Travel Photography Tips | Capturing The Perfect Moment

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Monk Circling The Boudhanath Stupa | Kathmandu | Nepal | 24 mm

Among the skills that most professional photographers have is the “anticipation skill”, this usually comes from the experience, they know what to expect, in order for them to capture the perfect moment that best tell the story. The other thing is that, we must be patient, most of the times we need to wait in order to captured the right moment.

Take a look of the photograph of the  monk circling the Boudhanath Stupa there, to those of you who have been there, knew that, there are hundreds or sometimes thousand of people visiting this great stupa. Most of the  tourist also circle this stupa in anti-clockwise direction and as you knew, tourist does not wear red robes like a monk.

You may think that it was my lucky day to get the above photograph where  there is no tourist in sight, well, actually there are a lot of tourist as usual but I wait a little bit longer just to get what I want. Actually prior to visiting this place, I’ve already pictured it in my mind, the kind of a photograph that I want to have, and one of them is like this, a monk with red robe circling the stupa.

Once I know what I really want to take, I just find the right angle and wait. Yes, I know that the “No Entry” sign can be distracting, I’ve tried  another angles at that time but the lighting on the other side is not that great, so I choose here instead. The photograph were taken on late afternoon, the sun was behind me, to the right hand side behind me and you can tell by the shadows, I need to get the golden look of the Buddha Eye there, that’s why I choose  here.

I really need to be quick here, because if I was a little bit late pressing the shutter, some other person which might be walking faster than the monk will enter the frame and spoil my picture, so it was not as easy as it might seem, but once you have some patient, everything is possible. Just do not rush.

So, the tips on getting the right moment is, to anticipate, when you arrived at certain places, take your time without taking any pictures, just watch at the activity there, and look for something that is worthy of photographs, take a look at the best place to position for yourself. Then all you have to do is wait for the right moments, or in my case, I also need to get the right person to enter the frame.

The monk in the photograph above did not only act as my point of interest but also act as “a sense of scale,” by including the person in the photograph, someone who have never been there will know, how large the stupa is.

One last thing, once you get the photograph that you can be proud of, just pack your camera, if possible put your camera in a camera bag and just enjoy the moment, yes I know, you might miss capturing much more beautiful moment that you’ve already have, but trust me, you should never see all the great moment behind your camera viewfinder, just sit back relax and enjoy the moment with a cup of hot coffee if possible. You will never have enough photographs, so don’t worry and be happy.