Photography Series: How To Take GREAT Family Travel Photos on Your Next Vacation

We can talk about tips and techniques all day long, but the easiest way for you to get good photos . . . is to take photos. Lots of them.

Photography is a skill, just like playing a musical instrument. And just like a musical instrument, you need to practice with your camera to learn to use it effectively. As you shoot photos over time, you'll learn what works and what doesn't. You'll develop a more stable hand and reduce the number of blurry shots. You'll identify difficult shooting situations and figure ways around them.

I'll never understand people who are stingy with their pictures. I've never seen anyone put an empty media card or unused roll of film into a scrapbook. Fill them up! Set your camera on continuous shoot mode. Bracket like a maniac. Try the same shots different ways - in different creative modes or with and without flash, for example. Then, download your pictures, wipe the card and fill it again! Take the time to look through your photos with a critical eye, to decide what you did and didn't like. Then incorporate those observations into your next round of pictures.

It used to cost money to take pictures, with the processing and all, so I could understand being reluctant to shoot back then. With digital cameras, there is just no excuse. I've told people this for 20+ years: The most expensive picture ever is the one you DON'T take. That's even more true now with digital cameras.

Have you ever been to some vacation spot and watched parents dutifully lining up their kids in front of one thing or another, taking the same posed picture over and over? Some of that is ok. Having a nice group shot or two is a good addition to the scrapbook. However, if that's all you're going to do, you could probably just stay home and shoot the pictures there.

Watch for opportunities to take pictures of your family as they interact with your vacation spot. There's nothing wrong with posing shots like this to get what you want.



Two pictures of my son at a museum. The one on the left is a better picture of him because I could use the flash, so it removed the shadows on his face. But the pose is poor. He's just standing there. The pose on the right is much better. He saw me getting ready to shoot and posed with his hand on the rifle and backpack rig. This is a better shot because it shows him interacting with the location.



Isn't this a much better photo to show how much fun Lucas was having rather than just a picture of him standing in front of some statue?

Here's a good example of how posing can change the tone of a picture:



Take a look at the photo of my bride in the Sunken Lane at Antietam to the right. Not a bad picture for a family album, but I'll bet you could pick a couple things out that could be improved. First, she's dead center in the shot - major Rule of Thirds violation there. In this case it's not too bad because those fences along either side and the path of the lane itself act as leading lines and draw your eye to the center, where she's standing. So you could ignore the Rule of Thirds on this one and get away with it.

What's that white thing sticking out of her head? It's actually a monument well behind her, but it looks like she's wearing an Empire State Building hat or something.

Really, it's not a bad photo at all. If you want a picture of your family member at a famous place, this one works pretty well. Just move her a foot or two to her left so the monument isn't sprouting out of her head and you're all set.

My biggest problem with this photo is that it really says nothing about where she's standing. It documents the fact that she went to the Sunken Lane, but with a small change it can do that AND capture the feel of the Sunken Lane as well.

The Sunken Lane is a very sobering place. Dozens of men died in this simple country gully, earning it the nickname "Bloody Lane." Maybe that's what puts me off about the above photo - the big smile just seems out of place there.



Here's a photo I like much better. I simply asked my wife to sit on the hillside rather than stand. I could have had her look into the camera, but I wanted a more thoughtful pose so I had her look to the side. The turbulent clouds in the background only enhance the mood. I moved in a little closer to make her a more significant part of the picture. Notice that the Rule of Thirds is now used more effectively. The leading lines still draw your eyes through the photo and include her. That's it. Small modification - big improvement. The first photo documents that my wife was at the Sunken Lane. The second photo talks about the mood of the Sunken Lane, where my wife was visiting. See the difference?

You may like the first photo better. That's fine - photography, like any other art, is subjective. Your best option is to shoot both angles, and then you have the luxury of picking which you like better when you get home!

Check out the photo to your right, of a Civil War reenactor getting blasted during a gun fight at Liendo Plantation. I caught it just at the right moment. How's that for luck, eh?

It wasn't luck at all. Hoping for lucky timing on your travel photos is like buying a lottery ticket - you rarely win. An old business motto applies to what I'm talking about here: Success is the place where opportunity and preparedness meet. If you want to get the action pictures just at the right moment, you need to be prepared.

The first thing you can do to prepare is to make sure your camera is set properly for what you're shooting. If it's a high speed or low light situation, bump up your ISO to give yourself some more flexibility on your shutter speed. Put the camera in shutter-preferred mode if your camera has that setting, or sports mode if it doesn't. Test your settings to make sure you can get proper exposures in your current conditions.

Here's a suggestion that you will think is silly, but will get you if you don't do it. Make sure you're starting your photo shoot with a fully charged battery. Before I start any photo shoot, I try to put a fresh battery into the camera. If the current battery is run down some, I'll pull it out and put it in my pocket as an emergency backup.

