Going on a photo tour is a very different experience than a traditional tour …why?  A photo tour is where folks travel primarily to take photos.

It’s become a favorite way for me to see the world.  

On a photo tour  typically you don’t spend much time in museums or cultural institutions learning about the culture or history, instead you go to places where you have great opportunities for image making at the right time of the day.  Usually we’ll hang out in an area for an hour or more, each exploring on our own.  Sometimes we’re all together. 

Typically there’s a guide who can share cultural, historical and/or religious information, but that’s not the priority.  Making pictures is. 

The groups are small and everyone is interested in capturing the experience with their cameras. The tour leader’s job is to find the perfect spot for great shots in the right light and then help as needed.  

Since I often get asked what a Photo Tour is like I’ll share a few observations.  

We do take pictures of each other……

Sometimes we get into each other’s images by mistake.  

Conversations often revolve around camera gear. 

On my last photo tour half of the group of ten and one of the two tour leaders had the same model Olympus Mirrorless camera.  Was that fun!  We traded tips on how to navigate the complicated menu on this powerful high tech camera.  

The daily schedule is different from the typical tour.   We often meet long before breakfast and head out because that’s when the light is good and locations are uncrowded. During the middle of the day we might have  a rest period or time to process our images. We could be scheduled to drive to new locations.  

Cocktail hour? Not in a bar…..nope……not on a photo tour.  At Wine Time we are out happily clicking our shutters when that light is the best.  

A tour is different from a workshop focused on improving skills, but we do have opportunities for learning.   On my recent trip to India,  our leader, Karl Grobl, emphasized the importance of finding the good light.   This might mean paying attention to which side of a street has better light or watching where the light comes in a window.  And then he drilled into us the value of looking for  good backgrounds before identifying the subject.  This works especially well for portraits or street photography.

This is hard for me. I tend to get all excited about seeing something and don’t always pay attention to the backgrounds.  Often the best photography avoids busy cluttered backgrounds.

A good Photography Tour company strives to find the best locations for shooting.

For example, we had several roof top opportunities on my last trip.  This one is in Pushkar where you aren’t allowed to take cameras into the area by the water where folks bath as a religious experience.  We were able to see it from a restaurant on top of a hotel.

Or the tour leaders line up folks for us to photograph.  Some times they do this ahead of time, other times on the spot.

In Jaisalmer we watched the sun come up near the huge fort from the roof of a hotel.  In Jodphur, known as the Blue City our tour guides lead us to a private home where we could hang out on the owner’s balcony, sipping chai, while we captured the day’s end from a spectacular location. .

I sometimes enjoyed taking pictures of our group, interacting with children or people.   

If you look carefully you can see Phylis with this lovely group of women at a Fort. She took photos of them and then joined their group for a group shot.   Or Steve with the father and child he had enjoyed photographing.   Michael showing these children in a remote village how Snapchat works.  

 I took a Polaroid type camera and took photos of the children in a small village to leave with them.  Great fun for me to interact to these children who live with so little.

Accommodations varied, we even stayed in tents in the desert. We took camel rides like you might on a traditional tourist trip, but then our tour leaders arranged for camel drivers to walk back and forth in front of the setting sun for about 30 minutes so we could capture the perfect moment.  My favorite shot includes a drone, belonging to one of the tour participants.  

Sometimes we did goofy things like take pictures on the bench in front of the Ashram where Steve Jobs lived for a year and a half after leaving Apple.  We got our iPhones out, of course.  

One of the things that is really fun is seeing each other’s images after the trip.  Many of us exchanged social media connections so we could see images posted on line.  Each person’s approach to  the same site can be so different.  For example, I like shadows.  Here’s one I took in a touristy location of someone posing.  I’m sure my travel mates took very different views.  

I get a kick out of taking people taking selfies…..like these….While the location, culture and the attire may be different, these kinds of photos show similarities.  I love posting these. 

If you are interested in Photo Tours you might enjoy the blog post I wrote about my first one—a trip to Iceland.     For a comparison, click here to read about that experience. 

Since that trip I’ve been on three more Photography Tours,  one Photography Workshop and a Photography Retreat.

What’s next?    I’m looking forward to a Photo Workshop in Maine on a Windjammer in June and then……well…… Slovenia, India, Sri Lanka, Oman and Dubai, the Silk Road, Day of the Dead and Sante Fe are all calling to me.