We are unlikely to long remember the smell and buzz of a flower garden in spring, the awe of gazing for the first time at the mountain we intend to climb, the caress of a tropical breeze, the thrill of a huge roller coaster, the wonder of our first wild bear, or the adrenaline of rafting white water. Our photographs need to bring these and other sensations back, to trigger our memories, and to communicate how we felt to others. To do this, we need to think and feel as much as look when setting out to make photographs.

First and foremost, think about what made you decide, out of all the places in the world, to choose this particular destination. Whatever it is—the beach, the rides, the mountain, the galleries, the food—obviously appeals to you. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be going there. That site or activity (or inactivity) is one of the things you want to photograph. But there are probably many other interesting aspects of the place you may not be aware of. That’s where research comes in.

Photographers for National Geographic spend a lot of time doing research. This helps us figure out what’s there—what the place is about and what subjects we need to cover. Read brochures and travel books. Go to libraries, bookstores, or onto the Web. Talk to friends who have been there. Pick up travel information at the country’s embassy. Find whatever you can that is relevant, and devour it.

Understanding the customs and traditions of a place is vital. For one thing, you want to be sure you act in a way that is not rude or offensive while you are there, and it’s hard to know what’s acceptable and what isn’t with some knowledge. It can also help you understand things people do that at first encounter you might consider incomprehensible or even horrifying.

When you arrive at your destination, be open and try to take note of the first impressions—write them down if you have to. (A notebook is an essential accessory for a travel photographer.) When you see a place for the first time from the plane window, or when you drive around a bend and there it is, or as the ship nears some distant island—how do you feel? Where do your eyes go first? What do you notice about the place right away? A smell? The heat or cold? Blistering sunlight? Mysterious fog? A particular building or vista? The way people move? Their dress? Whatever it is, remember it. First impressions are invaluable sparks to creative interpretation, and by definition are not repeatable. You’ve seen the place in pictures, you’ve read about it. Now you’re there, and all your senses can partake.

Get out there. The only way to discover the rhythm of life in a place, and so figure out what to shoot, is to experience it. Many places, particularly hot ones, are active very early in the morning and late in the afternoon but rather in a lull around midday. Get up early, stay out late. If you are on a tour that is scheduled to leave the hotel or ship at 9:00, get up well before dawn. Wander around before meeting up with your companions. If the tour goes back to the hotel or ship for lunch, don’t go with them. Rather than take the bus back at the end of an afternoon tour, hang around until after sunset and then take a taxi. Use any spare time to get out and look for photographs. Besides availing yourself of more opportunities, time spent discovering the place will enrich your experience.

Get lost. Wander down alleys. Sit in cafés and watch life pass by. Don’t eat where the tourists do, but where you see locals. Just set off down a street and see where it leads. Look around the bends, over the rises. Get away from the crowd. I find that if I meander away from the tourists and tourist sites, away from what is too familiar and comfortable, it’s much easier to adapt to the rhythm of a place, and to be more observant.

Always have your camera with you and always keep your eyes open. Serendipity plays an enormously important role in travel photography. You never know what you are going to run into, and you have to be ready. Many times you will see what could be a good photograph but decide that the light is not right, or there are no people around, or too many—something that means you will have to come back later. But sometimes you get lucky. You happen to stumble upon a scene at just the right moment. If you forgot your camera, are out of film, or your digital card is full, if you have to fumble around getting the right lens on, the moment may be gone before you can recover. This is true whether you are doing street photography or visiting a natural or man-made site. Mountains, trees, monuments, and other static subjects are, of course, not going to go anywhere, but the ray of sunshine, the soaring eagle, or the embracing couple that add the needed element to your photograph are unlikely to hang around. Think of it as hunting—whenever you leave the confines of your camp, you should be ready and able to capture whatever pops up.

Make time for photography. Like doing anything well, making good photographs requires a commitment of time and energy. One problem with much of modern travel is that the days are chockablock full of scheduled tours, events, and meals. Our trips are usually of limited time, and we naturally want to see as many sites as possible. The itineraries rarely leave room for serious photography. You have to make time. It may help to make photography a scheduled part of every day, so you know you have the time and won’t be tempted to get lazy and say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” It might rain tomorrow. Don’t procrastinate.

When traveling, you’re likely to encounter all sorts of situations and subjects. This requires being a bit of a jack-of-all-trades—you need to be able to photograph portraits, landscapes, and everything in between.

