Originally posted by sjwomersley Hello!
I am going to Riviera Maya in Mexico next April with my fiancée / wife (we are getting married there!) and I'm trying to learn how to make the most of my time there and get some really good photos. I've always taken lots of photos on holiday and I would even say that a few are very good, but the vast majority of them are quite standard "look at this nice beach/town square/animal" sort of photos.
We will be there for 3 weeks but due to the cost of everything I will be in the hotel for all but a few days. The hotel is Grand Palladium Colonial Resort and whilst in Mexico we will be going on trips to: Coba, Izamal and Merida. We are doing a couple more trips as well but I doubt I will use my camera much as they are pretty full on - ziplines, snorkelling and cliff diving!
I'm only mentioning the hotel and the trips we are doing in case anyone who reads this has actually been to those places themselves and has any location-specific pointers
The biggest concern for me is how I can go on day trips to places I have never been and still be able to take creative and unique photos. On these sorts of trips there's usually the unmentioned protocol of keeping up with the rest of the group and obviously whilst taking photos I also want to be able to listen to our tour guide and enjoy the surroundings.
I will be taking my K-3II, AF201 FG, 16-85mm, 55-300mm, 100mm macro lens (all Pentax) and a circular polarising filter.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Sam
Yeah, Sam, I think everyone agrees you can't do a great job documenting *and* do the right thing by your bride and the tour group.
You can't be absent for breakfast and dinner because you're shooting in the Golden Hour.
But it sounds like you don't want to surrender entirely to taking predictable snapshots either.
So don't.
Set yourself a target of one picture per day that will be more than reacting, it's going to be thought out and setup, even for five minutes.
It might be telling your tour guide you're getting very close at 16mm on your DA zoom for a dramatic environmental portrait.
Leaning over the hotel balcony to get a shot of the bus and everyone assembling for departure.
Asking a local vendor to take a couple of steps sideways to get them backlit but with a dark background.
100mm macro shot of your wife's eyes and nose.
While everyone raises their phone to get a picture of a church you bother to walk in the other direction and frame it through a doorway.
You can do just one of these every 24 hours, right?
Done right, these shots should be overrepresented in your keepers.