Is photography important to you on your travels?

I certainly enjoy taking photos while traveling and make it a point to do so a fair amount - I enjoy sharing the pictures with family and friends, getting some printed and framed even, and going through (digital) photo albums to revisit some of my travels. I'll do much of what you do - delete a lot while on the trip, save a fraction, print out one or two. I appreciate just how easy a smart phone with a good camera makes all of this - I can snap a quick picture and look at it on my phone real quick to see if it's good to go, or whether I might need to snap another.

I'd say I also go out of my way to not be too distracted by taking photos, though. I don't want to spend too much of my time traveling scrambling around to try and get any "perfect shot", don't really take many selfies (most nice things I see as I travel look way better in a photo by themselves than they do with me in front of them!), and often just prefer to stand there and take in the sights and scenes with my own eyes, rather than being too focused on taking a picture of it.

I take a lot of photos on my travels and they are very important to me. I make physical scrapbooks with them and we look at them all the time. They are great memory joggers and spark good discussion and remembrances. I also put 2 from every trip onto gallery wrapped canvas and hang them on my walls. Such great memories!

Photos are of moderate importance to me--not just the obvious ones of something fabulous but other random amusing or interesting things--I take an enormous number of pics of crows, ravens and storks and also weird food items in convenience shops. What I don't take are selfies, and I have but one pic taken of me by someone on a tour--couldn't leave Vienna without a picture of me standing in the Harry Lime doorway.

I used to take a small digital camera and my iPhone, but grew weary of using both so now it's just the iPhone as I do post pictures on FB as I travel. Occasionally I corner someone and show the pics on my phone, but otherwise I don't print them for framing and scrapbooks

We take a ton of pictures and when we come home I transfer them to a computer, try to organize and delete duplicates and then never look at them again. I'm not sure what to do. The computer will not last forever. If I transfer it to some other medium -- well you know what happens - how many floppies or DVD's you got around.

I absolutely love taking pictures when we travel. I find that I "see" things better if I stop, slow down, frame up a beautiful scene, really ponder the moment. And as I go through my pictures after the trip, I always see a ton of things that I would otherwise have forgotten. Heck, I have a picture of Lake Tahoe hanging on my wall from a trip I went on 25 years ago; if it weren't on my wall, I'd never remember I took that trip at all.

But I also try not to let picture-taking dominate the trip. I travel with my family (husband, teen kids, and usually mom-in-law), and no one else takes any pictures at all, so it's kind of a drag for them to slow down while I stop. And I don't want to spend my entire vacation behind my camera. So each time we're at a destination, I will try and set aside some time for me to walk around by myself with the sole purpose of taking pictures; I usually try and time this for either sunrise or sunset to get the more interesting lighting.

When we get home, I will make a photo album for each trip. My mom-in-law always gets a copy for Christmas (since she has no photos of her own; see above). Then, like you, I'll choose one or two or three of my favorites and blow them up for wall hanging. Thank goodness we just put an addition on our house -- now I have more wall space for future trips! :-)

As a side note (kind of), I have recently started getting wall hangings from Shutterfly. They offer a metal print option that is outstanding. There is something about how the photo is reproduced directly on the metal (no glass, no paper texture, so no distortions) that makes the photo look EXACTLY like being there. I have a a few that are as large as 24" x 36" and the color reproduction is phenomenal: one of sunrise over a Venice canal, another with the sun setting over the Mönch in the Berner Oberland, both with absolutely amazing color that would not be nearly as true with standard paper/glass wall hanging. The metal prints are frameless, so they look more contemporary than a framed/matted hanging, but in the right place, they really, really pop. And if you wait, Shutterfly runs sales all the time, so easy to get them for 50% off.

I do use my phone to catch informal, people shots as we go along (no selfies, though; I am undocumented on our trips!). I like these just as much as the more "staged" ones I take with my camera, just for different uses. These are ones that I share with folks at home (text or email, I don't have any social media accounts). I also send a photo or two each day to my son's teacher with him doing something interesting. He is special needs, but terribly clever in his own diabolical way, and when he gets back, he always has to do a project about his trip. We've discovered that he likes to make stuff up and feed his teachers some crazy stories. So, the photos are proof of what actually happened!

A similar topic has come up before:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/photography-free-travel

I have had a fan club of people mostly co-workers and family since 2002 before the explosion of the internet
that don't travel that like seeing my photos.
Some of my photos I have posted on the forum using Google Photos as a platform that people have enjoyed.

Allen, taking photos on vacation is very important to me! I take lots and lots of them and don't delete any until I have them on my computer. I have created albums with 200 to 800 prints and also put them on DVDs so that we can look at them on the TV. I have enlarged a few for hanging.

By the way, I wish you lots of luck in closing the bank of Mom and Dad!

I agree with those who say photography is not my primary goal while traveling. However, it is a really important memory jog to parts of your trip which you may have forgotten. When get home I load pictures on my computer, delete some of the duplicates, out of focus shots and organize them by city. I like to play with software so I create a slide show with music. I have 6-8 friends who can't wait to see my photos when I return. I have a little party with cocktails, food and let the show run. I store them on my computer and back them up on an external hard drive. This may sound like a lot of work, but for me it is just like planning the trip, I enjoy it as much. Especially during this pandemic, it has been a great way to think about the trips over the years. I also journal everyday of a trip to remember those places I saw, people I met and of course, food I have tried (I have a lot of food pictures). Other than travel, I take few photos. I leave that to the Mrs. who likes to photo here at home. I always recommend journaling everyday and taking photos. You can always edit when you are home. I travel with an ipad, so its a snap.

