Lonely Planet Kenya

I am in Kenya and Tanzania next week to stay in the villages and the Serengeti and work on a construction site. I take my camera (Sony Alpha 300). I take lots of photos around where I live in England, but I was wondering if anyone has experience in taking professional photos in Africa. I do not want to take no vacation photos. I had two books in the library on photography Travel (Lonely Planet). I also looked African photography on DA, RedBubble and Google. Please could you advise me to take pictures that would be catchy. Thank you for any help.

Simply do exactly the same in Africa as you do in any other place to take photos - keep an eye open for opportunities and make sure your camera with you at all times.

There are fantastic opportunities to take all sorts of beautiful pictures of wildlife through obvious street photography and landscapes. The night sky is something to see and you want to be shooting at night as well.

The words of warning. There are many petty crimes (and not so small) in towns and cities - be careful where you go and do not carry too much equipment with you when you are near cities.

Local people in Kenya are especially colorful and friendly, the markets are fantastic.

Mostly just have fun and if you think your photos a bit, you should get great photos.

Shooting in Africa is no different from shooting elsewhere.

Just take things that interest you and you want to call you later. What catches your attention, is catchy, by definition.

Make sure you cover the progress you make.

Take at least one wide-angle zoom, standard zoom and a sort of telephoto and at least ten cards of 4GB and you take your laptop to copy every day working with him and when you're tired, burn DVDs to archive your work

1. Make sure you have the power converters and adapters you need to charge your bateries.
2. bring two or more of everything ... batteries, memory cards, straps, lens cloth, camera, lens ... everything.
3. a long fast lens lets you get closer to wildlife without endangering themselves.
4. a tripod may be too slow and too heavy. provide a good monopod.
5. attention to all the important elements of a picture ... composition, color, contrast, exposure, etc.
6. try to do things with the camera, not photoshop.
7. CPL good or Grad ND filter can be a lifesaver in the open air. give them all your lenses.
8. put a good amount of UV filters to protect your lenses. about $ 5 each cheap insurance to protect his expensive lens.
9. bring a lot of gallon size zip lock bags to store your most sensitive equipment and protect against the elements.

sounds a bit like the same thing we told everyone about how to start taking great pictures is not it? maybe thats because its good advice.

One last thing to add here - before taking pictures of people (especially close-ups), ask your subjects. Do not just waltz and I think you own the place (as many tourists do) ...

If you can shoot well here, you can shoot well here.


A few things I would say:

1. Make sure you understand their culture. Do not just take pictures of pretty things, take pictures of small details of life that are different from those you are accustomed.

2. Of course, being courteous. Do not take pictures of people without specific permission, etc. This seems obvious, but many people seem to do while traveling. I have a parent of Africa, to his last visit, noted that someone has gone too far to walk to the window and take a picture of the family inside. I'm sure you would never do that, but it never hurts to have a.