Remember not so long ago when you would come home from an RV road trip with five, eight, maybe ten rolls of film and get 200 pictures of your memories? It was expensive to buy and develop film. The digital age has changed all that. Even novice photographers can click off a few thousand photos on an RV trip. So how to you best meld Rving in the digital age?
Plan.
When photographing your RV trip you inevitably become a slave to the light. That is not just adjusting your schedule to be in the right place at the right time for sunrises and sunsets but also knowing the best time of day to shoot the spectacular rock formations of the West or catching the perfect angle for monuments and landmarks. Scout the internet before you go to find subjects you want to shoot on your trip. Use an app like Sun Seeker that is ideal for letting you know where the best light or length of shadows will be for any location. Don’t forget that service may be unavailable in many places you are going so develop a “shooting plan” before you go.
Chesapeake Bay sunset on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Arm yourself for the job ahead.
Once you have an outline of the subjects you plan to hunt prepare for how you want the shoot them with the right selection of lenses. Include a variety of wide-angle lenses and telephoto zooms.
Plan – but stay nimble.
As you travel keep an eye out for light falling in unexpected places or dramatic cloud formations that will create “keepers” on your photo roll. Some of the best pictures come when you have no time but to grab and shoot.
Build a narrative of your trip.
Photographs are best when they are used to tell the story of an RVing adventure. That means more than working through a checklist of landmarks. Take photos of people you meet along the way who are often the lifeblood of your travels. Try to find a photographic thread that ties in the different stops you make along the way. Pose your RV in memorable spots and make it a star of your narrative.
Download often and selectively.
No one wants to return from an RV vacation and face 20,000 photos waiting to be archived. Try and review your digital images each day and cull the best ones from the herd. Download them to a separate folder to help ease assembly later. And back everything up in your favorite safe places.