Above all, work the situations over. Never be satisfied with your first view of a place or the first frame you snap. It’s always possible—and usually likely—that you can come up with something better. Why else would painters make sketches? Get closer, then get closer still. Try different angles, different lenses. Wait for the light, wait for the crowd, wait for a bird to land on the tree branch. Never be in a hurry to get somewhere else. Tell yourself that nothing is more important than getting the best you can get out of the situation you are in. Once you’ve exhausted every possibility you can think of, you can start working on the next one.

Landscapes

Landscapes come in all forms—mountains, forests, plains, deserts, swamps, lakes, rivers, seacoasts. Each has its own characteristics, and individual sites within each category have their own too. The Grand Tetons do not look like the Andes—the Nile River is different from the Mississippi.

Whatever kind of landscape you are shooting, think about what the essential qualities are—and not just the visual ones; think about how the place makes you feel, what kind of emotions it stirs in you. Then look for ways to get those qualities and feelings onto film. Is it a rocky, violently wave-washed coast or a bright and sandy one? If it’s the former, you want to show waves crashing against the shore, probably in stormy weather. Blue sky and sunlight are more appropriate for the latter unless you want to show the desolation of a resort beach in winter.

Cities and Towns

Like landscapes, each city and town has its own look and feel—a distinctive setting, architecture, or skyline; a famous local site; a particular kind of food or dress. There’s always at least one thing that is unique. When covering a town or city, even a small village, you need to do three basic things at a minimum: capture a sense of place, which is usually a wide shot that shows the setting, skyline, or other view that gives a feeling for the whole; landmarks that the place is famous for; the life of its inhabitants. For the cityscapes and wide shots, as well as for the landmarks, it’s a good idea to check out the postcard racks in your hotel lobby or at kiosks. They will quickly give you an idea of where the best views are and what is considered well-known enough to warrant a postcard.

Monuments and Other Buildings

When you are photographing buildings, statues, or other monuments, think about what they represent before you shoot. For example: There’s a large statue of Vulcan outside Birmingham, Alabama. You could make a perfectly nice image of him standing on his hill on a sunny day, but such a picture would not say a lot about who Vulcan is. A photograph on a stormy evening, with perhaps lightning in the background, would. Cannons on a historic battlefield might look better in fog than in bright sunlight. Get the idea of the subject, then think of the weather, light, angle, etc. that best communicates it.

Photographing Family Members and Friends

We often travel with people we know—taking a family vacation, for example, or bicycling around Tuscany with a group of friends. We quite naturally want to come home with pictures of them as souvenirs of the trip. Be sure to get these, but don’t forget that you can also use members of your family and your friends to make your other photographs more effective.

When you are making pictures of your friends, try to strike a balance between a picture of them and a picture of the place. A friend of mine once made a close-up portrait of me in China. It wasn’t a great portrait, but more important, it could have been made in my backyard—there was nothing of the place in the frame. Of course, you may want to shoot portraits, or to capture someone’s expression at a particular moment, but often you are making the picture as a way of documenting your shared experience. You want to show enough of your friend to be able to recognize him—that vertical speck in the distance could be anybody. But you don’t want to be so close that there’s no context. If your friend is the primary subject, he has to be strong enough to draw attention and be recognizable but still keep some sense of where he is.

Photographing Strangers

It’s best to ask permission if you want to photograph someone, especially if you are working in close. Engage them before you pull out your camera. Learn at least how to say “hello” and “May I make a photograph” in the local language—just showing that you’ve made a little effort helps. Explain to them what you want to do and what it is about them that made you want to make a picture. If approached in an open and friendly manner, most people will be agreeable—many are flattered that someone has shown an interest in them and what they do. In places where there’s a lot of tourism, you may run into people who are tired of being photographed—many tourists are not courteous enough to ask permission, and local people can come to feel abused and exploited. The only way to overcome this is to spend time with the people or to go to parts of the place less frequented by tourists.

In many tourist destinations, people may ask for money if you want to photograph them. Many of these places are desperately poor, and people have few ways of getting hold of cash. The money they ask for is usually not very much to us, but may represent quite a lot to them. How you deal with these situations is up to you, but remember that every time you buy a postcard, you are happy to spend the money for a picture somebody else took. Why not spend a little on your own?

You cannot always ask permission, of course. If you are shooting a street scene or a wide shot of a market, you can’t run up to everyone and ask if it’s OK. In general, people do not mind this sort of photography—it’s only when they’re singled out that they get uncomfortable. But not always. Be sensitive to the scene in your viewfinder. If people are getting nervous, ask permission or move on.

