Phil Hyman Photography » Heirloom Portraits that Make A Difference

Five tips for your vacation photos

Tip 1-dealing with the bright sun.

If at all possible try to avoid the bright sun, because open shade always works best. But sometimes you just cannot avoid the bright sun, so in cases where the bright sun is not avoidable when you’re photographing a person always try to have their back to the sun so they won’t have squinty eyes (in the next tip we will talk about dealing with the sun to a person’s back). If you’re photographing scenery or an object such as a building there’s just not much you can do about the sun. Early morning or late afternoon work the best!

Tip 2-using fill flash on your camera

With today’s digital cameras it just makes sense to let the flash do the work for you in some cases. If photographing someone outdoors when the sun is out and bright or if it is 12 noon and the sun is right above the person always try to have their back to the sun. This is a great time to use your camera’s flash. Most cameras have a function called fill flash and this is where all the inner workings of the camera does the computing for you; which will enable you to get a nice photograph of your subject without having dark circles under their eyes are having the background look really nice and you have a silhouette of your subject. I would highly recommend reading the manual that came with your camera because it can give you great insight on the functionality of fill flash for that particular camera.

Tip 3-backing up your images

One of the biggest advantages of using a digital camera to capture your vacation photographs is you can make a copy of all your images before you ever leave vacation (providing you have your laptop computer or access to a computer with you). If you have your laptop computer with you while on vacation you can make a copy of your images from your camera to your computer every day. Yes that will give you duplicated copies of everything on your card but at this point it is better to be safe than sorry. But let’s say you’re on vacation and you were not able to bring a computer with you. The best thing is to use multiple memory cards. With the price of memory cards being fairly inexpensive you could use a memory card every two days and of course it is what ever you feel comfortable with. Just don’t keep photographing on the same card for the entire vacation because cameras malfunction, memory cards malfunction, you can lose the memory card, by using multiple memory cards during your vacation. This just gives you a peace of mind that you will have all your images with you (using just one memory card is like the old statement: “putting all your eggs in one basket”).

Tip 4-it’s not about the camera

One thing that I have always said “it’s not the camera that visually makes the photograph it’s the person behind the camera that makes the photograph art”. To give you a great example of this; on our blog we do something every Thursday called “iPhone Thursday”. These are just random images that I have taken with the iPhone and have manipulated them with software on the iPhone. Regardless of the type of camera you have, put your heart and soul into what you are photographing.

Tip 5-have fun

This is the most important tip: HAVE FUN! Now that everyone has a digital camera you can take as many photographs as you want without spending a ton of money on film. Just don’t become so overwhelmed with taking photographs that you forget to have fun with your family while on vacation. Going on vacation is about memories and relaxation, so capture the memories of your vacation with your camera but relax while doing it and just have fun.