How To Photography: Road Trip Photography…Life on the Road
Summer is the time for road trips and opportunities to tell stories with your digital photography. Some road trips are short, just a Sunday-afternoon outing into the country to escape the city heat. Other summer road trips may last for days, or even a week or more, as you crave new sight, sounds and adventures. The idea is to leave your comfort zone, to travel to unfamiliar places, which is more likely to inspire a new burst of creative photography than your everyday environment and activities.
Are you planning to leave during the very early hours of the morning? If so, then there is where your photographic road trip story begins with pictures of half-asleep family members and/or friends piling into the car before the sun is peeking over the horizon. Because dawn is one of the magic hours for digital photography, you’ll be able to capture images unique to this time of the day. As the excitement of the road trip begins to build, you’ll find fun photos to take in the car.
What will make your road trip story in pictures more interesting is when you strike a balance between the photos of your traveling companions and the life and events you discover on the road. If possible, exit the Interstate occasionally and travel from one exit to the next on a local road. Yes, it will take more time than speeding down the freeway, but you’ll be able to stop and capture images of people and places that will add greatly to your digital photography story.
Leaving the Interstate’s commercial corridor takes you to where the locals live, work, eat and play. A local restaurant is apt to have more personality and reflects its community than another fast-food establishment just off a freeway exit. Local attractions may not offer the sensory overload of the giant corporate family entertainment centers, but often they have a more genuine appeal, lending the experience better photographs than a mega-fun park.
Look for people at work: a farmer in his field, workers picking fruits or vegetables, someone tending a small farmers market, the cook in an old roadside eatery or a mechanic at a farm equipment dealer; the possibilities are endless. It’s a great opportunity to improve your casual portrait skills and learn how to approach strangers and asking them permission to take their pictures. Explain exactly what you are doing and offer to share your images via email, social networking or mailed prints.
Another category of subject matter along the road is signs: strangely named businesses, unusual street names and unique graphics, color combinations, etc. Look for old, abandoned signs, rusted and worn, with appealing textures and multiple signs that create interesting patterns.
Notice buildings and structures that may lend themselves to exceptional digital photography. They don’t have to be grand or famous architecture: an abandoned shed or barn will often make more striking images. Don’t overlook textures and patterns that are also elements of buildings. Older structures may have interesting exterior light fixtures, doorways, windows, stairways, etc.
Remember that the other magic hour of the day for digital photography is dusk and twilight, so stay energized and your eyes open during these periods when photos of life along the road will become equally magically.
As is so often the case, the journey is often more remarkable, exciting and meaningful than the destination, so plan a road trip with the time to enjoy the journey and record your experiences in a digital photography story, instead of rushing to the end of your trip.
Learn to develop your photographer’s eye and the necessary skills to see and photograph your adventures during your next road trip when you click here.
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Photograph by Photography Talk Member arya rana manggala tirtayasa