Photography Travel Tips in Greece

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If you love taking pictures when you travel, no doubt you will take many or too many pictures. It's probably best to take more picture than fewer because you may not get a chance to go back ever again. Also as you probably know, some pictures will be gems, the type taken by professional photographers or even better, while other pictures will not be particularly interesting or very well-taken.

Once you return home, you will take a closer look at all your pictures. There may be some you can’t even remember where they were taken! To avoid this, here are some of my tips when taking pictures of the various places that you visit.

1. Document Your Trip

Documenting your trip will help you to remember the places you have visited and hence the pictures you have taken there. Carry a notebook in your knapsack and just write down the name, date and time of the place that you are visiting or about to visit. If you have a Blackberry or any other portable and handy device, you can document your trip in the same way on it too. Also digital cameras also show the date the photo was taken so you can cross reference your notes with the image itself!

Documenting your trip doesn't take very long. It can be easily done especially when you are touring by bus or you are on long bus trips.

2. Use of Travel Resources

Also, it’s a good idea to know a little about the place that you are about to visit and what pictures to take or what to focus on vis-à-vis picture taking. You could do a little research on the Internet like on my Greece website or at the library to get more acquainted with the history, culture and places of interest in Greece.

If you do not have the time for more detailed travel resources, I suggest that you pick up a copy of Fodor’s Greece. It’s an amazing, inexpensive and very useful guide. Say you are visiting some archeological ruins, Fodor’s Greece will provide you with a brief write-up about a particular site’s history and what you are looking at.  It gives you a map, layout of the archeological site and the names of the building or ruins of buildings there. When I visit a site’s ruins, if I look at the foundations and know nothing about it, it’s almost meaningless to me. Everything looks like a heap of derelict ruins. By knowing a little about its history and the names of the individual buildings, temples etc... and their purpose, it puts everything in historical and geographical perspective. Plus you now know what you are taking a picture of! You won’t be looking at a picture at home with a blank face!

Besides the historical focus of Fodor’s Greece, it also provides useful travel tips while in Greece, talks about Greek culture and there are lots of useful, detailed maps and colorful pictures too. It’s really handy guide in my opinion.

3. Tour Guides

If your tour comes with a guide, it will help you a lot too, especially when you have a very knowledgeable tour guide who is enthusiastic about his or her job. Your tour guide can provide interesting anecdotes about places.