My wife and I have taken six Rick Steves tours and have photographed our sights extensively. When I retired, my goal was to photograph the world. Taking photos of our experiences is very important to us. I take about 8,000 images on a typical Rick Steves tour. I also take group images of our tour group members, and provide each tour member with images I have taken of the entire group, as well as "couple" images taken at the closing dinner. Each night on our tour, I download the days images to my laptop computer I take on each trip. I also back all images to two portable drives (the size of a deck of cards). Once we return home, I spend time culling, deleting, rating and editing the images. We then take the best images and have landscape coffee table sized photo books made of each trip. We don't spend much money buying souvenirs that we have to lug home, but the photos, not only the digital ones, but also the printed photo books bring back memories that will be with us forever. Digital memory is relatively cheap so I probably take more images than I need but want to ensure we capture the history of our great Rick Steves tours.

Great questions - here's my take:
How important is photography to you on your adventures? Moderately, for the most part. If I've been to a place before, I take less pictures. If it's a new destination, I'm likely to take more. I try very hard to be in the moment and not dwell on the perfect shot, etc. I rarely take selfies, but I will occasionally, since I usually travel solo. I like seeing myself in places important to me. I like to take photos of close-ups of some nice architecture, fun street scenes, and animals. One of my favorite photos is of my two grown daughters playing with some cats in Orvieto.

What do you do with the photos once you’re home? Even while on vacation, I will try to delete the ones out of focus or that are duplicates. Once I get home, I load them on my computer. I will just look at them from time to time to relive the trip. The last several years, I've made photo albums with Snapfish. I usually use no more than 50 photos. I strongly suggest saving photos on an external drive if they are highly meaningful to you. I had a computer die earlier this year and lost a lot of pics from my first trip to Italy. Luckily, I had made a small album with them.

I love to take photos on my trips. I take more than you, but not as many as Doug! Sometimes I get carried away, and I have to remind myself that I travel to see and experience things, not take photos.

I have never framed any of my travel photos, but I make a book of every big trip we take. I enjoy doing that almost as much as the trip!

We also take photos when we travel. I only use my iPhone now, less to carry around and worry about. I also make a photobook through snapfish. Like every trip we plan, each book I make gets better and better. I now include a information page for each city with our hotels, restaurants, and sights we visited. I journal which helps, but i also will take a picture of each place to help me remember. I also take pictures of our meals/snacks and include a page of our most memorable. Extra photos are so easy to delete. I love looking through my books, remembering the great time we had.
I also make photobooks for each year. I can get two years in each book and start in January. I organized it by month. I usually do one page per occassion which could be a wedding, New baby, holidays, birthdays, retirement, visit with family from out of town, baseball game, grandkids halloween costumes, etc. I figure no one is gonna look through my computer when my husband and I are gone, but they just might keep our books. At least i hope.

I can't imagine not having photos of a trip but it is less than some and more than others. I like architectural close ups so have downsized from a bulky bridge camera to a pocket 30x zoom. I don't have an iPhone but am looking at the new Samsung that now has zoom options. It would be practical for my 3 month retirement trip with carry on only luggage.
I used to load to the external hard drive, sort and label right away, but realize I still haven't identified my pics from Spain 2017.
I take some with my phone as I tend to upload some each day to Instagram to share with my kids so they know I am alive.
I have a wall of black and white photos on my stair wall. 5x6 or 8x10 in mixed bag cheap black frames. Should have 1 per trip, but I am woefully behind. I should also mark the back of place and year for when I die.
I have a few trips in journal format from one of the photo websites. I have some photo books which no one looks at.
I have used some as presentations for volunteer work, textiles of Africa, and for travel Meetup. I also take plant, garden and bird photos on the road so they end up in local organizations photo competitions.
I remember being so much more relaxed in the Prado Museum where no photography is allowed and on safari, I would take some shots then put down the camera to rememver and appreciate with my mind's eye. Those are the ones that matter the most.

DH and I both love photography, so our cameras and extra memory cards are at the top of our packing lists. Between the 2 of us, we can easily take a couple thousand photos on a trip. I put them on our computer when we return and can spend several weeks going through them, editing and deleting. Then they're backed up on an external hard drive.

I used to scrapbook every trip, but I've run out of bookshelf space. A few are used as wallpapers on the computer or tablets. I have a set of 6 photos mounted on the family room wall for photos that are interesting. They get changed out after each trip. Someyimes they'll be doors or windows that look photogenic. Or stairways, columns, other architectural features, or gardens. A different theme seems to emerge with each trip.

I often forget to take photos, I usually live in the moment taking in “mental photos“. I often look around in udder amazement that people would travel all the way to view everything through their iPhone screen.
I do take photos when I remember and I do enjoy looking back at them sometimes wishing I had more.
I also do take selfies not for me but for my dad. He enjoys looking at the photos as I travel around and he says he wants to see pictures of me at places. He said “ if I want to see a picture of the Eiffel Tower I could just look at a one of thousands on the internet”

Very important.

