We love the gum wall, but for your germaphobes, this is not the place to be. In a survey completed on Trip Advisor, the gum wall came in second for “Germiest Attractions”. First in the survey was the Blarney Stone. (According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with the gift of gab (great eloquence or skill at flattery). Hopefully customers don’t start kissing the gumwall, because we’d really have to up our liability insurance. We just hope that you’ll become a better travel photographer.

Good article and video via KOMO 4 News

Does camera type really matter?

Take a look at the above images. Could you really tell what type of camera each one of these were shot with? Is the camera more important than the composition?

At Shutter Tours, we think it is more important to see what is around your environment as opposed to what is around your neck.   What we try to accomplish, is to break down composition to small bite size pieces with examples we have shot on the tour route. As some say, there really are no rules in photography and if that’s the case, then why is equipment a major “Focus”. Who knows? but I am usually one to ask the questions, when photography questions pop up… “So whaddya shoot with?”. Maybe it’s a good ice breaker or a it’s a status symbol like driving a car. I have almost always shot with Nikon and am better versed in the features of their models. Our guides Valentina and Kristi, shoot with Nikon and Canon. Does it really matter?… not really. Unless you are getting to the finer points of shooting that requires a step up in knowledge.

When developing our tour, we felt it was really important to stress the composition aspect of photography to help our guests build a base for their future travels and photography pursuits. Most of us started out with the basics and through trial and error, built our skills by continuous shooting and feedback from others. We like to think that we are giving you a head start with some solid advice, when reading a website or page in a book, cannot always accomplish this.

I spoke with one of our recent tour participants to get her feedback. Christine realized that she was able to really “see” what was around her as opposed to just looking at what was around her. There is a big difference, in that you start to engage with the environment and focus on little things that you may not normally see. Christine shared that after the tour she was was excited, yet felt a bit overloaded at what she was seeing, Though she is in the city of Seattle everyday, she was missing things that become interesting with a new perspective.

Even if you don’t take our tour, we challenge you to start looking around your daily life and look at the different ways to compose the scenes in your minds eye. This is always a good way to develop the skills to help you with your photography. I usually have a camera in my pocket wherever I go. A point and shoot is fine and a number of our tour participants show up with simple point and shoot digitals. We even had an adult show up with a simple disposable camera. Challenge yourself to shoot every day, whether it’s with an SLR, point and shoot or cell phone.

So getting back to the images above, any idea what they were shot with? You experts out there might see the difference in tonal qualites from the fruit stand to the sunset, to the food photo. Nikon?  Canon? Panasonic? Hard to tell isn’t it? Ah, but I think we’re gonna make you work for this one.

Find the answer here.