P#9 Q3: How do I best capture the location of my photography sites while still focusing on my kids?

Candid Combinations

Brenda Tharp: If you want to capture the location and you also want to focus on your kids, why not put your kids into the scene?

I think combining the scenery of your photography site with candid shots of your children as they are laughing with each other and interacting with each other is a great solution.

Let's say, for example, you're at Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park and your kids are enjoying a swim in the lake. You can get the huge scenic shot that shows where you are, and your kids are close in and you're standing in knee-deep water to be closer to them. You can put your children in the foreground and have them actually participating in the scene.

Or let's say you're vacationing along the coast and the kids are tide pooling. They might pick up a sea star or a neat shell.

You can shoot a big picture that shows them looking at the shell with the coast spread out behind them. You could also get in close and show a tighter shot of their heads and hands and their curious expressions as they're looking at this creature that they've just taken out of the tide pool.

I think that's a fun way to do it.

You now have a picture that has a sense of place as to where you have been on your vacation. You've also got the memories of your children interacting.

So many times, we see people -- and we're all guilty of this -- put the kids in the picture and then we have them turn to the camera and pose for us.

Sure, they're in the scene of the photography site, but it's not really a memory.

I think the candid shots of the kids actually interacting in a place you've gone is a stronger memory to have than a posed shot.

Audri: I completely agree. I think if people do that one thing, their travel photographs would be so much more powerful.

To sum up

If you want to create powerful memories from your travel photographs, simply combine the scenery of your photography sites with candid shots of your kids.

When you look at those shots in the future, you'll be transported back to that exact moment in time, without anything being altered or posed. It's the best way to combine scenic shots of your photography sites with family memories and fun.