Capturing Experiences: A Blogger’s Approach to Photography
Ann started the Backroad Buddies blog and YouTube channel as a way to share her photography and share our experiences as we traveled around the country and the world. What wasn’t obvious from the beginning was how much blogging would affect every aspect of her photography. Her local photography club, the Broomfield Photography Club, asked her to do a presentation for one of their meetings. She thought others might be interested in the presentation as well, so she is sharing this information in this post and on our YouTube channel (Capturing Experiences: A Blogger’s Approach to Photography).
This blog post covers the following topics:
1. How Photos Are Used
Ann uses her photos in two ways. On the blog website, there is a photo above each paragraph of a blog post which helps tell the story of the text in the paragraph. In her YouTube videos, the photos are added like a slideshow, set to music, with a few video clips mixed in for variety. A Ken Burns effect may or may not be applied. The Ken Burns effect defines a starting frame and an ending frame within the photo and slowly transitions from one frame to the other, creating a sense of movement. Each photo is only displayed for about four seconds, on average. She does not know what type of device a visitor to our website or YouTube channel will be viewing it from. It could be on a phone, a tablet, a computer screen, or a TV. So she doesn’t know if a photo will be displayed as small as a couple of inches wide or three feet wide, and as close to the viewer as a foot or less, or as far away as 20 feet. Ann typically does not print her photos, nor frame them, nor hang them on a wall, where she would know more precisely how the photo would be viewed.
2. Photography Goals
Ann has more of a photojournalist style of taking photos. She is not creating fine art. Instead of trying to create that one masterpiece of a photo, she takes a series of photographs that, together as a collection, represent the different aspects of an experience. Through pictures, she tries to capture the mood, the weather, the environment, and our reactions to it. Keeping in mind what a fellow traveler might want to see, Ann takes images that communicate what makes a place or experience interesting, different, unique, or a struggle. They reflect Ann’s point of view and what she notices in the world around her. The story is meant to be honest, with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just seeing what a place is like on beautiful, sunny days, when everything goes according to plan, is not a realistic portrayal. We’re not trying to set up others with high expectations, only to be disappointed with their own experiences that are less than perfect. Hopefully our audience finds our blogs and videos helpful in deciding whether a place or experience is something they might want to try. Or they enjoy living vicariously through us. Ann wants them to feel like they are traveling with us.
For example, a beautiful view of the Wheeler Geological Area is great, but we also want to share the journey we took to get to that view, like driving up the winding National Forest road to get to the trail head, camping in our RV at the trailhead, wading through the creek crossing along the trail, setting up camp just outside the Geological Area, sleeping in our backpacking tent that leaked, and the deer that kept coming back to our camp to visit us (Look for our Wheeler Geological Area post to be released in March, 2024). To us, “capturing the journey’s little moments” is sharing the full experience.
3. Types of Photos Taken
Since becoming a blogger, the variety of what Ann photographs has increased. She never used to be much of a landscape photographer, but you can’t visit places with grandiose views and not take a panoramic shot.
Other pictures are taken to help tell the story, like fixing a trekking pole, relaxing on the beach with a drink, or the view out the windshield of a winding road stretched before us.
And yes, Ann is one of those annoying people who take pictures of their food in restaurants. Lately, she’s been trying to include the inside of the restaurant in the shot with the food, so the audience can get a sense of the atmosphere of the place. Trying different foods, particularly local specialties, is a wonderful aspect of traveling.
She also likes to include pictures of our camp sites, in case it helps someone decide whether they want to camp there as well.
Of course, she still takes her favorite types of pictures which are of wildlife and old architecture. Wildlife includes animals both large and small and everything in between. There are no animals she is too afraid to shoot, from grizzly bears to spiders.
Ann’s eye is always drawn to the splashes of color provided by flowers along the trail.
And she loves focusing in on the small, intricate details of old architecture.
Just because she is not focused on creating fine art, that doesn’t mean she isn’t trying to make creative shots. She even likes somewhat abstract types of photos, like a closeup of rocks, leaves, or shells, that have interesting patterns and textures. She shares the world as she sees it through her lens.
4. Photos vs. Video
Most YouTubers use video clips exclusively and rarely include still photos. Although Ann includes some video clips in her travel postings, she prefers still photos. She feels like she can direct people’s attention better through pictures. She likes pointing out what she sees, from her perspective. However, there are times that videos can be more effective. A picture doesn’t capture sound, like birds chirping in the tree tops or waves crashing on a beach. It is also easier to capture movement in a video clip, like animals interacting with each.
