Well here we are.
This is the first international travel trip in a good while,
in a very, very long while, as a travel photographer
kind of been desperate for it.
So we are back to work.
We are back out getting images, making things.
Welcome to Malta.
In this video, I'm going to be running through
some of the things that I'd like to do when we first arrive in the destination.
You may be able to take
some things away from this that will be beneficial to your own trip,
whether you're a photographer or not. I'm very excited to be back out filming.
I'm feeling very energized and feeling very motivated to be out taking photos,
and I'm just loving the fact that I'm exploring
a brand new area, an area I've never been before.
And of course, that is Malta. Currently, we're in Valletta.
Let's run through all the things we like to do
when we first arrive
and give you some perspective on the way that we like to travel.
So I guess I should preface this whole thing.
All of my tips and ideas of the way that we plan our travel
and how we go about organising our shoots by saying that
for the most part, I'm a pretty chill person.
Elly is also a very chill person. We're here for about two weeks or so.
And yeah, we're going to try and see what's realistic
to see within those two weeks.
I definitely advocate the idea of just exploring and adventuring on your own.
Sort of, perspective, your own time.
one of the first things we like to do
is just kind of scout the area and just get an understanding of what
the vibe is like, what the culture's like on first impressions
and just sort of work our pacing from there.
And I think pacing is a is a key thing to understand when it comes to visiting
different countries is how is the pace of life?
Are you going to fit in with it or are you going to work to a different pace?
And is that going to frustrate you or is it going to work with you?
I have already been getting some images around here, of course, using my Fuji X-T4
I'm back on the 35mmF2, my favorite of the Fuji lenses.
Thing 2 when it comes to planning for your trip
is to get an idea of your principles.
What does this trip mean to you? What are you looking to achieve?
For me, I'm looking to get some urban photography.
I'm also looking to get some images that could be worthwhile as prints.
I feel like over the years,
I get a lot of images that I enjoy looking at and they work great digitally.
But when it comes to printing them, maybe they wouldn't be suitable.
So the idea of working towards prints is something that I'm thinking of
going forward on trips. Likewise throughout this trip.
Yes, we are here working getting images, but I'd also like some leisure time
and just trying to fit in and work around your things.
So set some principles of what you'd like to achieve on the trip.
And it will help you clear your head, on making your decisions of what you
want to do. Wash your hair.
I'll tell you what's really catching my attention
immediately whilst we're exploring here is the little pops of color,
just the character that you can add with, you know, colorizing things such as
your front door or the shutters on your buildings.
Yeah, it's really great just seeing people's
chosen color in and the plants that they've got outside.
It's a very positive, happy vibe.
I like seeing it.
So when we arrive somewhere, the way that I like to try and break down
the plan of things is to, first of all,
quite obviously look at a map and decide
on some top level destinations within your major destination.
And depending on the place that you're in the size of it, you may have to set
some perimeter or boundaries of how far are you willing or able to travel?
For us here in Malta, Malta's a pretty small island and country,
so we don't really have too much of a boundary on where we can go.
But I get some ideas of, you know, cities or towns that we'd like to visit,
whether that's Valletta, which is the capital where we are
currently, or some other areas to the South and other towns such as
Mdina and maybe even Gozo, the island to the north
and set a top level idea of
basic groups of destinations.
And then beyond that, we'll go a little bit further into the later
stages of how we plan those destinations.
From there, one of the most vital things that you should be doing,
and sometimes this is hard
to do ahead of time, you can get some averages on things,
but generally you're going to have to wait until your close to time is checking
the weather forecast.
What is the weather situation going to be like for the time that you are somewhere?
And on top of that, it's always a good idea
to get an understanding of what the sunrise and sunset times are.
Depending on where you're coming from,
you may have a varied perspective on when your day starts and ends.
So far here at the moment, sunset is about 6:30 p.m.
and that can tie quite nicely in a sense of seeing the sunset,
the golden hour, the way that the light changes.
And we then go on to eat dinner afterwards when things get dark
and it's not going to be dinner too late.
Usually, when it comes to sunset, we'll try and prioritise being out
and seeing things and fit our dinner around those times.
There are, of course, many apps that you can use
for finding different shooting times during the day.
The point that you can even
preview on a map itself and you can see the direct line of the Sun
for the date of the year that you are traveling somewhere.
So apps that come to mind
there's PhotoPills, there's the Photographer's Ephemeris.
There's an old app that I don't think is available on the App Store,
but if you've heard me recommend it many years ago, you might still have it.
That's an app called Rizon.
Yeah, there are plenty of apps that come to mind, and a lot of them
you'll be able to set reminders on your phone so you can get notified of
when your favorite time to shoot is coming up.
Some people like to shoot High Noon. Some people prefer blue hour.
Others prefer golden hour.
Depending on your style of photography
depends on what lights you're going to want to shoot in,
but I can almost guarantee that shooting in the right light for you is
what is going to get you the best results. When it comes to the weather,
And if we're taking a very top down approach of a basic
skeleton of a schedule, the weather may actually dictate to you
where you're going to be for certain times in your routine that you may find that
some areas of your itinerary a necessary for particular weather conditions
and so the weather can help
to just start to fix things a bit more permanently into your plan
and then other stuff can slot in and around it.
In terms of your top level destinations, one of the first things I'd like to do
and this is assuming that you've already booked your accommodation
is to set your distances between those major areas
and your base, such as your hotel, your Airbnb or wherever you are staying.
