Tomorrow I am off to Europe to shoot for a couple weeks. Originally I was just planning on tagging along with Eva who is shooting in London for a few days. But I ended up placing a few calls to past clients and landing my own travel gigs in Paris and Rome. Lately I have been posting my pre sketches and such on my Blog, but because this is a travel gig I decided to blog about my prep instead.
10 years of shooting travel has led me to amass a wide variety of useful tips. So here are my Top Ten...
(kinda cool, this is a chinese entry visa from my 2008 olympic photography exhibition.)1. Keep $100USD hidden in your shoe. If something bad happens bad people almost never take your shoes. In pretty much any city on the planet you can get to a Canadian embassy with that $100 bucks you stashed away, Make sure its in USD... $100 CDN does you no good in some small town in Eastern China.
2. The beauty of shooting on film was that everything ran on AA batteries, now all cameras have rechargeable batteries... which means you now have to bring the battery chargers... so make sure you have the proper converters, or else you will be without power.
(this coverter is on steroids)3. Thanks to Rogers and Telus Canada is the most expensive place on the globe to buy a cell phone... However almost everywhere else on the planet you can pick up an "open" non contract phone for super cheap and just purchase a pay as you go sim cards which give you a local number. You will be surprised how affordable long distance rates are as well. Then the next trip you take, just buy a $20 sim card for your open phone, and presto, you have a new number and lots of air time. This phone was purchased in Egypt and I will be using it in Paris and Rome on this trip.
(look ma Arabic on the Keys!)4. When packing camera gear even if you only have a little bit, open up everything, lay it out.. then just pack your case with only what you need. On this trip the Fisheye and the super fast 1.2 lenses are staying home. . here is my layout process. 
5. Most pros I know, myself included usually shoot travel with only 3 lenses. A wide angle, a Midrange working lens (say 24-70) and a telephoto. Leave the specially lenses at home.
6. I always carry on these three things. My camera gear, glasses and spare contacts. If for some reason my luggage gets delayed (like it did in Egypt for 7 days), at least I still have my cameras and my vision.
7. Ok this is going to seem weird but it works. you can read about it in the book "Smile When Your Lying" as well as it was told to me by Capitan Jacob the super traveler. Before you leave buy a few small boxes of chocolates like Godiva. Then just when you board the plane give a box to the head flight attendant and thank them for the great job they do... Take your seat, and just wait and see what happens. More times than not I have been bumped to first class or given free booze the whole flight... Every time I do this I get something in return.
8. Make sure you have a copy of your passport! Seriously nothing sucks more than losing your passport, but it sucks more if you have no photocopy of it.
(my reading material for this trip)9 Keep two wallets. Your real one should be fully stocked... but the Photo Wallet should be empty with the exception of five one dollar bills. When you see a subject you want to photograph, ask them if you can take their photo... in 3rd works countries a lot of times they may want a "fee" for you to take thier picture. That's cool. Just pull out your Photo Wallet and offer them $2. If they want more you can always say hey, I am giving you almost all my money look!
10. Speaking of photos of people you need photo releases. Even if you pay a person you can't sell a picture of anyone unless you have their photo release. So print off 20 or so, and keep them in your camera bag. you can just Google "photo release" and you will have a one page word document which is good enough.
I know some of my clients read my blog, so if you need to contact me you can phone my studio manager Natalie at 780.909.4174.
6 comments:
Lots of great tips! Love the chocolate and 2nd wallet! I am sure that also protects you from gypsies while you're too busy shooting to notice them come up from behind and steal it. They're horrible in Rome.
#7 is brilliant! the extra wallet thing too and money in your shoe. Apparently Spain is bad for pick pockets too,
Great tips Curtis! I'm also a fan of the chocolates and second wallet. Any tips on a good telephoto lens length?
Hey Guys,
The chocolate got me some champaigne with my meals on the plane from CAN to Europe... They didnt bump me, but thats cool free booze was good enough. I havent used it on the intra europe flights this time.. Will be using on the way home though. I use the 70-200 2.8 IS for canon. Its fast, sharp but it is heavy and a pain in the ass to change... but the quality is there, however for years (8yrs) I used the non IS 2.8 and its much lighter... I am thinking to go back to it.
Ciao!
Great tips!
When going through the airport security, any restrictions with a Camera Backpack (i.e., Lowepro Computrekker, Flipside, etc.)?
Security wont give you any trouble with carryon bag sizes, that's the job of the airline check in staff. Security will take note of the gear though, thinks like screw drivers and such are a problem, tripods are ok though. However with carry on backpacks wear them on your back when you check in, and don't make a big deal about it unless they ask... also bring a "messenger bag" or load your jacket pockets with heavy things like your AA's and camera batteries in case they weigh your carryon camera bag, then after you check in, load up your backpack again with the heavy stuff you have on your person. Be careful with Air Canada out of Toronto, the check in staff there are well known amongst travel shooters to be very very difficult and very un-accommodating... this thanks to the fact that its almost impossible to fire an AC employee.
Post a Comment