Tips For Documenting Your Next Trip Abroad
Congratulations — you’ve just booked an international trip, yay! Now comes the excitement of planning out your travels and dreaming up all the photo spots you may encounter on your foreign journey. After all, documenting your trip is a proven way to ensure your memories stick with you forever.
There are usually two common outcomes when it comes to documenting trips. You will possibly be too caught up in the moment and forget to take many photos (this happens often), or you might return from the trip with an overwhelming abundance of pictures and not know which ones to post first. I’ve personally resorted to #TBT’s to counteract not posting enough of my pics. Thankfully, there is a middle ground, and the following tips will help you fall into this median while documenting your next trip abroad.
COMMIT TO A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT
A big mistake many travelers make is not packing the proper equipment for their trip. What a shame it would be to approach a majestic waterfall only to find that your smartphone cannot capture the entirety of the cascading falls. This is not to say that smartphone cameras cannot take quality photos. In fact, their cameras have improved immensely over the past few years, and they certainly are a convenient device to carry on your travels. I never travel light, but I do prefer to walk around with compact bags. However, if you are wanting higher-quality photos or a lens that can capture wider scenery, it might be better to bring a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex camera). You may even decide to bring a drone for some of your travel scenes if you wish to capture images or videos from a bird’s eye view.
Whatever you decide upon, it is necessary to commit to one or two pieces of equipment prior to your trip. Once you’ve done your research on the type of activities you will be participating in, and you’ve got an image in your head of what you want to capture, it would be helpful to decide on your equipment especially if you are low on luggage space. Choosing your gadgets ahead of time will save you room in your suitcase and will give you less to lug around while exploring.
TAKE A VARIETY OF PHOTOS
As long as you have stocked up on your memory cards, have sufficient cloud space and have extra chargers with you, there is no harm in taking as many photos as your heart desires. You will thank yourself later for having more options to choose from, especially if you are documenting your travels for professional purposes. Sorting through photos is a task you can keep for later, rather than trying to sort through them while photographing your whereabouts. Instead, stay in the moment and look around for new perspectives and angles you can capture with your camera. You will never be upset with yourself for gathering more photos than needed. In short, more is more!
ORGANIZE AND EDIT EACH NIGHT
After a full day of exploring your international destination, you may not even want to think about organizing your photos once you return to your place of rest. However, you will find it much more manageable to edit your abundance of photos if you organize them each night. You may have had someone take loads of photos of you in front of a café. While it is good to have an abundance of photos to choose from, the evening is your time to narrow those down. You’ll find it is not necessary to keep the 15 photos of you sitting at that streetside café, especially if the most significant difference between those photos is how the wind was blowing your hair at the moment. Instead, choose one or two photos out of the entire batch and delete the rest. If, like me, you don’t believe in the delete button, then backup but delete from immediate view.
Once you’ve narrowed down your photos from the day, it would also be wise to edit those while you have the chance. Editing on the go will help you clear any unnecessary used camera storage and prevent photos from piling up. Rather than returning home with an overwhelming amount of photos to edit, using your evenings to edit these photos will enable you to stay on top of your content and have a quicker turnaround rate if the images need to be given to a third party. Thankfully, creating or buying presets makes editing less time-consuming, which will allow you to get to bed at a more reasonable time after a long day of traveling.
After returning to your home country, you may still have a few photos or video footage to edit. Upon completing these tasks, you will be ready to share your incredible memories from abroad with your loved ones, on social media and with any brands you may have partnered with. Besides storing and sharing the photos digitally, you can also print pictures for a gallery wall or make an old-fashioned scrapbook or start collecting for an album or autobiography.
This article was originally published on CwyMandindi.com