5. When Photos Are Taken
In short, all the time. The experiences come first, not the photography. We don’t plan our activities around the Golden Hour (the hour before sunset and the hour after sunrise) to get the best light for photography. As a result, Ann doesn’t always shoot in the best light, or the best weather. She shoots whenever she sees something interesting. If the rain makes its way into her camera lens making it useless, then she pulls out her phone and keeps shooting (Valdez, Alaska - July 20th to 25th, 2022). Our activities usually revolve around hiking, cycling, paddling, or just strolling the streets in a town. We are usually outside instead of inside. Occasionally, we’ll do touristy things, like take a boat ride (Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida - April 24th, 2023) or a trolley tour (Savannah, Georgia - May 9th to 12th, 2023), but we mainly wander and explore outside. Ann just tries to capture our adventures with her camera, as we are experiencing them.
6. Equipment Used
When we started our blog, Ann was using a Canon EOS Rebel T3i with three different lenses: the EF-S 55-250 mm IS II, the EF-S 18-55 mm IS II, and the EF-S 60 mm Macro USM. In Season Two, she switched to the Canon PowerShot SX70 HS (paid link) because she wanted a more powerful zoom to capture wildlife with and wanted something lighter to carry on hikes. The PowerShot is a super zoom, with the built-in lens having a 35 mm equivalent range from 21 mm to 1382 mm. And it weighs less than 1.5 pounds compared to the 5 pounds of gear she was carrying before (the EOS Rebel with all three lenses). For a more technical description of the Powershot, see our post from a couple of years ago: Our Cameras. In addition to the PowerShot, we also both use our iPhones. And yes, Keith sometimes takes photos with his phone and some of his images make it into the blogs and videos. Ann also carries a GoPro Hero 10 Black (paid link), but only uses that for video when she needs good image stabilization.
Just as valuable are some of the camera accessories that we use. Most important is a Peak Design Capture Camera Clip (paid link) along with a Peak Design Clutch strap (paid link). Ann has a clip on each of her backpacks, so her camera is always quickly accessible, great for capturing that grizzly bear strolling down the trail towards us. Keith has a Peak Design Mobile Bike Mount (paid link) for the handlebar of his bike. Ann is switching to the same mount for her bike this coming season. A Peak Design phone case (paid link) allows the phone to attach to the mount with a strong magnet. Having our cameras easy and quick to access is essential for us as we never know when we’ll see something we’ll want to document.
When we are on boats, especially when Ann is on the paddle board, we use camera floats (paid link) for the GoPro or PowerShot and floatable pouches (paid link) for our iPhones. Ann doesn’t take the PowerShot on the paddle board as it is not waterproof and she believes the risk of dropping it is too high. She has a hard enough time just keeping herself balanced on the board. The floatable pouches are not perfect. You can still use the touch screen through the pouch and take pictures, but Ann has trouble reading the screen through the plastic without her reading glasses on (darn those aging eyes!) and sometimes the plastic causes glare in the picture. But it is better than losing our phones if we drop them and they sink to the bottom.
Ann has a tripod, but only uses it for recording video intros. All of her photographs are hand-held shots. There normally isn’t time to set up a tripod (and Keith would not have the patience to wait for her). Plus, Ann doesn’t want the bulk and weight of a tripod on a hike or stroll around town.
7. Storing and Organizing Photos
Ann takes lots of pictures, lots and lots of pictures. Without some type of organization, it would be very hard to find anything. While we are traveling, Ann offloads all the footage off the Powershot, the GoPro and our two iPhones every evening. She lets Lightroom import the photos into directories by the date they were shot, keeping the photos from different cameras/phones in separate directories. She then modifies the names of the directory by adding the name of the location, either the town, park, or campground we are staying in that night along with which camera it was from (whose iPhone, Powershot, or GoPro). Likewise, she creates separate directories for all of the video clips. The following day, she takes notes of what we did the day before, so she knows what is in each of the daily directories. Only when there is non-travel footage, will she split out a separate directory, still with the appropriate date, such as EKKO Life, Tips, or EKKO Mods (our RV is a Winnebago EKKO). Since these other topics can span the whole season, it is easier to find them when they are separate from the travel footage.
