Travelling Tips from a Professional Photographer

Love to travel.

Traveling is the greatest way of discovering new countries, cultures, people, food, landscapes, religions and a lot of other things. To me, the world and it´s countries is like a big book - you have to read through it to know the story. People who don´t travel only read the first page and don´t know anything more than that.
I´ve been traveling around Europe a lot, but coming to Asia gave me a whole new view on this side of the world. I am lucky enough to combine my passion - photography - and travel at the same time.
Over time I have had good and bad experiences - at the age of 19, a friend of mine and me hitchhiked from Germany to Estonia in Eastern Europe and we were attacked by two polish guys. Luckily we were able to defend ourselves and nothing serious happened.
So traveling is like eating spicy food - if your not used to it, you should start of with small portions. The more experience you get the more you can travel and discover.

Don´t take too much gear.

Taking photos is not always easy, as a lot of people don´t like to get their picture taken. Learn to talk to people, start a positive connection. Quite often the first few seconds can decide over people liking you or not. And you will only be able to take their photo when they like you.
My camera equipment for traveling Indonesia is quite simple:
Nikon D800

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm 1:2,8G ED

Sirui Carbon Tripod

180 GB of CF and SD Memory Cards

Make your gear look like a pile of trash.

Taking Zoom Lenses gives you a wider range of possibilities. Although I would recommend taking fixed focus lenses, if you plan to take a lot of photos in bad lighting situations.
My Camera looks like this, when I am traveling - I tape everything off to make it look like a pile of trash. Nobody would want to steal a broken camera. It works perfectly and the tape is just a disguise. Pickpockets easily notice high value camera gear, so I tend to mask all logos.

I do the same with all my lenses:

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Don´t use camera bags.

While traveling I never take camera bags or camera backpacks - those items are also very easily visible to pickpockets. My camera will go into a dirty, shabby looking backpack that nobody would recognize as something with a valuable content. Quite often I´ll use waterproof dry bags and foam inlays to protect my gear inside the backpack.

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Don´t forget to take enough memory.

Don´t forget to think about taking enough memory with you. Nothing is more annoying than running out of gigabytes in the middle of the jungle. Your photographs are also more important than your gear. Cameras and lenses can be replaced and the right insurance will cover the costs. But the photos you take are not replaceable when your camera is lost. So backup regularly. Take external hard drives and backup your data in the next internet cafe, you don´t even have to take a laptop with you.

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Stay close to the locals.

Traveling is not always easy and comfortable, especially while traveling alone. Sometimes it´s better to take a different turn or say no than to do everything everybody offers to you. Local people all over are very friendly and helpful, they will show different angles, secret spots, good places to eat and sleep.

You will not be able to really know a country and it´s people by sleeping in a multi star hotel, eating in expensive restaurants and swimming in a  hotelpool.
Stay longer times and re-visit, that way you will be able to connect better. Locals will be more friendly and welcoming. You can have more “authentic” cultural experiences as people warm to you and share their knowledge and lifestyle with you, and also create much better photographs when people trust you.
And believe me, it´s so easy to find new good friends along the way, when you travel on your own.

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For everybody who wants to visit Germany, just get in contact with me. I´ll be glad to show you around my favorite places and sights.

Feel free to write to kilian.reil@gmx.net
Make sure to view my blog for more travel stories and photos. Its: http://wine-and-jazz.blogspot.de/

More stories about Indonesia, Germany, Iceland, Europe coming up.

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