Why Vacations Are Necessary For Photographers
Advice articles are always helpful for budding photographers. We’ve written a few of them ourselves. But that’s not to say that they always get it right.
One of the most frustrating pieces of advice is to “get out there and explore” – something you typically find in nearly every advice article there is.
Working a nine-to-five, with a partner and kids at home, doesn’t leave much time for exploring... unless that exploring includes searching around the house for car keys or taking a different route to the convenience store!
Thankfully, however, there is at least one opportunity in the year where exploring is on the main agenda -- the summer vacation.
No matter where you go, vacations always provide photographers with the chance to capture new scenes and put their skills to the test.
This is especially true for photo book lovers. If you utilise photo books to document your progress – outside of Facebook or Instagram – then a vacation gives you the chance to reach another level.
Even a square photo book – the smallest and cutest of the bunch – can feel vast and cinematic with vacation photographs.
But why exactly are vacations so important, besides being in a new place? Similarly, if you are struggling to choose a location for 2023, what is the most Insta-worthy location to visit?
A New Place Makes You Look Closer
Whether you’re travelling along a tropical trail in the Caribbean or walking through an ordinary village in Mauritius, because you’re in a foreign place, you will be observing things differently.
When we’re at home, even if we go outside for the specific purpose of taking photographs, it’s very easy to gloss over certain details – simply because we have grown so used to them. But in a place entirely alien to us, our senses go up to eleven, leading us to look at everything more closely. This then allows us to take more intricate, detailed photographs.
A New Way To Get Creative
When it comes to creative outlets, you can’t ask for more on vacation. There are so many new activities to try and photograph in 2023, and a vacation will give you the best chance to capture less conventional snaps – whether that’s swimming with sharks or rope-swinging across rocky vistas!
As well as this, being in a new place means new lighting, angles, framing and compositions to play around with. Every photographer needs a new playground now and then, and visiting a completely foreign place offers you the chance to play differently!
Inspiration Aplenty
As a photographer, it’s also essential to keep your inspiration. Without it, your photographs can quickly get boring, or you might even stop taking photos full stop.
If this has happened to you, it’s important to give yourself a way to get your inspiration back, and a vacation could be the perfect answer. Whether it’s a glistening sunset above the Pacific Ocean or the northern lights over the Jokulsarlon glacier, vacations give us a way to reignite that fire and feel the world's wonders once again.
Breaking Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Although anyone can be a photographer these days, it takes a lot of skill and creativity to be a great photographer, and a vacation certainly puts those skills to the test. With all the new possibilities come new challenges, which means that every photographer has to step outside of their comfort zone in order to rise to them.
That’s good, however. Every time you upload photos to a photo book maker, you want the photo book to be even better than the one before, right? Progression is important in photography, but you’re not going to progress if you stick in your lane and don’t test yourself every now and then. A vacation offers you the perfect chance to feel challenged once more, ensuring that you not only shoot new things, but learn new skills in the process.
Where To Go
If you’re struggling to nail down a vacation destination this year, a good way to narrow it down as a photographer is to look at the most Instagrammed countries of 2023. These are the 15 top locations that Insta-travellers have fallen in love with, amounting to the highest number of hashtags so far this year:
- London, England – 154,408,703 hashtags
- Paris, France – 134,627,924 hashtags
- Istanbul, Turkey – 120,501,355 hashtags
- New York, USA -- 118,054,808 hashtags
- Bali, Indonesia – 67,469,684
- Tokyo, Japan – 60,313,038 hashtags
- Singapore – 41,433,628 hashtags
- Hong Kong – 40,499,478 hashtags
- Sydney, Australia – 35,638,423 hashtags
- Buenos Aires, Argentina – 24,570,706 hashtags
- Seoul, South Korea – 21,808,064 hashtags
- Ibiza, Spain – 18,828,299 hashtags
- Iceland – 14,206,893 hashtags
- Maldives – 10,148,083 hashtags
- Oahu, Hawaii – 7,510,528 hashtags
Of course, you don’t have to visit one of these places. Just make sure that -- wherever you visit -- it’s a place where your photography can truly blossom and reach a level befitting of your skills!