Case in point. At the battle of Liendo Plantation, I failed to follow my own advice. I had my fresh battery in my pocket but left the half-full battery in the camera. Sure enough, at the apex of the battle when the forces were duking it out right in front of me, my camera locked up. It acted more like a mechanical failure than a battery problem, so I spent some time trying to diagnose that before I switched out the battery. it took me a couple minutes to get back into shooting mode, and I lost a lot of great shots in the process.

This goes for your media card as well. Make sure you have the maximum amount of free space on your media card that you can have. It's a major pain to have to stop shooting and swap cards in the middle of the action. I routinely fill up 8GB media cards when I do a shoot, so you can tell I take a lot of photos. I try to start any shoot with an empty card if possible.

One more setting to use, if your camera has it. Set your shutter for continuous shooting. Typically, you push the shutter release and it goes "click." In continuous mode, it goes "click click click click . . . " until you let go of the release or your memory buffer fills up.



Take a look at the photo above. I really like this picture. Two cavalry officers dueling with swords on horseback. I'd love to be able to brag and tell you I timed this photo perfectly, but I can't. This image is the 11th of 17 pictures I took of this little skirmish, that probably lasted no more than 15 - 20 seconds. That means I had the camera taking pictures almost constantly throughout the scene. I simply held down the shutter release and the camera took many pictures. The buffer filled, I let up on the release until the buffer cleared, then hit the shutter release again and repeated the process. Most of the pictures were okay, not great. A couple of them were really good. And this one made the whole exercise worthwhile.

I was able to do this because I planned ahead and set my camera to shoot in continuous mode before the battle started.



Here's another example where planning ahead on the settings worked out. Check out this picture of a jet flying by at near the speed of sound at the Alliance Airshow in Fort Worth. You can tell the jet is approaching the speed of sound because of the vapor cloud forming around it. What a cool shot this is, I just love it. The reason I was able to get this shot is because I had planned ahead for it. I knew the jets would be moving fast, so I bumped up my ISO to 400 even though it was outdoors in moderate daylight. I set the camera in shutter preferred mode and picked a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second. My shutter was set for continuous fire. When the jet started its fly by, I started firing and panned the camera to follow the jet. I shot ten pictures as it flew by - since the jet was traveling at nearly 768 miles per hour, I didn't have much time at all! All the pictures turned out decently, but this one was best - the right angle, the vapor cloud well formed around it.

Being prepared extends beyond your camera settings. Let's go back to the photo at the top of this story, of the poor Union soldier getting blasted. My camera was all set for that picture, but I knew ahead of time that he was going to get shot, I knew where he was going to get shot and when. How did I know that? I'd seen them do this battle the day before. They did the same basic fight on both days of the reenactment. I paid attention on Saturday, the first day, while taking pictures, making mental note of key moments I wanted to capture the next day. Sunday rolls around and I'm ready and waiting, following the specific reenactor so I know I can get the shot I want.



Here's another example. Takng a picture of a cannon is easy. Getting the picture of smoke coming out of the cannon isn't too tough. Catching the moment when the fire is roaring out the barrel . . . not so easy. I prepared for this shot by watching the process the reenactors used to load and ready the cannon, position themselves and fire. After seeing them do it a few times, I had a really good idea of the timing so I could start my camera firing right before the blast and catch the fiery roar at its peak.

If you know you're going to a specific destination, devote a little time to thinking through what you'll see there. If you're going to Yellowstone National Park, for example, learn about Old Faithful. How often does it erupt? Have you seen an eruption on YouTube so you get a feel for what it looks like, and when might be the best moment to shoot? Do you need any special equipment for this, like a tripod? What lenses should you take? If you really want to plan it, consider the time of day and where you'll be standing so you can shoot it with the sun to your back.

Planning and preparedness improve your travel photos immensely. Don't rely on timing and luck; if you plan ahead, you'll make your own luck and own the moment.

For most people, the flash is something used only for indoor photos. As soon as people see sunlight, they shut off the flash and assume the image will have enough light without it.

A flash helps your photos by providing the correct amount of light, but it can also improve your shots by affecting the balance of light in specific areas of the image and the direction of light.

Look at the photo below, taken in the Doge's Palace in Venice, Italy:



There was plenty of light to illuminate this image even though the skies were overcast. In spite of this, the people in the image (that would be Sherri and me) are way too dark even though the background is properly exposed. So what happened? The problem comes from the fact that we were standing in a darkly shaded spot, with the open area behind us. If we had stood in the sunlight, we would have looked fine. If the sunlight wasn't behind us in the photo, the camera would have adjusted for the shade and we would have looked fine as well.

However, the contrast between the shade and the sunlight was more than the camera could accommodate. The balance of bright and dark areas was more than the physical limits of the camera could capture. The camera had to make a decision on setting the exposure to respond to the needs of the sunlit area, or the shaded area. In this case, it exposed the sunlight properly and the shade ended up too dark. At other times, the camera will choose the other way and expose for the dark part of the image. Had this happened in the above shot, Sherri and I would have been properly exposed and the background would have been overexposed, looking washed out. Neither option is a good one.

