Ryan and I in Columbia, 2018
My #1 tip?
Appeal to all 5 senses. You can't go wrong. And the best camera to take with you is whatever you have! iPhone is just fine. It's more about capturing the essence of your travels and ending up with a cohesive, colorful collection. To make the person who's viewing them feel connected to the place and like they were there with you. Here's how...
sight (duh)
It's easy to take a beautiful scenic, but make sure you're in it too -- even just to prove you were there or more importantly to show scale. Years later when you're [hopefully] flipping through your printed album of photos reminiscing about your amazing vacation that you invested so much time and money in you'll appreciate the fact that you're in the photos. You'll never look as young again as you did that time on the beach! I have never ever regretted in hindsight having a photograph of me in a swimsuit. Because the truth is - I just keep getting older and bigger. lol
these are our friends Chad and Lindsay in Jamaica >>
taste
Be sure to capture your meals. I don't know about you, but I don't eat cool food like this everyday. The photo above was my beautiful eggs Benedict with these teeny tiny super sweet and potent cherry tomatoes. I always find myself ordering this at a restaurant (especially indulging on vacation) because hollandaise is so damn tricky to make from scratch.
sound
I could have chosen so many different pics to depict sound (various street performers, laughter, clinking glasses...) The clanking of Roger's big catch of the day, though, won out.
from our trip to Canada, 2019 >>
touch
There's a lot to say about this feeling.
You could think about capturing textures (sand, the rough surface of an old boat, condensation on a glass). You could think about touching your favorite travel companion.
In this case, I chose this photo to highlight the sense of touch because I'll never forget how stinking HOT and HUMID Panama City was and how excited we felt when we found the one and only restaurant with air conditioning. We sat in there for hours and drank local beers and our bill was only, like, $50 bucks.
<< our friends Amy and Greg in Panama, 2017
smell
They say smell is the strongest sense tied to memory and boy do I believe that. And every destination has it's own. The beach = salty. The country = freshness. The city = a melting pot of cooking smells (and sometimes a strong whiff of sewer). Just be sure to snap a pic of all the things that your nose picks up.
Northern we caught in Canada. Tasty! >>
and a few more general tips...
evoke the feeling
Whatever your happy place is to unplug (in this photo it was 10 moms gleefully escaping their children for a long weekend in Florida!) be sure to capture the feeling.
details! details!
You know when someone takes the time to do something special. Snap that.
(and if youre looking for a quick getaway, I highly recommend giving Galina, Illinois a looksie --especially in the fall)
inspiration
I never feel more design inspiration than I do when I visit other places. Getting out of your normal environment forces you to think outside the box. It gives you freedom, time, and space to dream and scheme and improve. I always make sure to get pics of what inspires me most so I don't forget. The image above is the workspace of my friends mother who is a New York artist. We had the pleasure of staying in their Greenwich Village apartment while they were away and proceeded to have the most perfect 24 hours I could have asked for. In fact, I never want to go back to NYC for fear of it never living up to that time.