Make use of people to give your images life and scale. If the facade of a particular building appeals to you, the picture may be that much better if you show people walking in front of it. They will give it scale and also let viewers know what sorts of people live there, how they dress, and the like. An outdoor café may be more interesting crowded with people than empty.

Shoot from your perspective

Try a new perspective Get down to your baby’s eye level and see the world through their eyes. Sit on the ground, or lay down if you need to. Physically moving to their level will give you a new and unique perspective. Move around and experiment with cropping. Make sure to come in close and observe the little things in those moments too- their hands, feet, smile, etc. Play around with the perspective and you’ll find some amazing little moments to capture that you would have otherwise missed standing up! ® Amy Postle

Keep it simple Choose solid colors, or simply patterned clothing so that the focus is on your baby and not on what they are wearing. Remove things from the frame that have logos or emblems or any other visual distractions. The more simple you keep the photograph, the more your baby will be the focus. ® Amy Postle

Turn off your flash Even snapshot cameras have this option. When indoors, try and position your baby near a window- window light provides beautiful natural light. If the window light is not enough, bring in a lamp. The constant light from the lamp will be much more soothing to your baby than the startling light from a flash. ® Amy Postle

Go outside Cloudy days are the best days to shoot outside, but if it is sunny, find a shaded spot. Direct sunlight causes harsh shadows and is hard on your baby’s eyes. Plus, you’ll get a much more realistic, beautiful and naturally lit image from the evenness of open shade. Put down a blanket and enjoy all the wonder and awe of nature with your baby. ® Amy Postle

Shoot in Black & White Black and white strips away the “noise” of every day life and really brings focus to the child and the moment. It is classic, timeless, and always beautiful. Plus, if you are photographing your baby indoors, it will help you avoid the normal color shifts that occur on film when shot without a flash under standard household bulbs.

® Amy Postle

Keep the room calm Do away with distractions and extra people. Avoid the urge to constantly talk to your baby, just silently watch and photograph his or her natural tendencies. Watch them move or look around their environment and capture their expressions. Most babies are fascinated by cameras and easily show their curiosity and intensity!

® Amy Postle

Be a part of the moment Have one parent (or friend) photograph while the other parent participates. Embrace the opportunity to interact with your baby and be photographed with them. Don’t just stand up and smile- play, interact, and have fun. Capture the moments that mean the most to you as a parent. ® Amy Postle

Document their day Photograph your baby when they first wake up in the morning, and continue to document them at meals, bath time, naptime, playtime, and every other major moment in their day. Pull a lamp near their crib if it’s dark, but try and keep everything very typical to their schedule. Have a proof sheet made from the film and you’ll see a full day-in-the-life story of your baby by you. ® Amy Postle

Take pictures often! Your baby is going to change quickly. Appreciate the little things, enjoy every moment and have fun taking pictures as they grow!

View different photographers’ portfolios and read about their experience and approach — from this, you’ll quickly be able to tell if this is someone with whom you share a similar vision.

Ask how many weddings the photographer has done and whether or not he or she has photographed at your wedding venue. Familiarity with the space ahead of time will allow for more efficiency on the part of the photographer, who will be able to plan for different shots and situations unique to that venue.

Also, make sure that the photographer you choose will be the one who will actually be photographing your wedding. If you’re dealing with a large company who has several photographers available, they may send whomever is available on your wedding date. Be sure to get this in writing, as part of your contract with the photography company.

Vera Wang Love Knots Photo Album

Once you narrow down your list and choose a photographer who meets your needs and style, talk with him or her about the various wedding services that they offer. Typical services include:

• Engagement Portraits
• Wedding Proofs
• Wedding Albums
• Parents’ Albums
• Extra Prints
• Negatives

The cost for each of these services varies greatly from photographer to photographer. Decide what you need before interviewing someone so that you have an idea of what the total cost will look like after ordering extra prints, purchasing the negatives, etc.

Note: Most experienced wedding photographers will charge quite a bit extra for orders of additional prints and/or for selling you the original negatives. Some photographers won’t sell the negatives at all. Find out up front what these costs are, and what your photographer’s policy on obtaining negatives is.

Some final questions to ask include the following:

1. What is the payment/deposit procedure?
2. What is your cancellation policy?
3. What is your policy/cost for overtime, should my wedding run longer than scheduled?
4. Do you have a standard list of photos/poses that I can choose from? (Ex. Bride and Father Dancing, Exchange of Rings at Ceremony, Cake Cutting at Reception, etc.)
5. How soon after the wedding will I be able to review the proofs? How many proofs will I receive?
6. When will I receive my wedding albums?
7. Do you have a website where our family and guests can order additional prints?