Consider Buying a Photographer's Vest

Unless you're wealthy and can afford to hire a sherpa (can I borrow him?), probably the worst thing about traveling with camera equipment is having to haul it around with you. Shoulder bags are great for carrying your gear on and off planes and trains (and never check gear in a camera bag, always carry it on), but when it comes to actually going out for the day shooting, forget it. Camera bags are a big giant clumsy albatross and trust me, if you go walking through Grand Central Terminal at rush hour with a shoulder bag, some poor old lady it going down.

While I transport my gear in a shoulder bag or backpack, I always bring along a photographer's or journalist's vest and each day I transfer the gear I think I'll need into the vest. (If I'm flying somewhere, I don't have to pack the vest since I wear it on the plane.) My primary vest (I own several) has about 20 different pockets and I can easily carry two extra lenses, a pocket full of memory cards, extra batteries, lens cleaning cloths, filters and a dozen other small accessories. It also has a big rear pocket that's plenty big enough to carry a rain poncho (for me) and a few big black garbage bags to cover my gear quickly if I hit a bit storm while I'm out walking.

Most good vests have a number of inside pockets, too, and in cities or when I'm traveling out of the country, I carry my passport and wallet in a hidden interior pocket. There is also plenty of room for maps, airline tickets and train schedules. I can also carry a sandwich and a bottle of water with me anywhere and if I buy a few postcards or a small souvenir, I can toss them in an extra pocket and keep my hands free.

Because you're wearing the vest, you'll never really notice the weight--especially if you're careful to distribute larger items carefully. I can literally spend 12 hours in my vest and while I'm thrilled to get if off when I get back to the hotel, it's completely comfortable. Yes, it might make you stand out as a photographer and I guess that could make you a target of thieves, but you're a far bigger target if you're carrying around an expensive-looking shoulder bag.

When you're choosing a vest, look at several different brands and designs. The one shown here is from Woolrich and I found it on Amazon but I've never tried one. B&H Photo in New York also has a good selection of both inexpensive and higher-end brands. It's tough to judge one vest from another if you're shopping mail order, so if possible, go to a professional camera store or a big sports store that stocks several vests. You might also consider also going to a hunting of fishing supply store like Cabella's since hunting and fishing vests are essentially the same thing (and some are much better made).

Be prepared for being at the receiving end of jokes when you're out wearing your vest. I took a cruise to Bermuda years ago and without really realizing it, I was looking a bit military in my shooting vest and brown fatigue shorts. As I was getting off the cruise ship in Hamilton, one of the crew looked at me carefully and in his utterly British dry-humored voice said, "Visiting or invading?" OK, so it was a pretty funny remark, I'll give him that.

But do consider the benefits of owning a vest--I promise that if you buy one and use it when you travel (or just around town), you'll write and thank me later!

Intensify Reflections

I love to photograph reflections, whether it's a neon sign in a puddle at night or a landscape reflecting in a pond or river. The problem that you run into with reflections, however, is that they are usually somewhat darker than the scene and don't look as vibrant as the main subject does. Sometimes that's fine, you want the reflection to be a bit subdued compared to the actual subject or scene. But sometimes it's nice to pump up the reflection a bit, just to add some snap to the scene.

One really quick and easy way to build up or intensify a reflection in editing (I work in Photoshop, but this will work in almost any editing program) is to "select" the reflection area and then increase either the saturation or the contrast and brightness until it more closely matches the subject. That's exactly what I did with this photo of the beautiful Chateau de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley of France, which is built over a river and so always has a nice reflection. But while the reflection was pretty, it just didn't have the vibrance of the building in the late-afternoon sun.

So, to pump things up a bit, I simply used the polygonal lasso tool to select the reflection area of the scene. I just started at the left edge of the frame then worked the tool through the "horizon" of the reflection (where the building met the water) from left to right, then followed along the bottom half of the image (just tracing the edge of the frame)--rejoining the selection where I began. Then I used the hue/saturation tool to saturate the yellows and reds (I selected each color separately) to increase the color. I then used the curves tool in the selected area to enhance the contrast until it more closely matched the top half of the frame. It's totally simple to do and it's harder to describe than to do. By the way, you can fudge the selection edges (at the point of reflection) by using the "feather selection" tool (select>modify>feather) to feather the edge by a few pixels--which I also did here. Then I closed the selection.

As a last step I used the color balance tool to make the entire image a bit warmer (yellow) and also used the contrast tool to increase the contrast very slightly. The image is very similar to what I "saw" in my mind's eye in reality, I just gave it some help in Photoshop.

Take Some Snapshots Just for Fun

A lot of times those of us who take photography seriously tend to take is so seriously we forget about taking "snaps" just for fun. I don't mean semi-serious photos, I mean just silly old snapshots. There's some kind of mental barrier in many photographers' brains that prevents us from taking "bad" photos. Lose that mental barrier!

Taking total snapshots is not only fun, but (especially when you're traveling) it can also be a good way to free your creative spirit. If you say, "I don't care what this looks like, I just want a memory of this place at this moment," then you find yourself shooting pictures that genuinely convey that spontaneous feeling of just being somewhere new. No f/stops to think about, no depth of field, no lens choice, just snapshot fever.

The photo here, for example, was shot while I sat on the fender of a rental car in an inn parking lot in the Loire Valley of central France. I was just sitting there watching the traffic roll by and decided I wanted a visual reminder of what the road looked like since I'd driven down it a few dozen times. I have lots of really "serious" photos that I've taken in France, but I get a pretty big kick out of looking back at that familiar road. The strange thing is, this is the only photo I have of that road and the farm where I was staying was one of my favorite places in France. It's not Paris, not a medieval castle, just a country road in the middle (literally) of France.

Personally I don't think snapshots get the artistic respect they deserve: they are perhaps the most honest of all the photos we take and have no pretense, no high ambitions, no technical correctness, just a quick look at a moment in our lives. So take some snappers--they are tons of fun to look at and come with zero angst!