A while ago I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on travel photography put on by National Geographic. One of the best ideas I took away from that workshop was a list by National Geographic photographer Catherine Karnow of what she looks for while on assignment. Mind you, this is her list of 20 items and maybe only 6-8 shots will be used in a magazine spread. But the idea works for me as it’s a check list of what to try to capture in a distant location to help convey what it’s like to people back home. I can see how it’d work for both the serious photographer and the vacationer alike.
I posted the list, with some modification, to a site I write for called Phototuts+. You can find the article here. I now carry this list as a simple grid with the ideas down the left side and each location (if I’m visiting multiple locations, as with my upcoming Africa trip) as a header row. Make it a grid in Excel and Boom! You’re done!
This trip to Africa will be my first time using the list and I’ll let you know how it goes when I return in a month!
Thanks for sharing this. I will be using it to improve my own amateur shooting. I particularly liked the inclusion of “water” in the list, which can certainly speak volumes about a place, but which never occured to me to photograph.