The zipper broke. It was only closing to a certain point.
Sometimes you get hit with the most unexpected things in life, and I had a problem that I needed to solve, so I solved it by ignoring it. Let’s say there wasn't much I could do.
Long story short, despite this bag being known for durability and quality I still had a broken bag that had no use for me throughout the trip. Gear protection and practicality was out the plane window. Most days I needed to make compromises on my gear choice and throughout such a highlight moment of my career I would have loved to have all my gear that I brought rather than eliminating depending on the journey.
2. Choose the right travel partner.
“Are you done?” “How many shots are you going to take here?”
Fortunately my most recent travel experience has been free of these questions or comments. It will haunt you for life if you hear these questions even once. If you are planning a trip with a photography or content focus, make sure you only include like-minded individuals in your journey. That is only fair to you and to your travel partner. If you as a Photographer want to be in Paris capturing the Eiffel Tower from absurd angles while your travel partner has already taken their selfie with the Eiffel and wants to head over to Champs-Élysées and bite into a delicious croissant that is not their or your fault. They want to do tourist things, which, my friend, is normal. Draw the line clearly and surround yourself with like-minded people, since pressure or stress could totally ruin your creative flow. It might be a while until you revisit those spots again, so create an environment that is not stressful to go the extra mile when necessary. This is your career.
3. Be a tourist.
There is a time and a place for everything and a photography or a creative trip should have a bit of exploring and taking a minute to soak everything in. Driving through the Swiss Alps I noticed I was just worrying about the shots I was getting; while capturing these shots my imagination was taking over about how everything would look edited. I realized something, I was only noticing my surroundings through the viewscreen of my camera. I lowered my camera and turned it off. I grabbed my not so warm coffee from the car and took a deep breath. This was a moment I manifested for a while, so I soaked in the moment. Swiss Alps looked great, 3 hour old cold coffee was not so great. It is perfectly okay to focus on creating and being creative when traveling, but it is equally as important to observe the culture, be in the moment and just relax for a minute. Your images will connect with other senses while telling the story of where an image was captured.
4. A Good Way to Use Social Media.
We all probably use Instagram. Some might use it on a professional level, some might treat it as a hobby and some might just be posting pictures of their dogs a few times a week. If you are planning a photography trip it might be helpful to connect with local creators before you travel. You can have a conversation with them about the places you're visiting. You could make these social friends pretty easily.
This is where hashtags come in, hashtags like ; #romephotographer, #eiffeltowerphotography, #canadiancreatives, #ukphotographers
These types of hashtags can connect you with local instagrammers or at least give you ideas for some different shots in the places you are going to visit, you can find some secret spots too. If you are meeting a local instagrammer, be safe!