I think there's several ways of thinking about photos. I have friends who say it takes you out of the moment, but that's not at all the way I see it. I'm pretty into photography. I don't know a ton of the technical stuff, I use auto mode on the dslr or my iphone camera more often than I should, but I love the act of making photographs and I think I'm pretty decent at it. Searching for interesting angles, searching out the best light even if it means getting up at 5AM, finding unique places that look great in pictures, framing things in a meaningful way, that kind of thing. All that makes me MORE attentive than I would be otherwise. Searching for angles or details in a sight makes me appreciate it more than just looking without photos in mind.

I don't do selfies and I'm in almost none of the pictures (my husband takes photos also, but I tend to hide when his phone is out, I like being on the other end of the camera!). I photograph my spouse and kids because I love them, but as far as photography and my enjoyment of the act of making a photo, I prefer buildings/cityscapes/landscapes. So my photos are like 20% of my family/travel partners and 80% of the sights or places I visit.

What do I do with the photos? Organize them on my computer so I can always find them, blow the best ones up into wall art for my home, and use them to remember my trip. I'm not much of a shopper, I don't bring home items or souveniers. My photos serve that purpose and they serve it well, IMO.
On the computer they are organized by day (i.e. Austria visit, Day 1, June 3 2019 or whatever). This lets them act as a visual diary. Like "on this day I visited that church, and then I took a picture of that schnitzel at the cafe, then I went to the opera house..."

Extremely important. My husband refers to my trips as "photo safaris". Certainly photography is a hobby of mine and I enjoy seeing things through the lens and consider photography as an art. So I try to do more than just snapshots. But even if that's all someone does, it can still be a wonderful 'journal' of the trip. I try to write up a travel journal of each trip as well but for me it's really the photographs that tell the story. I can look back on photos I took years ago and remember the way the air felt that day, what it smelled like, how I felt about where I was. I take thousands of photos and so it takes me weeks and weeks to go through them all when I get back, edit them and put together a gallery. So it extends my trip considerably. And then for years after I have those photos to look at. I kind of joke that I do this so that when I'm too old to travel I can sit and revisit all those places in the photos. This year not being able to travel because of covid I am getting considerable joy from looking at my photos.

As I edit and organize my photos from a trip I want to label them correctly so I go back to my notes and often do even more research about the places I went so I sometimes learn even more than I did in the initial research phase or on the trip itself.

In addition to galleries of cities and towns I have a gallery of about a thousand images that plays as a loop of random shots as my screen saver. I can sit for hours and remember where each shot is from. It's kind of like exercise for my brain.

My photos are posted here: https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/

I usually end up being the official photographer on a trip. I'm not sure I like all that responsibility and sometimes I get home and think I hardly have any photos of me! But I always end up with tons of pictures and make photo books. Every year, all the same size so they stack nicely on my bookshelf. We also have a Christmas tradition of having a slide show of the best 20 pics each. Everyone submits pictures and I tend to write a humorous comment on them. It's great fun and a good way to remember the good times traveling that year (Obviously no slideshow this year). I also enlarge my best photos, and put them in poster frames, and display them in my office at work (in a high school) it brightens my dreary walls and they make great conversational pieces. So yes, photos are very important to me.

Margaret

The first half of my life was photo free, I had read Colin Fletcher's piece about "the tyranny of film," how taking pictures detracts from being there in the moment. Then I got a camera and spent too much energy deciding what to use my limited film supply on. (Did I mention I'm a cheapskate?) Then the digital age came along and now I take too many pictures too often, and don't edit them down the way you thoughtful people do, and mostly they sit in my computer, lightly edited and captioned. I use a slideshow as a background for the home screen, switching between trips every few months. My wife generously views each trip's photos (100-500 depending on length) and says kind things about them. I use a small Canon camera, but when/if I enter the smartphone world I'll probably use that instead. The pictures do help me remember details of the trip but none are "wall worthy" unless by accident. No selfies, but now and then someone will offer to take one of me.

Photography is the "weakest link" among my travel skills. ;-)

My answer is, not anymore. My last four trips are on the PC and have never been looked at, once I found one or two to pass on or use as our Christmas card photo. I used to travel with multiple camera lenses, looking for that one great shot, but now its not important. Someone referred to it as not enjoying the moment, but traveling through a little camera lens. I realized post cards will always be better than any photo I take.

Photography is an essential part of my travel life. Here are some "tips":

• I focus upon capturing images of people in unposed settings
• I focus upon capturing "color" and the richness of the portrayed story, even when it presents as black and white night time images
• I only use video when the object of focus is moving
• I no longer allow the camera equipment to control my movements, so I ditched thousand of dollars of DSLR equipment and now solely rely upon an iPhone
• I am vicious with selecting only the top 25 images of all taken photos to portray the journey. Hence, the selected images must be of high quality and convey impactful scenes akin to the saying "A photo speaks a 1,000 word/". Besides, few folks desire to stay focused on viewing more than 25 images.
• I do create photo books as part of medium utilized to share the story
• I do print ONE image to frame and hang in my office representative of the most focused memory of the journey
• I do use my TV to project the images as part of the screen saver tool

I do not miss carrying film through security check points!
Safe travels!

Alan, as soon as I can nail someone’s hand to the chair, make him/her look at my photos, I will start taking massive quantities of more photos! No one wants to look at a kajillian photos of our/your/trip to wherever, etc...they are all on their own trip, taking pics.....Ha ,ha, anyway just joking neighbor. I also have a few pics on our dining wall and some scattered through a few rooms, but the best pictures are the ones that flash through my brain at 4AM in the morning when I can’t sleep , oh such good memories keeping me awake...

