Photofocus

Post & Photo by Joe Farace – Follow Joe on Twitter

When traveling, just in case your momma didn’t already tell you, be sure to also pack comfy shoes, a hat, and depending on the climate, some sunscreen. Comfortable shoes, clothing and underwear is important. I’m unable recommend anything for female photographers but Ex Officio’s Give-N-Go men’s underwear can’t be beat for comfort during a long airline trip and the company has many items for women as well.

To keep dry, be sure to pack a small umbrella that’s big enough to fit in your camera bag but it’s a good idea as is to have a rain cover for your camera. These are available free in most hotels and for some reason they are labeled “shower cap” but nevertheless they provide extra protection for your camera when the going gets wet. Some hotels even supply the caps in nice little boxes, so I usually put one in my camera bag to “be prepared” for those soggy days.

The other side of image capture of travel photography is on-the-go storage. Here you have some alternatives: You can always copy images to your laptop computer’s hard drive then back them up to CD or DVD for safety. One of the problems with most laptops is they usually have relatively small hard drives, so I usually travel with one of Western Digital’s My Passport portable drives tucked safely inside a WD Nomad case that easily handles all the knocking around that usually accompanies my trips. To minimize the whole “lost memory card” syndrome I download each day’s take onto it instead of the laptop’s drive.

When I get back home, I plug the My Passport Studio drive into my Mac Pro’s front panel and copy the files onto one of its hard drives. Because I am a “belt and suspenders kind of guy”—I learned that from my Dad—I’ll also burn a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc of all the images from the trip to be kept in cold storage. Just in case…

Joe Farace is the author of “Studio Lighting Anywhere” the second book in a trilogy or glamour and portrait photography from Amherst Media. It’s available on Amazon.com.

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