New York City Sticks

New Journal 37 –  A day in the life of a travel blogger/photographer

Each and every day on the road is drastically different. It inevitably involves a coffee shop and taking photos. Apart from those two things, it’s difficult to predict how the day will go and what we’ll be doing come nightfall.

While I’m on the West coast, I wake up early to post my journal entries. With the odd exception (like today), I have my posts written beforehand and publish everything within a strict window of time. Then I go back to bed. On days with sunrise shoots, I get up at 4:00am and publish my posts when I get back.

Then we plan for the day – where we’ll shoot, where we’ll find internet/coffee, and where we’ll eat.  Most of the day is a very relaxed affair. We spend it either holed-up in a coffee shop working, or walking around exploring. Yesterday we did both – 3 hours in a coffee place and 8 miles of walking. With San Francisco being so hilly, those 8 miles felt like double, but it was great to see the city on foot.

As we explore a new place in the early afternoon, I take notes on potential places to shoot and decided which light (golden hour, blur hour etc.) would be most beneficial here. Often, I already know where I want to shoot before getting to a place, in which case I’ll get there early to test out compositions.

Then, we wait. I literally never shoot during the day unless it’s an interior shot. We’ll generally have a picnic, relax, read a book, sunbathe, go and have another coffee, or sometimes a beer, until the light begins to change. I shoot for usually around 2 hours. We make our way back home.

Depending on what time we get back, I might have time to answer emails and watch a Game of Thrones.

And that is the life, or more strictly, my life as a travel blogger/photographer in a nutshell.

Today’s Photo – NYC from Brooklyn Park

For night time shots you simply must use manual focus. The sheer volume of blurry cityscapes that I see is incredible. The Auto-focus is too inconsistent in good light, not just low light.

Instead, turn on Live View, switch to Manual focus, use the magnifying glass on your camera to zoom in to its maximum, then focus. Use a timer, if you don’t have a remote control. That way, vibrations caused from you touching the camera will be minimised when the camera comes to take the shot 10 seconds later. If you’re worried about wind knocking the camera, keep your iso high to shorten shutter speeds and try to block the wind with your body. If your tripod has an extendable neck, keep it down. The camera shakes more when it’s up.

Before the Joys of Post-Processing