1. Photography is extremely important to me but not at the expense of enjoying the moment. So, I do take lots of photos, but there’s also times I will purposely not take out my camera (phone). They are my main souvenir. When I take a photo, I pause and look at different angles, etc. to obtain a few shots that I especially like. I’d rather take 2-3 fantastic shots than 20 mediocre ones.

If I’m traveling solo, I like to review my photos as I relax at the end of the day and delete the less desirable duplicates. Otherwise, I don’t delete any until I’m home. I also share a handful of photos on Facebook each evening with a little commentary, if I’m traveling solo, by request from several friends. It’s a nice way later to review and write a trip report for this forum.

1. When I’m home, i look through my photos a lot during the first month. Then I look at them periodically. After at least four months, I create an on-line photo book that’s printed since we have had some travel photo storage go obsolete. I think if we had a fire, our family photos and those books would be in one of my arms as I ran out the door!

This past year i had 8 photos enlarged into canvas prints that are arranged on our home office wall, my “travel planning room!” I love gazing at them and remembering the special day and experience associated with them! Two years ago, I had one special photo made into a canvas, and I’ve enjoyed it so much that with Covid and my cancelled trip, the other photos were a priority to create.

Yes taking photos is very important to me. I make a simple real album of each trip, often using a photo album that I purchased while away. I have found some beautiful albums in Italy and France over the years at specialty paper stores. I choose a sampling based on the number of pages available and then keep the rest in google photos. While I take photos of major sights, I also try to zero in on specific small details such as a beautiful pillar in a church, flowers at a floral shop, interesting foods/ingredients, beautiful doors.

My father was an architect and after he died I had 1000s of slides and photos to sort from his travels but because he only took photos of buildings, and rarely people, it was difficult to know what the photos were if I hadn’t been there myself. While I have followed in his footsteps of being drawn to interesting buildings, I try not to get too carried away with the number of photos and I make note of where they are.

I love capturing bits of time and place while I travel. I often post them on my Instagram account. I use my iPhone and a small Canon G9X. I take my laptop and each night upload what I took with the Canon camera.

Taking photos when I travel makes me happy. I don’t need to share but when I do I find it’s a simple pleasure. Some might be used to create calendars, some as Christmas cards, others as framed Christmas gifts....but most of the time they are simply reminders of pleasant travel moments.

Very important - for awhile I was selling travel photos on etsy, but kinda fell out of that - I keep meaning to just go to digital download instead of print and mail, but just haven't gotten around to it.

The photos also help me do my online travel blog - sometimes it can take me 3-4 mos to finish it up, so the photos help me remember where I was when and what I did that day.

I don't print out many for myself, as my wall space is a bit limited. I share them with my family and friends on fb. Otherwise I do up a photobook online and have that as my reminder.

I also do take selfies not for me but for my dad. He enjoys looking at
the photos as I travel around and he says he wants to see pictures of
me at places. He said “ if I want to see a picture of the Eiffel Tower
I could just look at a one of thousands on the internet”

I have a similar story. When my Mom got too old to travel she loved to travel vicariously through my wife and I. So every morning I would email her a few photos of where we'd been the day before. One time, she emailed me back to ask if we were really there because there were no photos of us. I started taking a selfie of my wife and I with an email heading Good Morning from.....

Since then she's finally gotten on Facebook and we take a daily selfie and post the Good Morning from... to all of our Facebook friends. Nobody really asks to see our photos when we get home, but I'm honored that our daily posts are not only appreciated but expected by a large group of friends.

I love taking photos on my travels ( although I do not think I am a good photographer) and then making photo books. Here is the one from our RS Greece tour last year. Fun and easy to do!

https://www.shutterfly.com/share-product/?shareid=56db153d-bdc1-4f57-8a12-aa1e88d282c8&cid=SHARPRDWEBMPRLNK

edited Isabel, your photos are fantastic!

Yes!

For those of you on Instagram who love Vienna, check my account (3point14maker) for a taste of Wien. PS - Hope it’s ok to share that here.

Isabel, I 2nd Tammy's comment.

Tammy, I'm going to send your Shutterfly link to my wife. That book is outstanding. Who does the illustrations?

Like a few of you have already mentioned, I sometimes forget to enjoy the scenery because I'm too busy taking photos of it. However, sometimes it turns into a bonus. I'm a morning person so getting up before the sun isn't a problem. Last year I was intent of getting up to photograph the sunrise along the walls in Carcassonne, France. Not only did that morning give me one of my wall worthy photos but it was one of the most memorable sunrises I've ever witnessed. Plus, the crowds you typically experience in Carcassonne weren't there yet. It was me, a woman from England and a few cats. I would never have bothered being there if I hadn't been intent on getting some photos.

*Tip for the authors of the RS France guidebook. Highly recommend you add a sentence to get up early for the sunrise in Carcassonne.

Posting on Facebook, etc. is the best way to tell thieves you are not home. I never post a trip photograph until I get home.

Why would you have Facebook friends that you think might rob you?
I’m calling urban legend on that one.

Agree with Dale. If you have your privacy settings correctly configured, then why would your friends steal from you?