Once you've got a bit of a perspective on how far away things are.
You can then start to think about
how many of those destinations can you fit into a day?
How many are you wanting to fit during a day?
You may want to take things slow.
You may want to go things at a faster pace.
But knowing those destinations and how to get between them on
a very loose scale can help start to set things into to process for you.
Malta, for example, doesn't have a train network of things,
but I have heard good things about the bus network.
So having an idea of how long it takes by bus between areas
or if you want to get taxis, Bolts, whatever you want to use
those types of things, they're just good to know
as a sort of mental idea of things ahead of time.
So once you've got your top
level area, you want to then look in more of a macro level
and find the particular areas within those areas.
So the way that we like to do it and I'm actually going to say
this is mostly Elly's better perspective on things
is going for food first food and drink first
and then hopefully finding areas of photography afterwards.
So what we found over the years is that if we base our travels on food
and looking for those good sort of restaurants, cafes
and things like that, generally speaking, they're in bustling areas, economies
and things spread around good things
and for the type of photography that we do, which is very much urban
based and people and activity in those types of things, they flock
around those good urban environments, good things attract good things.
And so using that as a base not only has it satisfied us with good food
and good drink, but we've also managed to get good images from that
don't necessarily find specific photo spots.
It's more a case of here's an urban economy,
and hopefully we can find some great things from there
tie that into your other aspects with the good lighting times,
And, you know, pay attention to the geography
on the way that lights may come down certain streets and other things.
You can start to get a feel for how things are going to work.
You can also use things like Instagram as good research,
and there are plenty of people that we know that will base
a lot of their shots and things
that they're looking for based on what other people are doing on Instagram.
That's not really my type of vibe.
I don't necessarily want to go and get the same shots
that other people have gotten, so I don't want to create a shot list
based on what's trending or what's popular.
So we don't necessarily rely too much on Instagram
because also that can sometimes be a little bit overhyped.
However, Instagram can be good for things like food and seeing people's
posted images of what their meals are like and you can get an idea of
If you think the quality looks good and what's great tip that Elly does all
the time is when we go to a restaurant or we find somewhere
that we're looking for food and to see on their menu is go onto their page
and look at the tab for when they've been tagged
and look at the images that other people have posted and tagged them.
Not necessarily the restaurants photos, but other people's user generated
photos is a great way of discovering new things and great things.
Further to that, using things like Google Maps
and looking into the reviews and the images.
They're not going to be the best quality images.
But if you have a keen photography eye, you should be able to see some potential
within other people's images and snapshots or even Street View.
You can get an idea of how you
may tackle something with your own focal length and lens choice and other things.
Take a look at the images that exist for you.
But overall, we like to keep things on
a slightly broad idea of a bustling urban location.
And of course, this works for our style of photography.
But if you're looking for something different,
maybe you're more of a landscape photographer.
You're going to have
your own different properties and values that you're looking for.
So try and tailor it to what you're looking to capture and
when you find somewhere that you enjoy.
Take note of what's around
because you may be able to replicate it in other locations.
Of course, everyone's got
their own perspectives on what they like and what they want.
And sometimes you may find yourself in a great area.
But the weather may be off or it might be the wrong lighting conditions.
So another top tip that I do all the time is save things to your map
and categorize them.
There's no point just starring everything because you're going to look at a map
and be overwhelmed of what you want to find.
But if you categorize them into labels such as coffee, drinking, food
photography spots, good urban environment, all sorts of different things.
Having that categorization can really help filter things down.
And if you do this before you travel, when you arrive in an area,
you're not specifically setting an itinerary of,
we're going to this restaurant, then we're going to this photography spot.
It's more a case of when you end up in some environment,
you can say, Oh, what have I found already?
That's around this area?
And then based on how you're feeling,
you can choose one of the many restaurants that you may have marked on your map.
Really enjoying our first day here.
Very pleasant vibes, very friendly people as well.
Yeah, just good, good scenery.
But I think this is going to be a fun couple of weeks.
I think we've had a very enjoyable first day in Malta,
It's got so much character, immediately I'm referencing all sorts of places
around the world in one location has got feelings of Penang in Malaysia,
feelings of Barcelona, feelings of Lima,
all sorts of different areas, all combined into one.
I'm enjoying the the aesthetic here. Very much so.
And likewise, I love it.
I really love it.
When the sunset goes pink, like that pastel sort of blue to pink shade.
So to round out my tips and thoughts on what we do when we first arrive
in a destination and how we plan for photography.
I want to add the notion that you can take things further.
You can plan to a greater extent in the past on certain trips,
especially ones that are too limited for time.
We've gone as far as creating spreadsheets that sort of separate
the day out as morning and lunchtime, afternoon and evening,
and then your travel in between.
That gives you a greater sense of what you're planning for your day,
and you can use all of the previous tips
to sort of tie in and add notes and things like likewise,
if you don't want to work with a spreadsheet,
you could also go and do calendar events and you can structure your day that way.
And it's also a good idea to share that calendar with people
that you're with on the trip.
So they have an idea of what's going on, and it's not just all up in your head.
I've definitely been guilty of that in the past,
so I hope this has been a good insight into the way that we plan our trips,
especially when we're just starting one.
And I look forward
to seeing those future videos coming up from Malta,
and hopefully you're going to create quite a few.
I'm feeling very motivated and energized to do quite a lot whilst we're here.
And yeah, we'll catch you in those photography vlogs real soon.
See you later. Bye bye.