My Most Valuable Travel Tools

www.dennismook.com

I use several tools to prepare for travel as well as to use during travel.  I'm not talking about photographic gear, an automobile, etc., I'm talking about resources I use to maximize my photographic success during travel.

It makes no sense to me to blindly travel somewhere with the goal of finding and making memorable images without doing my homework before leaving.  That being said, I do enjoy wandering locally trying to find interesting photographic subjects.  Also, even though I do my photographic homework, and make a determination of images I would like to capture or subjects I would like to photographically explore, again, after I have taken the images I set out to take, I like to then wander around an area to find what gems that I may have missed.

I mainly use three sources of information to prepare for a photographic trip.  First, and most obvious, I look around on the Internet in general to see what I may find at a given location or along a route of travel.  I did this recently with my Route 66 road trip.  I found an abundance interesting things all along the route to photograph long before I left for the journey.  If I hadn't done that, I would have missed almost all of them.  I bet there is something on the Internet that will show you what may be photographically interesting wherever you may travel.  I haven't found anywhere yet that the Internet didn't assist in my preparation.

Second, I will use Trey Ratcliff's site, Stuck In Customs.  This is a wonderful and free site that has photographs by others at thousands of locations.  So, using this site, not only can you determine where you may be interested in creating some photographs, you can see images others have posted on a map showing exactly where the images were made.  Not to copy what others have done, but this site gives you a very good idea of what the interesting subjects look like in others' photographs.  No imagining necessary.

Third, I use Robert Hitchman's "Photograph America" newsletters.  These are wonderful resources to thoroughly understand an area.  Mr. Hitchman is a professional photographer out of California who, four times per year, goes to a location, stays for a week to ten days, thoroughly explores the area for photographic possibilities, hotels, restaurants, then publishes his findings in a 12-page newsletter that is available by subscription.  He has been doing this since 1989 and he is currently on Issue 127.  Additionally, he goes back and updates some of the sites and reports what has changed and issues an updated newsletter for that site.  This is an absolutely wonderful resource as not only can you see some of the image possibilities that are available, but one also gets personal recommendations on where to stay, where not to stay and some good places to dine.

I have subscribed to Mr. Hitchman's newsletter for a few years and bought all the back issues in PDF form as a reference.  I have a copy of all the PDF's on my iPad, with which I travel, as a ready reference.  I have used these newsletters numerous times and have been thankful for having them.

Lastly, I use the The Photographer's Ephemeris as a resource to ascertain when and where the sun as well as the moon will rise and set at any location for any date.  This is especially helpful when photographing early in the morning or late in the evening as it will give you an idea when the "golden hours" are and when the "blue hours" are.  It is nice to look at a Google Earth map with an overlay to see exactly where the sun will rise and fall.  Makes preparing for an image much easier.

There are many other resources, but these are the ones that I use regularly.  Take a look at these and I hope they help you get better images.


Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis A. Mook

All words and images are © 2013 Dennis A. Mook.  All Rights Reserved.  Permission may be granted for use.  Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.