"That being said it can be an obsession that keeps one from enjoying the “view” at hand..."

On the other hand, personally I love looking for small details to photograph, so I daresay, for me, I look at my surroundings with a critical eye, scanning for little things that might otherwise go unnoticed. And trying to find the best angle to take a photo, or noticing the way the light falls also contributes to really noticing my surroundings.

And yes - taking photos def gets me up early in the morning when I may otherwise sleep in. Last year I was out at 6am in Venice, when it was still dark, and watched the sun break the horizon from Accademia Bridge. Could I have done that without a camera - sure. Would I, had I not had the motivating factor of getting sunrise photos? Probably not.

But yes - there are many people (and I've seen them) who will just snap a photo and wander off, barely looking at what is in front of them, because they need to get to the next photo spot. And then there are those who obsessively take photo after photo (and selfie after selfie) and do the same thing. You gotta pause in between!

On the Facebook thing, many people have as “friends” random acquaintances or distant relatives. Would my actual friends steal from me? No. Would 3rd cousin Bob or Tom my high school class weirdo tell his shady roommate that I’m out of town and have stuff worth stealing? Maybe. I could unfriend anyone I’m not actually close to, or I could post when I get back. I can send my actual friends updates elsewhere - a website, email, private Instagram, whatever.

Regarding social media safety of posting while you are away. Out of curiosity I googled police department social media safety, and some, but not all advise not to post while you are away, but no department provided any statistics to show if it's a real problem. Most PD's seem to be more concerned with more sinister uses of social media such as child pornography. This seems to be a typical statement regarding social media;

Remember that once you post something online, you cannot control who
has shared, screen shot or downloaded it. Removing it from a post does
not mean someone has not already taken that information.

It strikes me that posting while on vacation is like buying travel insurance; you probably won't need it, but better safe than sorry.

I'm a scrapbooker and I studied photography for 2 years back in the age of film.

In 36 days in the UK in 2017, I took 5500 photos. I don't delete any because they are digital but I cherish them all because my mom is usually with us on our travels. I print about 20-30 per day in different sizes for my scrapbook but only about one a day makes the print and display status.

Pictures are very important to me, but I don't have a camera in my face all the time. I like to take a few good ones when I get to a site and then put the camera away. I don't want to experience the trip through a camera lens, or through my phone camera. But I take a bunch over the whole course of the trip. When I get home I go through them. Good ones get printed and put in a picture album. Great ones might get framed and put on the wall or on a shelf. I love remembering trips through photos.

Tammy, I loved your photobook. Are all the illustrations part of the program. I use snapfish which is easy to navigate. Yours is 100% better than any book I made. I am gonna have to bookmark this thread and “borrow” some of your ideas.

Throughout this Covid shut-down, my Costco photo books have brought me incredible joy as I relive the memories. I am surprised when I look at a photo of an activity of which I had actually forgotten. I only use my I-Phone camera.

When traveling, I delete photos each night, and try to limit the "keep" to 40 photos a day. If I have good wi-fi, I then then send these photos to Costco each night. My photo books are usually about 500 pictures; I've learned that Costco limits the pages to about 70, so I want to keep it to one book.

I enjoy putting the Costco photo books together. It takes many hours to complete, but I enjoy the project. And- In spite of my diligence, there's always one typo that escapes me, and it's a family "scavenger hunt" to find that typo. In my last two photo books, the typos have been on the outside: I left the "Y" off of "Italy" on the spine title, [the print of which is VERY small on my screen, in my defense.] And the next year, on the back cover, I labeled it "Fist Edition", instead of "First Edition." Since my daughter collects First Editions, this is a family joke.

I have run out of wall space to make many prints; if it's a great shot, tho, I do make Costco metal prints, and then rotate.

Let's all hope we are all taking photos -safely- next year !

When traveling, I write what I did each day, in a journal. I consider this more important than picture taking.

My interest in photography maybe low compared to some of you.

I leave my camera in a locker or in a bag I leave at the coat room, when visiting a museum or site that has lockers or a coat room and does not allow photography.

I never got into taking pictures with my phone. I have a compact sized digital camera that my parents got me as a gift in 2006. I carry it around with me when traveling. Every so often, I take it out, take one picture, and then put it away. At the end of my last two week trip to the Netherlands and Belgium, I came home with under 150 pictures. My practice is to transfer my pictures to my computer, pick out about 30 pictures, upload them to my account on Flickr, enter captions or descriptions for each one, then I show my parents and an aunt the pictures on a 10.1 inch tablet computer. My mom wishes I would take more pictures. My mom and aunt who is her sister really are fascinated by my pictures. Neither of then can travel far from home, due to fear of riding in planes, boats, other phobias, and so on.

I didn't own a camera when I went on my first trip to Europe (1977-1978, 4 months). No problem. It didn't bother me at all. Now 40+ years later, does it bother me that I have no pictures from that trip? Nope. In some ways I remember more of it than those where I have taken pictures.

Now I use my phone for picture-taking. I think I take snapshots, nothing good enough for printing in any hardcopy format. I do save a few on my phone or tablet and put my favorites from the most recent trip in rotation on my PC. I'm ruthless about deleting. I keep and share only the best, not selected by photographic quality but rather by telling the best story.

I used to do a blog to talk about our trips and share the pictures from them. For the past 7 years, I've shared them via Facebook. The probability that bad characters associated with my very limited number of FB friends would burglarize our house is very low, especially since only about 5% of those friends live in AZ.

