Creating Exciting Photos of Your Holidays

The Digital Revolution

The first thing we think of packing in one’s bags for the yearly family holiday must be the camera. Most of us probably have experience of Dad lugging the family camera around on holiday, yelling to get in position and saying “cheese”. On the return home, it was fingers crossed and let’s hope they get developed without any issues. Things have changed dramatically in more recent times with everything from a wrist watch; phone or sunglasses fitted with cameras of some description. With the digital revolution, we now have the chance to view the images before printing, and this helps us to know if we have a good picture or not. Polaroid cameras were the only way to see your picture instantly prior to digital cameras, and even then it could be expensive as film for the Polaroid camera was not cheap.

Your holiday pictures traditionally have been basic snaps of the family standing in front of some point of interest like the Eiffel Tower, an Egyptian Pyramid or another famous landmark. Now we all want to be the next big thing in the world of photography, and we are being more and more adventurous with the pictures we take while away on holiday. This is not to turn everyone into budding photo geniuses, but to open up your mind to a few unique ways to make your family holiday photos more exciting than the average ones.

Creating Memorable Moments

The whole reason that we take photographs while away on holiday is as a memento so we can remember what a good holiday it was. As photo habits have evolved, we are now looking at how we can make the most memorable photo. There are many techniques we can use to get that perfect picture where everyone will look in amazement. One of the most popular techniques that people have seen would be those with a forced perspective. A forced perspective is a technique where the photo is taken in such a way that size and distances are distorted leaving the viewer to wonder how was the photo taken They will be in awe with your shot.. There are many examples of forced perspective pictures, by doing an easy online search will get many results. Most readers may have come across them before, either online or from a friend. The leaning tower of Pisa is one of the most popular examples of forced perspective pictures.  Along with the leaning tower of Pisa pictures, there are a few other famous landmarks which are in countless forced perspective photos: the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Egyptian Pyramids and the Alps to name a few.

The creation of these distorted view photos has come into their own with the advent of the digital camera. We can now all use the small screen as a view finder. This helps us to see how close we are to getting the picture correct. We also have many opportunities to take the photo as we want, and not restricted by lack of camera film, we can just delete any photos which we do not like.

Be Creative

I have already mentioned a few of the most popular land marks where tourists have flocked to take their forced perspective pictures, but there are literally hundreds of other ways to get that special picture. There is no need to use a famous building. Some of the most impressive photographs I have seen have been utilising anything from the sun or moon to a water bottle or even an air plane. There are also some good examples of forced perspective in architecture. If lucky enough to be holidaying near any, this can make it easy to get started with taking your holiday snaps.

A common example of this is with staircases. To make stairs seem longer, the architect has built the bottom of the stairs much wider than the top, so when standing at the bottom it appears that the stairs are going off into the distance, but in reality they are just much wider at the bottom than at the top. A simple way to get the feel for this perspective is to draw it out on paper. Draw two lines going vertical and have the gap between them wider at the bottom than at the top. This gives a good starting point and may spur some ideas to how this technique can be utilised whilst on your annual family holiday.

Forced perspective is only one of many techniques to make your holiday photographs stand out from the norm. Start out simple and then be more daring. I’m sure your friends and family will look at your pictures and give out the expected “Oohs” and “Aahs”!

Author Bio:

Being a keen traveller, Ariana Louis has a wealth of experience in taking pictures while away on her favourite destinations. She has shared her insight on behalf of Travel Republic to entice other holiday makers to be adventurous with their photographs. Ariana loves to tour all of Asia and Europe. She is often helped by a review about Travel Republic whenever she books a trip abroad.