Using Lists to Improve your Travel Photography

I like using lists. To do lists are great for not forgetting to do something, and shopping lists save me from making multiple trips to the grocery store. Lists are also useful for travel photographers.

In this blog post, I’ll discuss 3 ways that I use lists to help me with my travel photography.

Packing Lists

I use Evernote to store my packing lists. By using Evernote, the packing list is accessible everywhere so I add to the packing list whenever I think of something.

I keep packing lists from each of my photography trips that way I can reuse them if I travel to the same or similar destination. I also can reuse lists for different types of photography (landscapes, wildlife, etc.) or by the time of year.

I also separate my packing lists by check-in bag and carry-on bag.

Travel Shot Lists

I research what I want to photograph prior to each travel photography trip. In addition to the basic information on the photography subject, I also store:

The address or GPS information
Distance from the hotel
Best time of day to photograph. I use The Photographer’s Ephemeris or PhotoPills Apps to help determine this.
Entrance or parking fees

I also organize the locations by the direction and location from the hotel. This way I can better plan out the photography itinerary for each day.

Travel Logs

At the end of each day, during my travel photography trip I update a travel log with the day’s activities. I record:

The photography destinations
Time of day that I visited the location
What I photographed
Lighting conditions
Camera settings
Lenses and other accessories used
Any other interesting details from the day

It also helps to take pictures of signs with the names of places, building, parks, etc. This information can be useful when creating file names, titles, descriptions for photos, or for writing a blog.

Written by Martin Belan

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