I don't worry about anyone breaking into our house when we are gone. I set our alarm, have our mail held, arrange for the local sheriff drive-by service and we have good insurance.

Anything of real importance goes in a lockbox at my credit union. In that lockbox is also the DVD that the sheriff's department did of the valuable stuff in the house.

I was burglarized 4 times in the past, all long before PCs were even a thing. Was I PO'd? Of course, but from those experiences I learned to always have insurance and not obsess over possessions. There are only three things that I wish I still had. That's not much from 50+ years as an adult.

I think I take snapshots, nothing good enough for printing in any
hardcopy format.

I've always considered myself a snapshotter and not a photographer. I have read a few books over the years to learn some basics and try to make photos more interesting but it's rare that I go out of my way to find that perfect photo.

none are "wall worthy" unless by accident.

Even in a previous comment I made about getting up to see the sunrise in Carcassonne, I hadn't made any plans in advance to get that perfect photo-except to wake up early. I probably took 50 photos/snapshots in a 15 minute period as the sun rose, and 4 or 5 were all that I thought were worth keeping. I'd consider those to be accidental because I was taking photos in volume in hope that a few would work out.

I think the difference between snapshot and, for lack of a more specific word, photography is just intentionality. Are you pointing the camera at something quickly to just show it, or are you thinking it through and trying to make your image interesting/well framed/representative of more than just the building/other goal dealing with the look of the image? It could turn out terribly (many of mine do!) but it’s the thought that counts. Looking and thinking about what you are seeing is worth it even if the result stinks. Quickly pointing a camera and then rushing off may not be a great use of your time.

I totally agree with Mira.

Photography is important to me, period. I have a camera with me 90% of the time, at home or away (not including my cell phone camera). I try to find the 'art' in life. I am not terribly good at it, but getting better. It would make no sense for me to ignore my camera on vacation. Photography is one of the reasons I travel. I will, on occasion, take a snapshot...usually of a sign to clarify where I was at the time of a group of photos, but otherwise, I like to compose and arrange individual settings to my photo. I take photos for myself, not to show people per se. I'm not very good, IMO, even after all these years, but I sure enjoy myself.

We often think of taking a "My Way" tour, just to take photos in more places than we'd generally travel to on our own, on one trip. I'm going to be like the Titanic woman...forgot her name...with photographs of all kinds of places around me when I can no longer travel. Inshallah

I guess I'm not really a snapshotter either. Once I see something worth taking a photo of, I will take the time to look at interesting angles and a way to frame it and then fire of 5-10 shots. I think of snapshots because some of my favourite photos are taken quickly when I see my wife walking toward a view or staring at something intently. I need to take those photos quickly because if she sees me she'll try to smile and pose, or worse, she'll give me heck because I took another photo with her butt in it.

In case my reply was the first one that mentioned posting on Facebook, no worries. I only post if I’m traveling solo and my husband is at our home. We don’t post until we’re back home if we’re both traveling together. And I definitely don’t post notices like “can’t wait to be in Italy in a week!” on social media.

Couldn't imagine going on any trip, be it local or all over the US when my daughters were young or with my wife on our trips to Europe and New Zealand, without taking some combination of cameras (35mm SLR/DSLR, point and shoots or phones) ... don't look at them as often as I should but when I do, wow the memories they bring back, especially of my 2 girls and the fun we all had when they were younger ... after the trip, I download them into their own folder and then backup the folder onto 2 external drives (don't use the cloud, heard some 'evaporation' stories of people losing pictures when they hit the wrong key ... I prefer something I can touch and control) so they are in at least 3 places ... but I keep putting off really organizing them and putting together some form of 'best of' slideshow for the digital picture frame I haven't plugged in yet (sounds like a good retirement project in another year and a half) ... had bought a new point and shoot for our April 2020 trip to the Netherlands and Belgium to replace the big Nikon ... might not be quite as good but huge space and weight savings since we (try to) travel light with only 1 carry-on and 1 personal item each.

Pat - I always have a typo in my photobooks no matter how diligently I proofread. But my WORST - I think it was our 2015 trip to France - but I was doing the book in early 2016. Right on the cover I put Holiday 2016. Apparently I forgot to proofread the cover. When I took it out of the envelope I groaned because of course it hit me in the face - I used the wrong year.

I take a lot of pix on each trip. I am finally getting around to the creation of trip scrapbooks. I have 6 trips to do.

I follow a specific approach:

1) I use Google Maps to create a map of each location, and add arrows to show how we went from one location to the next.
2) I use a program of my own construction to add captions to each photo
3) I then use LaTeX to write documents about the trip.

I think I have grown agnostic about taking photos. I went from lugging SLRs/lenses and underwater cameras to barely even carrying my iPhone with me. I have made scrapbooks and books and hanging large photos of trips. I've taken thousands of photos on a trip and I've taken tens of photos. I do like photos of places not so much people even when I travel in a group. I laugh at my sister who can't take ten steps without stopping for another group photo ( could be why I travel less and less with her :)) . I don't like looking at other peoples photos BUT I do like seeing them posted on FB. I do post on FB once I'm back home even just a couple shots as my sisters do like seeing where we are and what we are up to.

I'm a bit late getting into the discussion, but to answer your questions.....

