Having just finished a 2-month trip around Central America, my computer now is in possession of 2.493 more pictures. Wonderful, lovely memories that will last a lifetime and that I cannot wait to show to my friends and family, but what’s the best way to present them? An online photo gallery? A stack of prints? Or are there maybe more original ways of showing them?
To answer that question for you guys, I’ve assembled some of the things I personally like to do with my travel shots. Maybe some of those tips are for you.
PRINTED PHOTOBOOKS
My favorite way to keep all my photos and stories is to create my own, individual printed photobook. I once made one of those for my parents for Christmas. They loved it so much that now, they’re asking for one each year. Naturally they seem to forget that it takes weeks of work to create such an album, but hey – they’re worth it.
WALL OF SHAME
This is one of my favorite after-holiday activities. I look for the worst pictures of the trip and create a wall of shame (either via Adobe Photoshop or you can print out pictures and put them together in a collage). It´s always fun to look at those photos.
Wall of Shame 1 – Peru (Mancora)
Wall of Shame 2 – USA (San Diego)
Wall of Shame 2 – France (Moliets)
PROJECTS-ON-THE-GO
Why don´t you start some projects while you are travelling?
This could include capturing many different eyes of different people or different fruits or you could take a photo from each door that you have entered etc.
I for example tried to capture a lot of children when I was in an Indian village, Callería, in Peru and I made this collage afterwards:
Children of Peru
BLACK & WHITE
Some landscape pictures looks amazing in black and white. They would also look great, when you print them out as posters.
Hot Spings (Bolivia)
Tree Garden (Bolivia)
On the road (Bolivia)
FISHLENSE – PHOTOS
Why buy an expensive fish-lense if you can take some funky pictures with a “door-look-through-lense”. How that works? Go to a home depot store and look for these peep hole lenses that you put in your door to see who is visiting you. They only cost something between 8-15€. Bring your small digital camera to the store in order to test if it is working out.
Istanbul
Istanbul + friends + sunset
PANORAMA SHOTS
Did you hear of the great panorama-function of Adobe Photoshop? You take several pictures with your camera and Adobe Photoshop will do the job for you and create a panorama picture. I always start from the right side and move on to the left side (but you can also do it the other way around). Always try to remember an object on the side of your picture and use it as marker for the next picture.
Now open Adobe Photoshop. You go to File > Automate > Photomerge, then browse your pictures and upload them. The results are stunning. All the pictures below are made up by 4-6 pictures that I took prior.
St. Ives 1 (England trip)
St. Ives 2 (England trip)
St. Ives 3 (England trip)
Stonehenge (England trip)
OTHERS
And why not print out your photos as greeting- or postcards? Your granny will be the happiest person on the planet, I tell you. A great gift idea is also to print your favorite picture on linen, a mug, a pillow or put it into one of those snowballs!
Postcard for Grandma
It’s a bit of a waste if your lovely holiday shots just hang around sitting on your hard drive for the next 20 years. Once a year, go through them all, pick out the ones dearest to you and find ways to present them for yourself and all your friends to see.
Do you have more inspirations or creative ideas? If you do, please share them with us.
i just LOVE seing my bloody foot on your wall of shame... ;) good times!
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