Focus on Travelers: Tips when Photographing your Adventures

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Summer is approaching and soon we’ll be dusting off the digital camera and taking pictures of family gatherings, vacation destinations and more. Here are a few photography tips to help you create beautiful long lasting memories.

1. When considering a camera upgrade, check out a camera with image stabilization (IS) or “anti shake” (AS) technology. Many new cameras feature image stabilization that compensate for shaky hands or long lenses. It’s worth the extra cost for travelers who often shoot in low light conditions like museums.
2. Choose a camera that accepts a common battery format such as “AA” and get  rechargeable batteries and a charger. Rechargeable may cost more, but in the long run, you can reuse rechargeable batteries hundreds of times.  If planning for a lengthy trip abroad, buy a set of plug adapters for foreign AC converters.
3. Purchase extra memory cards. Some secure digital cards (SD) are as inexpensive as $5 per gigabyte—that’s enough memory to hold a few hundred photos.
4. Stick with a smaller camera rather than a large bulky camera. Less is often more when it comes to travel especially when you’re out and about.

Here are a few tips on taking photographs:

1. Photographers sometimes refer to the first and last hour of daylight as the ‘golden hour.’ Under the right conditions, the golden hour can often lead to a soft and warm glow on anything in its path. Shadows also get long and pronounced during this time so look for angles that feature these contrasts. Save interiors and closeup shots, location scouting and phone call returning for the middle of the day.
2. The Rule of Thirds refers to the fact that the most eye-pleasing compositions for photos split the field into roughly equal thirds. The main focal point, whatever it is, should be roughly one third of the way from either the top, the bottom or one of the sides of your picture. Let’s say you’re taking a picture of a sunset. You don’t want to make the horizon line dead center, rather make it either one-third from the top of the frame or one-third from the bottom.
3. Crop people properly, that is, when framing your photo, don’t cut the photo off at a joint—elbows, knees, etc.  Instead, crop them mid-calf or mid-thigh or midway between their shoulder and elbow. Pictures of people will always end up looking better.
4. Turn off the flash. Often you really don’t need it as the natural light is better, softer and warmer. Using the flash too often can make subjects look too hard. Also turn off the flash when filming through glass or you’ll get the white glare of the flash in your photo.
5. Check out reflections in still water. This goes hand in hand with the golden hour tip and can lead to captivating photographs. Reflections in still (or nearly still) water add a natural special effect to a photograph that always makes it more interesting. Some photographers actually focus more on the reflection rather than the object itself. You can even look for compositions that utilize reflections on wet streets for an interesting shot.

1. Register for HomePipe. You’ll receive an email with an activation link. Click it and the HomePipe agent installs in seconds.
2. Next, download HomePipe to your travel iPad, laptop or other mobile device. (Get mobile apps here.)
3. Instantly access and share files of any size, anytime, anywhere from any Web browser or mobile device. That’s it.

The last and one of the most important tips for traveling photographers is HomePipe. Use HomePipe to save, access and share your photos while on vacation. Imagine saving your high resolution photos to your computer and sharing them with family, friends and colleagues while you’re still away.  It’s easy with HomePipe and it’s free.

HomePipe is easy, fast and flexible—available whenever you need it. While away, you can save your files on your home computer and allow your “Shares” to view and download or just view your photos. It’s easy to share your memories as you’re making them with HomePipe.

Nanci Browning of Browning Cruises recommends HomePipe. “I use HomePipe and recommend it to my friends, family and clients (also called Shares in HomePipe). My Shares use it to instantly access and view my photos when I’m traveling. HomePipe also offers the Cooliris photo display feature so my Shares can view my albums with a click—in the brilliance only high resolution can offer.”

Take it from a travel pro and try HomePipe today.


And don't forget to share your HomePipe story! Let HomePipe know how you use the HomePipe service to share photos with family, stream music and access documents while on the go. If they publish your story, you'll get a $25 gift card. And there is no limit to the number of gift cards you can win so share your HomePipe story today!