Intelligent photo sharing while traveling
Ever been invited to your best friend's house after their epic Caribbean vacation? Sure, you enjoy pictures but 700 of them? In all honesty, there isn't enough merlot in in this world to make that evening bearable. I am not exaggerating...
Las Vegas anticsMy husband and I can get a little snap-happy on our travels and collecing more than 1,000 pictures for a week-long adventure is our normal. Rather than torturing our friends and family with disorganized pictures après-vacation, we use social media to help us as we go along.
If you want to keep your friends, learn how to organize your vacation photos efficiently and effectively online as you go.
Creating collections worth sharing
take lots of photosOn a typical vacation, we're toting a couple of cameras along with our iPhones - as well as a laptop or iPad for each of us.
"Nothing beats the size, simplicity, and ease of the smartphone camera. It's in your pocket anyway, and the built-in camera's quality and functionality is better than some basic point-and-shoots," says Trish Friesen at Fodor's, Top 5 apps for vacationing photographers.
Instead of leaving the sorting out until we get home, we sort day by day, moving the best shots into a shared folder that we can both access.
Hawksbill ResortThe best advice I ever received was to take more pictures than I think I'll ever need and then be ruthless when it comes to sorting. But getting from photo-overload to picture-perfect sharing with friends takes practice.
Before I even begin shooting, I think about these questions:
- Decide who my pictures are for? Are they for sharing with my family or for social media or for stories I might write for GoGirlfriend. Hint: the Chicago Sun published a picture of my husband's (he shot with a point and click dummy-proof camera 10 years ago). This isn't rocket science.
- Am I creating albums on social media that I want my friends to be able to see with me being present? Hint: If I'm creating multiple albums for a week-long vacation, I'll need a lot more pictures than if I'm creating one album for the entire trip.
Then I start killing the duds. I delete the fuzzy, out of focus shots that don't tell a story. If I don't like them, I kill them.
If I’m sharing on the run, Instagram and Pinterest are a great way to capture a story – and both can be sent directly to Twitter, Facebook and Tumbler. What I love instant sharing is that my stream creates a quick timeline of events for future reference – and to let my friends know I’m still alive. Yes, they use social media to find me some days.
Sharing photos, wine & cheese
lots of pictures?For me, the perfect photo sharing evening is made up of roughly 75 pictures and a couple of bottles of great wine. Each picture tells a story - at 2 minutes each that's 2 1/5 hours of sharing. The story behind the picture is the most important part - and serves as a roadmap for what gets included and what gets left out.
If you're throwing in random pictures, you're shortchanging the ones with great stories.
Improving the best to be even better
Once you've got your favorites picked, make them better through cropping and editing. If you don't have a picture editor on your computer, use a site like Google + to help. It's amazing what a little croping can do to an already great shot and online photo editors are simple to use now.
relaxed JuliaIf you're looking for an advanced photo editor, check out Adobe Lightroom, part of the Photoshop family. It's great for enhancing images and keeping you on task with a workflow program.
Free photo editing software like Picasa, iPhoto, and Windows Live Photo Gallery will allow you to correct photos quickly and easily.
Go forth and share
let the photos be part of the storyOnce your pictures are the best they can be, it's time to share them with the world. Shutterfly will help you make printable albums that you can also import directly into Facebook.
Of course you can upload yourself to Facebook. Make sure you title your albums, add descriptions and adjust your privacy settings if you'd like to limit who sees your pictures.
Got any photo-sharing tips?
You don't have to be a seasoned travel writer to take great shots and we'd love to hear what you do to make your pictures beautiful! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and let's start talking!
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