Capturing Memories while Traveling
Traveling with your family is one of the best ways to make special memories. You can experience new places, try out unique activities, and have a ton of fun. While you’ll certainly make memories that will last a long time, you can ensure that you capture those memories in detail by taking some great photographs.
Of course, you’ll need to get a good camera to take these photos, but here are a few other things you can do to take the best photos to capture those memories:
Use the Right Lenses
You need more than just a good camera to take great photos. You also need the right lenses, and you need to know how to use all the equipment. Lenses affect the focal length of a photo and what you are able to capture. “What is focal length?” you might ask. It’s the distance at which the lens is able to capture the photo. For example, a 50mm lens will capture what the human eye can see, while a telephoto lens will capture farther distances much close up.
You will likely need a portrait lens, landscape lens, and maybe a telephoto lens for your travels. You’ll want to get great shots of the landscape, of your family in front of landmarks, and of far-off monuments that you can’t see up close. Make sure you bring the right bags to carry all the lenses and keep them safe.
Learn about Composition
One of the most important factors for taking good pictures is composition. You need to know how to frame a shot so that the right elements are in the picture. The Rule of Thirds is one of the guiding principles of compositions. Following this rule, you would imagine the photo being divided into nine squares. You would then put points of interest along the intersecting lines, which is where the eye would naturally fall when viewing the photo.
You’ll need to practice the Rule of Thirds to get the hang of it. Looking at numerous examples will help you visualize how it works out in practice, as well.
Use Great Photo Editing Software
Even with careful composition and the right equipment, you may not get your pictures just right. A shadow may have fallen across the person’s face right at the moment you snapped the photo. A cow may have walked right into your photo as you took it. Or the wind may have suddenly come through and flipped up a skirt or someone’s hair.
You can fix some of these things with photo-editing software once you get home from your trip. You can adjust the lighting, take stray items out of a photo, or adjust coloring, among other things.
Preserve Your Photos
Once you’ve put all that work into taking great photos, ensure that they are preserved for posterity. You can print the photos out to put in physical scrapbooks or albums. You would need to have the photos printed on quality paper and put them in acid-free books so that they have the best chance of maintaining their quality in the long term.
Save your photos digitally by putting them onto a cloud server and a hard drive. You should always have them in at least two places to minimize the risk of loss. You don’t want to have them all on a hard drive, for example, and then the hard drive gets wet or has a malfunction and you lose everything. By having them in two places, you can keep them secure. Regularly update your backup to ensure you have the most recent files.
Traveling with your family is a great way to make wonderful memories, and you can preserve those memories for a long time by taking great photos. Get a wonderful camera that you like and then practice a lot to learn how to take the best photos. Learn about basic photography concepts and get a good photo editing program to produce professional-quality photos. Then develop a system for backing up and enjoying your photos for the long term.
