MY NEXT PHOTO-TRIP: WHAT I PACK, WHY, AND WHICH KIND OF PICTURES I PLAN TO TAKE

I’d like switch my focus from murals and street-art, to introduce my next planned trip throughout the Caribbean. This is also a way to let you know that probably I won’t make any new post for about one month. Why the Caribbean? Well, one good explanation is that living in the DC area is easy and not very expensive to reach any island in the Caribbean Sea. Another good motive is that almost all islands between the north shore of South America and the Gulf of Mexico are a real paradise (when a hurricane does not hit them) and a great opportunity for passionate photographers (even if a hurricane hit them, but I really hope none will do it).  

If you do not have several months and, like me, you have not been traveling very much in the region, choosing where to go in the Caribbean is not easy. After reading and researching for many weeks, and after several conversations with my wife, I decided to focus on four islands between the French Antilles and the Windward Islands: Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, and St. Lucia.

These islands are rating as four of the Caribbean best destinations in several travel magazines and books, and they are among the top islands suggested by the Caribbean Lonely Planet guide. 

Moreover, you can travel from one island to another by sea, avoiding annoying airports and airplanes for three whole weeks. Nature and beaches are a main reason too, of course, but they are common to most Caribbean islands, and then they are not a specific reason for my choice.

What about the equipment? Even if we are going to drive inside each island, we have to fly to Guadeloupe from the United States, and to move by boat to the other islands. For this reason, we must travel as light as possible. For a photographer, this means to find the best compromise between comfort and technical requirements.

The first issue is about what we are going to photograph. The choice depends on your personal interests as a photographer and on the characteristics of the regions you are going to visit. In my case, I am thinking mostly about landscape and street-photography, with people and not (I will discuss more about this topic in another post). For that I will pack the following gears:

·        

      ➽My Canon EOS 70D

·        ➽A versatile zoom which, in my case, is the invaluable TAMRON 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II

·        ➽A wide angle, useful for both street and landscape photography.  My choice is TAMRON 10-20mm F/4-5.6 DC HSM

·        ➽  A light tripod. I decided for my Velbon MAX I 343E, with a PH-243 Ball Head. I find the ball head more versatile than a pan head for this kind of trip. I bought this aluminum tripod several years ago,  and I still find it very good for travelling. It is light, reasonably stable, and very fast to set up (which is a big plus when you travel).·         

          ➽A flash, my Canon Speedlight 580EX

      ➽And of course some accessories: lens cleanse, extra batteries, polarizing and neutral density filters, etc.

Strictly speaking, the 16-300 zoom might be sufficent, and you might avoid the wide angle and a heavy flash with its batteries relying on the terrible pop-up flash of your DSLR, if you have one. Actually, that of the 70D does a decent job. This may be a good idea if you have to hike hard and want to take care of your back.

However, if you are really concerned about the quality of your images, I believe that the gears listed above are essential. Besides, in our case it is not a big problem. We have some easy hike in our program, but in these cases we may always choose to leave some gears at the hotel or in the car.

A few more words about what I want to shoot. I believe is very important not to shoot randomly, especially during a trip. It is important to think before about what we want to achieve with our photographs. Even if I am travelling for pleasure, with no obligations, planning a sort of self-assignment and decide my priorities make my work more interesting and rewarding.

For this specific trip, I have two main goals in mind. First, telling a story about the places I will visit, from an anthropological point of view. This purpose implies a mix of landscapes, people and architecture. Second, documenting the trip itself, thinking at the same time about a photo-book describing our travel and a sort of family album about our vacation.

This two objective are complementary, and this is the good thing. Some images will be created with only one of these goals in mind, but many of the them will be used for both. When I make pictures, I like to work thinking about a book (paper or digital, it doesn’t matter) telling some kind of story. This helps me to create a more consistent work, so I will not find myself with a lot of material, without really knowing what to do with it.

If you have any question, concern or comment, please post them. See you next.