How to take great vacation pictures...This is a topic that I love! 

We all have at least one friend who takes the most amazing pictures. It seems like they must have a ton of talent, and must have been taking pictures for years.. in some cases this is probably true.. BUT

I'm here to tell you that it can be much easier than that. All you have to do is get the right equipment, motivation and drive. The truly great vacation photographer, photographs everything! Not just a nice sunset, or a cool looking building.. Everything! 

To really capture a place that you are visiting, you must take candid photos of people and surroundings of your vacation spot. It's these very pictures, that will yield gold for you. These candid photos of outdoor markets, taxi cabs, beach goers, flowers etc.. are what make the best vacation pictures. 

It is my opinion that vacation photos should have a mix of both, "Family" and "Scenic/Candid" photos. It's no fun to look through pictures, if you never get a chance to see yourself, your family or friends in them.. and It's also not that much fun for your friends to look through a million pictures of you and your family doing all these fun things. As much as you want your friends to see you standing in front of every possible tourist attraction, believe me, your friends are over it, after about 10 images. The ratio is important. 

Now, how to actually capture the image. 

I think it's best to carry a camera with you that is very versatile. I never like to carry around a big DSLR because it's just too heavy, and depending on where you are, it could make you a target for robbery. Don't worry though, there are solutions. There are many cameras on the market today that take fantastic photos, and fit inside your pant pocket. There are even cameras out there that allow the photographer to adjust manual settings, of shutter speed and aperture. Check out this Canon HERE.. it's the same camera I have for my vacation photos.. and I've totally fallen in love with it's features and size. 

Things to photograph while on vacation: 

• Family
• City at Night
• Sunset
• Local People
• Local Shops
• Nightlife
• Tourist Attractions from a distance and up close
• Food

These are just my two cents, and would love to hear what you think. Maybe lend some good tips too! 

Over the past decade, we have all become immersed in digital images. We have instant gratification with a nice little LCD on the back of our cameras or cell phones. Everyday we see pictures of people that they've posted to Facebook. Before that, it was MySpace. Before that maybe some of you cutting edge internet gurus were into Friendster or some other site that never made the big time. But now, it's Facebook.. and we are all so lucky to have all of our friend's images at our finger tips. 

What ever happened to the good ole days of printing pictures and creating photo albums? Does anyone still do that? What will the kid's who were born in the 2K's look back on when they are 20 - 30 years old? What will this generation do? Are we going to be stuck with our online photo albums, and nothing tangible that you can hold or pass down? 

In my opinion, here are the pros of printing pictures or Posting Digital Pictures... and the Cons of each.

Pros of Printing

• You have something tangible
• You will have a photo album, or box of pictures that you can stumble onto one day, and reminisce. 
• You will have something to pass down through generations, like every generation before us has, since the advent of photography.
• Real pictures will hang on your walls, and not be stuck inside of your computer

Pros of Posting Digital

• It costs nothing
• You have instant access from anywhere in the world
• You can share images with people for free
• Instant gratification and a clear mind, that you have the picture you thought you were taking
• You will never lose your images

Cons of Printing

• Cost
• Space

Cons of Posting and not printing

• You have no tangible image
• You have nothing to stumble upon, and enjoy randomly
• You will have no image to pass down through generations
• Reliant on the internet for your pictures, or a website that could lose them in a freak accident
• Not posting, and only having them on your computer, then getting a cpu virus.

In closing, I guess I just kinda worry about people's habits changing. I worry that this generation that is being raised now, isn't going to have those old pictures to look through. I feel like the wholesome family album is steadily becoming the Digital Family Album, with much less meaning. I personally cherish my pictures, and print out nearly everything. Even if it's going in a drawer somewhere, I don't want to my family to miss out on the treasures and family time that can be had while looking through family pictures together. 

How do you feel? 

Designer Studio dances is well aware of the tradition, and has evolved the way dances are photographed over the past 23 years. Now it's not uncommon for our photography team to send out 4 photographers for a dance of 500 students. Why do we send out so many people? Because we want to capture the dance as it's happening.. we want to post candid photos online for your viewing pleasure. We want you to be able to leave your camera at home, and not miss anything! 

Designer Studio photographs over 100 high school dances per year. We are in a small group of companies that can say that. We photograph so many dances, because our product is thorough, and complete. We don't miss a thing. 

If you are on the dance committee, and are interested in hearing more about our program, please contact us for a presentation. 

We run into the question every time we book an appointment... "What should I wear?".. We always ask a few simple questions in return: What type of clothes do you normally wear? What type of person are you.. are you active, are you into sports, movies, reading, clubs? 

We want our seniors to wear clothes, and bring props that can really describe them. We want the senior's personality to shine through in the session. It always makes for a much more fun session when our senior's show up with a prop or two that makes them different. 

Since our sessions are an hour long, we have a little time to play with different looks. We typically suggest 3-4 outfits.. some dressy, some casual. If you're a more dressy person, bring more dressy clothes. If you're a more casual person, bring more casual clothes. If you have animals, please feel free to bring them. If you have a car that you'd like pictures with.. by all means bring that in too! This is your session, and we are here to capture you in your senior year! At Designer Studio you can rest assured that you'll have an extremely unique and personal session!