1. Photography is a very important part of my travels, and for that reason I don't mind hauling around a full size DSLR along with at least one extra lens, spare batteries, and other kit. Since I likely will never be able to get back to many of the places I visit, I want some good images to remember them. I enjoy the process of taking pictures and always strive to get the best images possible, although not all of them are as good as I hoped. I also pack along at least one P&S camera and my iPhone for snapshots and to get pictures of "less artistic" subject matter. As I travel solo much of the time, I don't have any concerns about stopping to take pictures whenever necessary.
2. I tend to delete bad pictures at the time I take them so when I return home the only ones on the memory card are those that I feel have some potential. I usually shoot only RAW images and I transfer those to my desktop computer for storage. I post process those that I plan to load on a website to share with family and friends or those I want to print & frame.

Hopefully I'll be able to start getting some new pictures in Europe in the not-too-distant future.

Photography is pretty important to my trips. I use a decent autofocus (Canon G16), mainly as I don't want to carry a larger bag.

I make calendars for friends and family. My 'rule' is that the picture has to be from the last years trips. I've been lucky to average 3 or so overseas trips/year to pick from, so typically would have some great shots. Usually 100 pics a day in nice weather, sometimes 15 or so of same things. I use the little date block in the calendar for smaller pics that don't make the grade for the WOW shoots, and customize to have meaning to the recipient or to have a theme, like 4 fountains in a row, or motorcycles, whatever. I like the scanfish 11"x14" size, it's a nice paper and quality printing.

I try and cull the bad ones as I go, and will put some good ones into a word document and weave in a narrative of our daily adventure for the kids, and the couple of friends/co-workers who request the updates, and send out as the trip progresses. The kids say it's easier to follow than random shots and switching to the description in email.

I like to wander city centers early morning (5 am and on) and late evening. Few people and my camera had a nice night setting. Bronze statues seem to pop out better. Tons of castles, valleys, rivers, Veteran's Memorials from multiply countries, goofy shops signs.

I love taking pictures on trips, but I just use my iPhone, not a separate camera. Before the iPhone, our daughter used to take my dads old professional SLR camera along and mostly did black and whites. Even at a very young age, she had a great eye, and still does. I do not, lol. We had several of hers enlarged and framed and are hung in our home. I got lucky once, with a point and shoot using B&W film. Our young son was running down a snowy path at a castle in Scotland, and he did not know I had the camera. I got a picture of him running away from me, and it is an amazing shot. When we had that enlarged, the shop we went to did mostly professional work and they could not believe I got that with a little point and shoot camera.

Now though, I stick with the iPhone, although, fingers crossed, if our replanned Iceland trip pans out, our sons gf will bring her digital SLR. She is a really good photographer, so that will be fun.

With my iPhone pictures, I keep them in albums on my phone/computer and will sometimes frame a picture, but mostly they are just for my enjoyment. I love going back and looking at past trips. I also take pictures of say a menu or something just so I can remember the name of something.

We do a lot of backpacking in the mountains and I love taking pictures of wildflowers. I don't know the names of all of them, so it is fun to snap a picture and then look it up later.

The only art in our home is from our travels. Either prints we purchase, or photos we have taken.

I do post photos on Facebook when I travel. My mother-in-law loved the pictures we posted every evening of the days adventures when we were in England. I love it when my friends take trips and post their pictures to Facebook.

Here's an example of how taking photos can really enrich a trip experience. Although I do extensive research before a trip, I always come upon things that I didn't know about. After the trip, as I am going through the photos I will try to find out about that place, or art work or whatever. And often that takes me down a whole new path learning about a place I went, things I didn't know before or even while I was there. If I didn't have the photos to 'research' that wouldn't happen.

Right now, given that I am stuck in pandemic hell, and can't travel (or do much of anything) I am working on learning about art history (thanks to Rick Steves book out last summer on art history for getting me inspired to do this). I came across a photo I took of a fresco from a church in Bassano del Grappa Italy from a couple years ago. The church was unremarkable but the fresco, on the portico outside I liked so I took a photo. At the time I knew nothing about the church or the fresco. Well now, with time to research (and the magic of google) I found out some interesting info about the painting.

This is the painting I'm talking about https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/p484153363 (I can only link to the gallery, not the specific photo - the one I'm talking about is number 182 - they are numbered, just scroll down)

Mary--I also post photos to Facebook during trips. Then when it pops up as a memory, it sure brings a smile to my face.

When my grandparents passed away, I received a print/drawing from when they lived in Europe for a few years, and this particular one was from Rothenburg. From that picture, I aways wanted to visit there. I had never heard of it before. So several years ago when we went to Munich, we added 3 days in Rothenburg. I had a photo on my phone of that print/drawing not for the trip, but just because. Turns out we walked past a shop that had old prints, so we went in. In talking with the shop owner, I showed her the print and she said the artist had died a few years before, but that she got all of his remaining work. It was not in the shop though. So she closed up for about an hour and had us come back later. Upon returning, she had a handful of pieces from that artist and I chose one that complimented the one I had. When we returned home, I had both framed the same way, and they hand in a corner, one on each side. I absolutely LOVE this and know my grandparents would be so excited about it as well. So I am very happy that I happened to have a photo of that piece.

