Five Questions to Consider When Photographing Family Vacations (Part Two)

4) What Will I Capture?

When we’re away, we usually indulge, so capturing my boys enjoying their favorite foods is always part of the story. Some of my favorite portraits of them are with slices of watermelon, giant cookies, and lollipops. When we camp, they have come to expect cinnamon rolls, Pop-Tarts, and s’mores! And when we’re not eating, I love to capture my boys at play.

Thankfully, they don’t seem to mind this. But what they do mind, is family portraits. In fact, when I ask them for their vacation highs and lows, they always say photos for the lows, and what that means specifically is family portraits! But I always insist because vacations bring us closer together when we’re enjoying each other’s company with no distractions. I like to do multiple family portraits throughout the trip to capture being together. Sometimes we’re all dressed up and other times, it’s more about documenting how we survived the day!

The last thing I aim to capture is any relevant details for storytelling that we can look back on to help us to remember. This would be the shot of my youngest in his booster seat watching his iPad with our minivan stuffed to the brim, or s’mores on fire because we like them slightly charred. How my oldest likes to load his hot dog with relish, or the hammocks we slept in with covers that kept us dry from the rain. This particular trip was really a boost of confidence for our family, we survived a rainstorm that lasted just about all night and managed to pack up our camp so well that we didn’t attract any bears or other unwanted night-time visitors. We all felt victorious and had an absolutely great time!

5) How Will I Capture the Whole Family?

Tripods are very handy for self-family portraits, or groupies, as my father-in-law calls them.  And if your camera has a self-timer, you’re all set. To make sure our group is in focus, I use an aperture of f8 or higher and I try to keep everyone’s faces on the same focal plane, so we’re all the same distance from the camera. I get our family in position, focus on the face that is closest to the camera, although we should all be about the same distance, give or take a few inches.  Then I set my camera to take 9 consecutive shots, three seconds apart after a 10-second delay so I have time to run from the camera and get into position. I’m sure it’s quite comical for any passers-by to see me plead with my family to smile while trying to not move too much in-between frames. I’ve heard a few fellow moms chuckle on a number of occasions, and I know, they know what I mean!  These shots below were taken at the New River Gorge, which was part-way into our drive home, hence the grumpy faces.  Of course, I encouraged the boys to smile, but it just wasn’t going to happen and my husband reminded me that the real life moments are worth capturing too!  Touché, I thought, and then mumbled something about how those the grumpy faces would be frozen in time for us to look back on and then I laughed at myself and just accepted it.

Thanks for reading my thoughts and I hope these five questions help as you prepare for your next family vacation. There is no one right way to capture a trip, but I think my approach of capturing my own photos in good lighting when possible and relying on cell phones or park/cruise photographers for the rest offers a good balance.