When it comes to travel photography, your equipment is everything. Having your camera lost, stolen or broken will ruin any trip and could result in the loss of all the photographs you had taken. However, your camera is not the only essential piece of equipment you need to look after when travelling, you also have to consider your own personal safety. Succumbing to an accident or injury when travelling will put paid to you getting any decent photographs.
Your Professional Reputation
More work than ever is being done at home or abroad. But just because you’re not in an office DOESN’T mean deadlines have ceased to exist. If anything, turnarounds are tighter than ever before.
Because of this, it’s crucial to have reliable, fast internet at home. By using an internet speed calculator, you can determine the best connection speed for your needs. Don’t skimp on this – photographers are also videographers these days, so you’ll need high bandwidth connections to handle huge file downloads/uploads. And the smoother your feed during Zoom meetings, the better you’ll look to clients.
Insurance
Travel insurance is vital for anybody travelling abroad, whether you are into photography or not. If your camera is lost or stolen while you are away, being able to reclaim the cost is important. However, while travel insurance means you won’t lose out financially, it still means you won’t be able to take any more photographs on that particular trip. Therefore, when it comes to protecting you and your equipment, prevention is better than cure.
Perhaps for any photographer, the first rule to protect your pictures is saving your images regularly and backing up any existing files on your memory card. This can be done in several ways, but by far the best option is to upload them to a cloud storage server on the internet whenever you can. Obviously, many locations you may visit may not have ready internet access, but as soon as you are in a location that does, back up.
Another step you can take to protect your equipment is to treat your camera as if it were a child. In other words, never leave it on its own. Take your camera everywhere. Ensure you have a good case and strong strap, and avoid taking it off your shoulder in places where you may forget it, such as on public transport.
Personal safety
A common problem with photographers is that they are often so intent on getting that great image, they can become oblivious to what else is going on around them. Staring intently at the viewfinder can often mean you are at risk of stepping into the road and not seeing an oncoming vehicle, or failing to notice a hazard that could result in a trip or fall. When taking photographs, it is important to make sure you are not putting our own personal safety at risk. This means just taking a second or two to take stock of our surroundings and assess any potential risks before getting absorbed in the picture-taking.
Accidents
No matter how careful you are, accidents can still happen. A trip down the stairs can result in damage to your camera equipment and personal injury. In addition, an incident of food poisoning can leave you in bed and ruin any chance you have of getting out and about to take those fantastic shots you had been planning. However, if you do suffer an accident, you can get recourse to compensate you for any suffering, any damage to your equipment and any costs the accident may incur.
If you are injured when travelling, and it wasn’t your fault, you can often make a claim for compensation against those responsible. In some cases, this may be the travel company through which you booked your trip, such as if you have an accident at a hotel or on a bus booked by your travel company. In other cases, such as a road traffic accident, you can make a claim against the driver of the vehicle.