This year, I inherited my parents' enormous collection of travel slides and photographs: a walk-in closet with shelves of slides in carousels and ziploc bags and cardboard boxes, a floor-to-ceiling book shelf of photo albums, and many large boxes of loose photos (mostly black-and-white). Oh, and boxes of videos, too. Close to 100 framed photos. My parents traveled all over the world and my father photographed "everything" and edited out nothing. Labeled almost nothing.

I sorted things out as best I could, and distributed photos to family, and kept what I wanted, but I probably threw away 99% of it. That's horrifying to all of us who love to take and keep photographs, right?

Besides my own half dozen boxes of loose prints and slides, and photo albums, there are now 40,000 photos in the Travel section in Photos on my laptop. 4,000 just from our latest trip to the Veneto and Amsterdam last fall. They are in folders, many are labeled, and my husband and I are both pretty ruthless about deleting poor photos and near-duplicates. But, still, that's a lot of digital travel photos.

What will our two sons do with these photos when the time comes? The idea of them either deleting all these photos or having to look through them all seems equally sad.

So, now is a good time to create some "Best Of" folders or "All You Need to Look At" folders. And to label each photo. And to think through what they will want to see. Just for instance, I really don't want to inflict on them thousands of photos of the details in 14th and 15th century Italian artworks when I know that neither son could tolerate looking at even one. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. I'll have to guess at what our two grandchildren might want to look at.

Anyway, having to deal with my parents' photos was an excellent reminder that my husband's and my travel photography is mostly important only to ourselves. We do make a heavily edited slideshow of each trip for family and a few friends, and we do enjoy looking through our photos and also emailing some to friends. That's about it. We might give a talk for the Italian Cultural Center here in the Twin Cities one day.

1. Photography is quite important since we don't need more souvenir-type stuff littering the shelves and walls. Let the photos do that and help us recall the wonderful adventures we enjoyed. Or the mishaps we encountered.
2. nancys8's reply compels me to write now. We too inherited old photos, but certainly not to the degree she described. And then we had a bazillion slides from living overseas, our travels, and just living life. During the pandemic I have narrowed down the slides to a reasonable amount and had them digitized, but still have to tackle the prints. Trying to plan somewhat for that inheritance time that nancys8 described, I asked my son how he wanted all these photos. Thinking he'd say on a flash drive or some such memory device, he surprised me when he said in a book(s). So not that everyone's offspring will respond similarly, my thinking is that we that are more mature should determine how many and in what format we leave our photographic memories.

1) Photography is very important for me. It's part of how I see the world, and it's a lot quicker than drawing. As someone else mentioned, it also makes me get up early to take advantage of good light.

Each night, I catalog my photos, adding keywords and descriptions. I find this very helpful when I get back home.

During a trip, I usually post to a blog during my travels, and I also set up a private FB group, which basically just links back to the blog. (Some of my friends don't do FB, and so the blog is accessible to a wider group.)

2) What do you do with the photos once you’re home?

• Sometimes I make a book (using Blurb), and sometimes I make a video/DVD, depending on how many people want a copy. I really prefer to do a book, but sometimes -- especially when I travel with my mother and her friends -- everyone on the trip wants a copy, and a DVD is cheaper when I have to make 10-12 copies.

• I post a reasonable selection to SmugMug. You can see an example here: https://mariematthews.smugmug.com

• I teach drawing and painting, and I use some of the pictures as reference photos for my students. I also use the photos as references for my own work.

Photos are very important to us because of how easy it is to forget where you've been, how you got there, what unplanned thing happened or all the unique little things you see. Memory is not what it used to be.

Marie, I'm envious of your photos. You clearly have an artistic eye that I don't. While I've read books and learned from trial and error and do my best to find interesting angles and frames, I still think volume of photos and pure luck is how I find my best pictures.

I enjoy looking at photos from others that have been to the same places as me to see how people that saw the same things as me could interpret in different ways. I find your photos of Venice with the gondolas in the foreground to be so interesting.

Agfa, 100ASA, f16, 1/60th works for me.

This year, I inherited my parents' enormous collection of travel
slides and photographs: a walk-in closet with shelves of slides in
carousels and ziploc bags and cardboard boxes, a floor-to-ceiling book
shelf of photo albums, and many large boxes of loose photos (mostly
black-and-white). Oh, and boxes of videos, too. Close to 100 framed
photos. My parents traveled all over the world and my father
photographed "everything" and edited out nothing. Labeled almost
nothing.

Nancy, I envied you until your last 2 sentences. My parents hardly took any photos, ever. They didn't travel much, but it would have been nice to have seen some of their memories.

Wow Maria. Your photos are spectacular. The composition, colors, subject etc. just beautiful. I am more like Alan. Pure luck if I get a good shoot. Thanks for sharing

Ye, on my thought photography, is very much important in traveling because it is very necessary to keep your travel memories with you, As, we don't go often to that place. So, to remember the journey photography is very much important.

About routine - every day on a trip, with rare exceptions, I go over the days photos. Sometimes I do this at night, sometimes during siesta, sometimes at 6AM, sometimes on the train between destinations. I delete duplicates or bad ones, do minor editing on good ones, back them up to the cloud, put them in an iPhoto album, and put the extra-good ones in a special folder. At the end of the trip I’ll have hundreds of decent ones, dozens of pretty good ones, and no crappy ones (because I deleted those). All organized in a big album called, for example, Sicily 2019, and a smaller album called something creative like best of Sicily 2019