This situation is a great opportunity to use a flash. The light from the flash will help to fill in the shady area and reduce the difference between shade and sunlight. This is why the use of a flash in this situation is called a "fill flash." Let's look at the same photo again, this time with the flash engaged.



Looks much better, doesn't it? You can see plenty of light from the front, even a reflection from the flash in my glasses. Now the contrast between shaded area and sunlight is reduced because of the additional light coming from the flash. The camera can handle this amount of contrast, and as a result the picture is exposed for both parts of the photo.

A very common situation where you will want to use a fill flash is when someone is indoors or on a porch, standing in front of a window or opening to the outdoors:



Same problem as before, right? The interior portion of the scene is too dark because the camera chose to set the exposure for the outdoor portion of the scene, where all the light was coming from. To improve this shot, simply turn on the flash.



Much better, isn't it? The background is the same, but the subject's face is illuminated as well.

One more example and it's a dramatic one:



Without the flash, Jennifer's features are all but lost and the colors are somewhat subdued because she is in the shadows. Look at the picture to the right - she is properly exposed and the colors are warmer and more vibrant.

So that's the first way a flash can be used, to change the balance of light throughout your image. Now let's talk about the direction of light.

To do this, let's talk for a moment about shadows. Have you ever noticed that on bright, sunny days that shadows are very dark and clear, with nice sharp edges? Contrast that to cloudy days - when the sky is overcast, shadows are much more subdued, softer and less defined. The reason is referred to as the size of your light source.

On a sunny day, the light comes from . . . well, the sun. (I have such a keen sense of the obvious, don't I?) We all know the sun is huge, but from here on earth the sun looks tiny, like a little round spot in the sky. It is, in effect, a small light source (also called a direct light source). With all the light coming from that one small source, it acts like a flashlight - the rays of light hit the subject in a very strong, directional way. As a result, the opposite side of the subject is in the shade; it gets a lot less light and is much darker than the illuminated side.

Cloudy days are different. The light still comes from the sun and the sun doesn't change size, but now you have a layer of clouds between the sun and the subject. The light passes through the clouds and gets spread out. Instead of the light coming from a small sun, it is "diffused" and spread out through clouds that cover the entire sky. The clouds become the light source and compared to the size of the sun, they're huge. Now the light source is much, much bigger - and is referred to as a large light source. The light essentially comes from all over the place and as a result is more indirect. Now you have lighter, softer shadows on your subject because the light is coming from a lot of different directions.

Portrait photographers make use of this in their studios. Have you seen those big white soft boxes or umbrellas they use on their flash units? They're increasing the size of the light source. Instead of all the light coming from a couple tiny flash bulbs, they're running the light through that big white screen or bouncing it off the comparatively large umbrella. This increases the size of the light source and reduces and softens the resulting shadows on the subject.

Let's bring this back to the conversation about using the flash. On cloudy days the natural lighting will provide flattering, soft shadows on your subjects. On sunny days, however, you can expect clearly defined, very directional shadows. You will see a large contrast between illuminated parts of your scene and those parts in shadow . . . and the fill flash will be your friend, reducing that contrast so your complete image is properly exposed.

Here is a picture of Jennifer and Wayne at Fort Worth's Botanical Gardens:



Notice the harsh shadow across their faces? The bright sunlight is clearly coming from (their) right, causing dark shadows on the left sides of their faces.



Same basic shot, with a flash. The shadows are still there but they're much softer now. You can actually make out their features, even in the shadows.

Another example - notice the dark shadows on their faces. Also notice how the sunlight blows out the color on Jennifer's blouse in spots where the sunlight comes through the overhead trees. Contrast makes this a tough shot.



Here it is with the flash. The shadows are softened, as is the spots on Jennifer's blouse that were previously overexposed.



Always check your shots when using the fill flash. At times your camera will be fooled and will not adjust the exposure for the flash light - meaning the resulting image is overexposed. The camera is supposed to adjust the flash and the exposure, but sometimes it doesn't work out. Try out using the fill flash and get comfortable with it before you start shooting our vacation photos.

So how do you tell your camera to use the flash? That depends on the camera. For my DSLR, simply opening the flash tells it to fire. On most point and shoot cameras, there is a flash button, where you can tell it to 1) always flash, 2) never flash, or 3) let the camera make the decision as to whether flash is needed. The third option is the default in most cases but you can force the flash by toggling this button. You need to know where this button is anyway - if you go into a museum that doesn't allow flash photography, this button allows you to shut off the flash and stay out of trouble! Read your manual for more information.

One more thing about fill flash. If you find the camera is blowing out (over exposing) the photos when you use fill flash, look to see if the camera allows you to adjust your flash OR if you can adjust the exposure compensation. With exposure compensation you can tell the camera to underexpose the image - so when the camera thinks it's supposed to over expose, your instruction to underexpose counteracts that and you end up with a good shot. Read more online about exposure compensation to see how this works.