After 2 long years of no travel I finally managed to get off the continent in May...YAY me! So here we are in July and I'm just posting this now but with good reason. Shortly after my return I had minor surgery on my hand and haven't been able to do much this past month. My road to recovery is nearly done and here I am and excited to share some insights and musings with you from my trip to California and French Polynesia.
So let's start with pre-planning for your photo trip. There’s a reason why pre-planning your trips are important from a Photographic perspective. One is weather. If you’re expecting to travel to a location and you expect sunshine all day then you need to go at a time of year where that would be the case. I know I’m probably stating something you already now. I say this though because sometimes a trip is not strictly about photography its also a vacation and the time you go may be dictated by other considerations. This was the case with my most recent trip.
Quick background so you know where I’m coming from. My husband and I had long planned a special anniversary trip to French Polynesia with a week in California. The trip was booked for July 2020 with a week in LA and La Jolla and then on to Tahiti for a Windstar Cruise through the Society Islands. French Polynesia was a bucket list destination and this trip was going to be a combination anniversary celebration, R&R and lots of photo shooting opportunities. Can you guess what happened? Yes I thought you might. So fast forward 2 years and with schedules to consider, family events and another trip that was already scheduled for the Fall of 2022 we rebooked this trip for mid-May.
The next important thing to think about is to pre-plan your photo locations. I start this months before the actual trip. I’ve travelled and photographed California before but never made it south of the Los Angeles area. I was really excited to shoot in La Jolla and the San Diego area, especially the small beach towns that dotted the Pacific Coast Highway south of LA. I not only think about the cities and towns that I want to photograph but any special landmarks or locations in those towns.
Once I decide on where I'm going to shoot I then I start thinking about what gear I need to take with me. Will I be doing long exposures, sunrise or sunset shoots, street photography? If I don't pack my neutral destiny filters or my tripod then I can forget about any long exposures. Should I take a drone with me? I did but couldn't use it...more on that later.
My Top 10 Photo Locations - Los Angeles to San Diego
So back to pre-planning the location and shot list. I usually create a list for myself of the top 10 spots that I want to photograph at my destination. This list could be longer depending on how long I’m going for and what type of trip it will be. I may hit all the locations (I usually do if everything goes as planned) or there are times, given number of circumstances, where I’m unable to.
I knew I was going to be in LA for 3 days and La Jolla/San Diego for 4.