Keeping the photos from the different cameras separated helps find individual photos later, since each camera keeps its own photo numbering sequence. When putting together a blog post, Ann will refer to the photo by its number, easily finding it in the appropriate directory by date. She also likes to know which camera the photo is from while editing, because the types of edits are usually similar for the same camera, but quite different from another camera.
After importing all the footage, she then copies them to two external hard drives. Then she deletes the footage off the SD cards to reuse them. Ann has found that she needs to delete the SD card from the PowerShot in order to free up the space on the card. The micro SD card for the GoPro is different. That one needs to be deleted from the laptop and the trash emptied before the space on the card is freed. Don’t ask us why they behave differently.
She always makes sure there are at least two copies of all the footage at all times. You never know when a hard drive will fail. A few seasons ago, one of the external drives became corrupted. Then last season, her laptop died. In the beginning, she used a regular portable external hard drive. A couple of seasons ago, she switched to using external SSD drives (paid link), since they are smaller, lighter, and less susceptible to vibrations. This coming season, she is trying out the SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD drive (paid link), which is supposed to be even more durable. Believe it or not, she needs about 4TB to hold a whole season’s footage. Of course, the video clips take more than their fair share of that drive space.
8. Editing Photos
Over the course of a season, Ann takes about 30,000 photographs. She edits about 90% of those and uses over half of them in blog posts and YouTube videos. Considering the volume of pictures to edit combined with the fact that most of them will be on someone’s screen for an average of four seconds, Ann doesn’t do extensive editing. This is not fine art. She cannot spend hours editing the same photo. Instead, Ann averages about 30 seconds of editing per photo. Even so, that’s still well over 200 hours of editing throughout the year. She shoots jpg images (or heic for iphone), not raw format, to save disk space and processing time. Since she does not have control over how the images are viewed by her audience, she does not calibrate the color on her laptop or monitor.
Generally, Ann adjusts exposure, using the Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks sliders in Lightroom. Sometimes she’ll add some Dehazing or Vibrance. She may straighten a photo every now and than, but not often. She rarely crops while in Lightroom, unless the picture really needs it. If she does crop, it is usually a 16:9 aspect ratio, as that is the ratio of the videos. Normally, she waits until she brings the photo into Final Cut Pro to crop it. Until she adds the music and knows how long the picture will be displayed, she doesn’t know if she’ll be applying the Ken Burns affect on it or not. If it is on the screen for less than three seconds, then she’ll just crop it. If it will be displayed for three seconds or longer, then she’ll apply the Ken Burns affect. Not cropping it before then gives her more room to move around the photo for the effect. She has found that three seconds is a good cut-off. Applying the effect for a shorter amount of time makes the video feel too fast. Having a still photo on the screen for longer than three seconds with no movement makes the video feel too slow.
9. Software Used
Adobe Lightroom is used to edit the photos. Ann likes the efficient work flow using the sliders to edit. She also uses the flags and ratings to mark photos that she wants to use. The Library view allows her to quickly scan through photos to find something.
Apple’s Final Cut Pro is used to create the YouTube videos. It is familiar to her because she has been using it for years. She doesn’t use many of its fancy features, but has developed her own workflow that gets the job done. She uses basic transitions, such as the Cross-Dissolve and the Fade-To-Color. Ann adds Markers to the music tracks to delineate the measures, so she can transition to the next picture in time to the music. When adding the Ken Burns effects to the photos in Final Cut Pro, Ann defines the start frame and end frame using her sense of composition like each frame was a photo on its own.
For music, she started out using royalty free music from YouTube’s Audio Library, but has had a couple of copyright violations flagged with that music. Now she uses a paid service, Artlist. The current subscription Ann has with them costs $199 per year for unlimited music downloads that she can use as she likes.
Our travel blog is on our website which is hosted by SquareSpace. Initially we used WordPress, but didn’t want to deal with WordPress Plugin issues. SquareSpace is not as flexible as WordPress, but it is simpler to use. Plus they deal with all the technical issues since SquareSpace controls it all. There are no third party plugins. We are much happier with SquareSpace.
10. Conclusion
Photography is a form of communication. If you are a photographer, we challenge you to think about what you are trying to communicate. How do you plan on using your photos? What are your goals? Use the answers to those questions as a guide to help you decide what you take pictures of and when, what equipment you use, and how you edit them. For Ann, she is trying to take our audience along on our travel adventures. We hope you enjoy the ride.
Check out our related video: Capturing Experiences: A Blogger’s Approach to Photography
(Ann)