Things often go wrong when travelling. The weather can be bad. Equipment can fail. You can get sick or injuried. I’m a week into my trip to Seoul, South Korea, and all three have happened to me.
Weather is actually a fairly easy one to deal with. Hopefully, whatever trip you are on, you have given yourself long enough to literally weather any weather days. If your trip is a very short one, bad weather can really have an impact, depending on what shots you are trying to get. If you have the luxury of time, then use the downtime to plan the coming days. You can scope out locations shots (not always easy to do in bad weather or if the clouds are really low) or take the time to visit indoor locations such as malls, markets, aquariums, or museums. I’m not a great fan of shooting in museums as so many items are under glass and in some locations photography is not permitted, still it may be possible where you are.
Circular shield detail, Chosen dynasty, War Memorial of Korea
ISO 400, 45 mm, f8 @1/60 second, SB-800 flash.
Military manual detail, Joseon Dynasty, War Memorial of Korea
ISO 400, 70 mm, f8, 1/250 second, SB-800 flash
On the equipment front, I am very keen on this trip to shoot a lot of long exposures, mainly during blue hour and at night, but I also wanted to shoot some of the markets to get some motion blurs of the action. That is when I discovered that the cable release on my GP-1 wasn’t working. I took a few images without it and then dashed off my subway to TechnoMart, a mega-tower of electronics shops and managed to get a replacement–although it took up half a day of my time. Many photographers like to travel with backups of equipment, and even backups of backups. This is great when you have the ability to carry it around with you. When driving to locations in North America, I travel with numerous backups–lenses, camera bodies, harddrives, cables, just about everything. But trying to travel light in Korea, I have one camera body, 4 lenses, GP-1, various filters, card reader, laptop, and harddrive. I don’t want to travel loaded down. But I am also in a location where I can easily purchase anything that goes wrong. As with anything, the amount of gear you travel with is a balancing act. What would you do if your camera died? Can you afford to buy a replacement without thinking about it? What are you willing to carry without breaking your back? The answers will likely be different depending on your location.
Noryangjin fish market, Seoul
IS0200, 24 mm, f11 @ 1/5 second
A week in, and I am sure I could have travelled lighter. I haven’t used my 70-200 2.8 or my 60 mm macro. My staple lens is my 12-24 mm, along with my 24-70mm 2.8–they are wonderful city lenses. I took today as a sick day. Time to let my feet (and bad blisters) and increasingly sore throat and cough improve. I edited some, looked through books, and slept. I’m already getting impatient to get out in the city again, and with a full day of rest, I know I will be ready for it.
Michelle Gilders' Photography 