Tips for good vacation photos in the Caribbean

A vacation in the Caribbean can be fantastic; so many beautiful sights and sounds, so many places to discover and explore. Everyone who goes on holiday in the Caribbean wants to capture those magical moments to be able to remember them for a lifetime and also to share them with friends and family. In this article we provide some tips to help you take good photographs during your vacation in the Caribbean.

Most people will carry their camera when they are going to visit a famous landmark or historic site because they want to record their visit. At other times the individual will often leave their camera in their hotel room or in the car because they may think that they are simply going for a short walk. Sometimes on that short walk, the most fantastic scene appears or unusual event occurs and you do not have your camera to be able to take a picture. The number one tip for taking good vacation pictures therefore is to always carry your camera with you, because you never know when you will encounter a good scene.

Allied to always carrying your camera with you is to keep it close at hand. Very often the elements that make a good photo, such as a person in a colourful outfit walking past an old building, pass quickly and if you are searching for your camera you could miss the opportunity for a unique photograph.

Individuals on a Caribbean vacation often sleep late. Indeed a vacation is a time for most people to get some much needed rest. As a result persons on a Caribbean holiday often go sightseeing during the midmorning or immediately after lunch. The midday sun in the Caribbean is very bright and there is a lot of reflected glare causing objects in photographs to have sharp angles and harsh shadows. The best time for taking pictures are early mornings and late afternoons. Photos taken at this time usually appear very rich and dramatic. The sunlight is more of a golden colour bringing out the richness of the colours in the scene you are photographing.

Caribbean beaches are a favorite location for vacation photos. Those glorious white sand beaches with a backdrop of sparkling blue water and possibly a pretty yacht sitting on the water, is the type of scene that most people want to capture in a picture as a vacation memory. Yet for many individuals the resulting photo does not seem to capture the beauty of the moment. The culprit is in fact that dazzling white sand and sparkling water. The sand and water reflect that bright Caribbean sun creating glare in the picture. This is especially the case when persons on holiday visit the beach during the middle of the day. Unfortunately for some persons, such as those visiting a Caribbean island on a cruise ship, the middle of the day may be the only time they have for going to a Caribbean beach. One approach for dealing with this problem of excessive sunlight in Caribbean beach photos is to position yourself with your back to the water so that you eliminate the reflected light from the water. Another approach is to change the angle from which you are taking the picture. Instead of aiming directly across the sand and water you can angle yourself so that shooting across the scene.

Caribbean beaches are also a favorite location for vacation photos because they are the scene of rich tropical sunsets. The golden tones as the sun lights the sky for one final time before it sinks below the horizon is a sight not easily forgotten. There are some beach bars that have become world famous because their location allows romantic tropical sunset photos to be taken. What is important for persons who do not live in the Caribbean to remember is that the time for sunset does not vary by more than two hours throughout the year. During the summer months the sun may stay slightly longer in the sky but by 7.30 in the northern Caribbean (Jamaica and the Bahamas) the sun is setting. As you go further south in the Caribbean the sun set takes place early so that by 6.30pm in the summer the sun is setting in the southern Caribbean. During the winter months, the sunset is earlier, so that by 5.30pm the sun will begin to set in the southern Caribbean.

The development of digital cameras means that it is now possible to inexpensively take many pictures while on a Caribbean holiday. To ensure getting good vacation photos you should therefore take many pictures when you see something that you want to photograph. The advantage of taking many photos is that if something unwanted crossed the scene, unknowing to you, it is unlikely to be in all the photos.  Although you would have taken many vacation photos, you can easily delete those vacation pictures that you do not like. In addition to taking many vacation photos you should use different angles and different distances to add variety to your photographs.

Finally, before leaving for your Caribbean vacation remember to pack extra batteries and extra media cards.