Photography and Cameras - Family Gap Year

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” - Dagobert D. Runes

You will most probably have noticed as you have browsed the site that I am fairly passionate about photography. I took loads and loads of photos (1489 in total across the five and a bit months).

To back them up I uploaded my favourites to Flickr and facebook and downloaded to a DVD on a monthly basis which was snailmailed back home.

My camera is a Canon EOS 350D SLR. It was wonderful to have the flexibility with the lenses etc and I think I got some truly awesome shots. But there were drawbacks too.

• I wasn't always entirely comfortable with regards safety at taking out my fancy camera feeling a little like a target
  
  
• The lenses, fire wire, cleaning equipment, flash etc was a lot of extra weight to carry
  
  
• It certainly wasn't compact
  
  
• Changing lenses can be a bore
  
  
• I was constantly cleaning the camera
  
  
• Going somewhere like the beach wasn't a simple exercise where you could slip your camera in a ziploc bag and hope for the best. I always had to keep an eye open for the camera and that it was safe. A real bore
  
  
• Given the expense of the camera I wasn't always comfortable about letting the children go off with it, although I did sometimes.
  
  

A cheaper point and shoot would have been great but only as an extra, I wouldn't have traded my camera.

A Good Idea

An excellent recommendation that was made to me by a fellow traveller was that I should have chosen an mobile phone without the focus on the phone as much as getting the one with the BEST internal camera. You can get cell phones with 5 megapixel cameras which have excellent ranges with very good quality shots.

This way, in dodgy areas and at times, when I didn't feel like carrying my heavy camera bag and all the lenses it would have been great to have the freedom and flexibility just to point and shoot with my phone.

Also, as he pointed out, that had the children or I been bitten by a snake or spider we can get an instant shot if possible and MMS it immediately. It would have also been nice to MMS some of the more powerful moments to nearest and dearest. Even if it did mean waking them at 2am!

Photos and the children's journal

The children's journal are filled with small mementoes like ticket stubbs, sweet wrappers, small shells, leaves, Lift passes, menus, boarding cards and dozens of photos. It's wonderful to read them and see all the photos.