Vacation Question 3: Take a Lot of Pictures or Enjoy the Event?

[Suhit Gupta]

Continuing the question series - here is Question 3:

Question 2 (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=11557) had to do with whether you would rent a camera or not. This scenario is more about the actual photo taking behavior itself. I tend to be the kind of person who loves to take a lot of pictures because I feel that is the way to keep memories of an event alive for a long time. Plus, the more pictures I take, the higher the chance that I will capture a larger number of perfect shots of the event that I want to save. But one downside of this is that I often end up seeing the actual event through the lens of the camera. Of course, I tend to get a lot of crap about this from friends. :)

So here is my question: do you spend more time taking pictures or do you spend more time having fun in the moment and then take a few pictures and hope for the best? Or have you invested in a remote control for your camera so you can just set the camera up ahead of time and push the trigger from a distance, as often as you want, and without having to constantly look through the lens?

[Vincent Ferrari]

I usually shoot the hell out of a memory card and the reasoning is simple.

I love looking back at photos of places and events, and when I make a slideshow / dvd / flickr set of pictures of everyone, what we did, where we went, etc., guess what?

All the doubters end up thanking me profusely.

I say shoot until you can't shoot anymore, but don't be afraid to not shoot either. If you find you're not enjoying the event enough, put the camera down and have fun. Chances are someone else also has a camera and would be more than willing to share their pics with you too ;-)

[Jason Dunn]

Well, I'd normally say "shoot shoot shoot", but after coming back from Hawaii with 3500 RAW images and STILL not having gotten through them all, I'm thinking that I want to evolve my photography into a place where I show more discretion with the shutter release. It's just too painful to go through 3500 images. :evil:

[Lotto]

I do both. Sometimes I have to stop myself and remember to watch/participate in an event, but many times years down the road we only remember what we have in pictures, so both is important.

I find most events have down time, which I do use to preset my camera for the next set of shots I think I will be shooting. I also pull back from the main event and take some artsy or unsuspecting shots of things around. These usually turn out to be the best pictures. Stuff people didn't get to see.

I also make a point to put my camera down partway into an event, so people feel you are approachable to talk to. It intimidates some people when you are just snapping away.

It's all about balance, but I also find people love seeing the picture results later on.

[Bob12]

It depends on what I'm doing. If it's a scenic attraction and I'm not doing anything other than enjoying the moment, I take lots of pictures then sort through them. As I've mentioned before, I do very little post processing so I shoot jpeg with my EOS-1D set on the lowest compression setting. It carries 8gb of storage so I'm never concerned about running out of space. On a 10 day visit to the Bruce Peninsula of Ontario, during a half dozen day hikes, mostly along the Georgian Bay side of the peninsula, I took about 1800 pictures and kept most of them.

On the other hand, if it's an event that I am actively involved in where a camera would get in the way or I would have to avoid taking part in the activity while I take pictures, I'll generally take far fewer and generally use a Canon PowerShot G7.

[cameron]

Shoot, shoot, shoot....

I find that, with the camera in my hand, I'm more in tune with the finer details of what I'm looking at. Sightseeing, wandering around strange cities, I tend to get bored if I don't have my camera.

Of course, it is easy to get caught up in the moment. On my recent trip to South Africa, we had an elephant try to turn our jeep over. I was being so quiet and still (the guide told us not to make any noise or she would think we were challenging her) that I didn't even think of my camera. Finally, the guide turned to me and said "we're about to get killed by an elephant and you haven't taken any pictures of it??!?". I took about 4,000 pictures over 10 days (all raw) - I'm still sorting through and keywording them.

Psycho elephant pictures - Some shots that I picked out and uploaded when we were in Africa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camerontune)

[Kris Kumar]

It depends.

If its just me and my wife on a vacation, then there is a balance between photography and doing whatever the vacation is about.

If I am in a group, I end being the designated photographer. :roll: Then I drive people nuts by taking tons of time to shoot one single photo. Or taking photos from weird angles, or natural pose.

I totally agree that by taking photos we extend the vacation. I love the feeling when days after the vacation, we are looking at the photos and a friend/family mentions how awesome the photo is and how beautiful the place looks through my photos. :mrgreen:

[Jason Dunn]

Psycho elephant pictures - Some shots that I picked out and uploaded when we were in Africa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camerontune)

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.