Great Photography Tips for Your Next Hike

• Take a camera on your next hike
• How to take a great photograph of wildflowers during a day hike
• Photo tips for capturing autumn leaf colors on day hikes
• Don't take big videocamera on hike with kids
• Great activity for hiking kids: Picture Hunt

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.

After hike game/activity: Photo Trail

Once you’ve completed a hike with kids, pat yourself on the back. You’ve done a lot of work but have taken the first step into a larger world for both you and your children.

To keep kid’s enthusiasm charged, “review” the hike in kid-friendly ways. While you really can’t do this with infants, most toddlers and older kids will enjoy it. One post-hike game/activity you might consider is Photo Trail.

During the hike, have children take photos of the interesting sights or key points on the trail. After returning home, have them select and print out the best and most representative photos of the trail. You don’t want 8.5x11-inch printouts but those that are smaller, say 2x3 or 3x4 inches.

Next, on tag board have them draw a map of the trail. Having a printout of the topo or guide map you used on the trail is useful. The drawing should take up all of the tag board.

Finally, have them tape or glue the pictures near the spot on the map where the picture was taken. They may wish to draw lines showing the exact spot on the trail that the photograph was taken. Older children can add captions, such as the what the picture is a photo of (Skull Rock, Bass Lake, red pine grove, etc.). At the top of the tag board, children can write the trail’s name and its general location (such as the park and state).

Materials: Camera, printer, paper, tag board, markers or colored pencils, tape or glue

Ages: 8 and up

Learn about more than a hundred other hiking diversions for kids in Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities.

Photo tips for capturing autumn leaf colors on day hikes

When photographing autumn leaves, contrast the fall foliage against blue sky.

Sometimes when taking a day hiking during autumn, you want to capture the beauty of an area’s fall foliage to share with others. Here are some great photo tips to consider when out on a fall day hike.

Plan ahead
Know what kinds of trees will be on the trail and if their leaves actually have changed color. Determine how long you have to drive to the trailhead and walk the trail otherwise you might not reach the site you wish to photograph until nightfall. Winging it often will lead to disappointment.

Time your shots
Sunlight comes from the side and is at its warmest at dawn and dusk. Photographs taken early in the morning and late in the afternoon, close to those two times, tend to brings out the leaf colors.

Keep the sun to your back
If you shoot into the sunlight, glare will wash out the autumn leaf colors. Always take the shot from the angle in which the sun is directly to your back.

Contrast autumn leaves with something blue…
Fall foliage reflecting off a blue lake/river of set against a blue sky will make the leaf colors pop. Using only brown tree trunks to contrast with the leaves will flatten the colors.

…or better yet, contrast with something gray
As saturated colors, autumn leaves actually will look great against gray, overcast skies. The color from the obscured sun will be soft and diffused so that glare isn’t an issue.

Follow rule of thirds
Don’t just focus on the leaves. Include some foreground (the ground or waterway before the trees or even the tree trunks, especially if they have color to them) and some background (such as sky). The photo then consists of three parts – the ground/waterway/tree trunks, the colored leaves, and the sky. Just make sure the leaves take up a larger percentage than either of the other two parts alone but not more than the other two parts combined.

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.

Packing checklist for day hiking with kids

Illustration courtesy of By GitHub (github.com/
github/octicons) via Wikimedia Commons

As the following items are placed in your fanny pack or backpack, cross them off (some items may be connected to your belt or backpack, carried around your neck on a lanyard, or worn). You may wish to add items to the list:
g Camera w/ extra batteries
g Candle
g Canteens filled w/ water
g Carabiners
g Compass
g Diapers (if applicable)
g First-aid kit
g Flashlight w/ extra batteries
g GPS (if applicable)
g Insect repellent
g Lip balm
g Maps
g Matches
g Mobile phone
g Multi-purpose tool
g Picnic lunch ingredients (if picnic is planned)
g Prescription medications (if applicable)
g Rain gear (poncho or jacket w/ trousers)
g Re-sealable plastic bags
g Rope
g Safety whistle
g Snacks
g Space blanket
g Sunscreen
g Tarpaulin (if backpack is used)
g Toilet paper
g Toilet trowel
g Wet wipes
g Wristwatch

If an unweaned infant or toddler is with you:
g Bottle w/ nipple
g Milk or formula
g Pacifier

If children are carrying daypacks, place in them:
g Jacket (for rain or wind)
g Maps (duplicates of yours)
g Safety whistle
g Snack

Read more about day hiking with children in my Hikes with Tykes guidebooks.

Don't take big videocamera on hike with kids

Photo courtesy of Nick J. Adams / Photoree

Bringing a videocamera, especially a large one, on a hike with kids is not a great idea. It adds more weight to your pack and stands a good chance of being broken, not just during a fall but when you set down and lean up against your pack during a rest stop.

Instead, carry a digital camera that can take videos. The videos may not be of the highest quality, but it’ll save you a lot of headaches and money.

Read more about day hiking with children in my guidebook Hikes with Tykes.

Selecting right camera for hike with kids

Hiking can foster an appreciation of photography.

Take plenty of pictures on your hike with children. You later can look at them with your children and talk about what you saw. They can be used to make a scrapbook or posted on social networks like Facebook. Teenagers might even want to create a blog about their hikes.

Go for durability and lightness in a camera. That probably means taking a digital camera, which has the ad-vantage of no film or extra lenses to carry. It doesn’t have to be a simple point-and-shoot. Find one that also can take videos, and you’re set.

Make sure you get a waterproof camera case that can strap to your belt, and wear it on the side of your hip. Don’t forget spare batteries.

Having said all of this, if photography is a hobby of yours and you don’t mind lugging around equipment that can come with a single lens reflex camera, a hike certainly is a great place to find fantastic vistas and scenery for pictures. Bring along the equipment with young kids, children, however, and you might truly find your hands full.

Read more about day hiking with children in my guidebook Hikes with Tykes.

Carry handy carbiners on next hike with kids

Carabiners are metal loops, vaguely shaped like a D, with a sprung or screwed gate.

You’ll find that hooking a couple of them to your back or fanny pack useful in many ways. For example, if need to dig through a fanny pack, you can hook the strap of your trekking pole to it. Your hat, camera straps, first-aid kit and a number of other objects also can connect to them.

Hook them to your fanny pack or backpack upon purchasing them, so you don’t forget them when packing. Small carabiners with sprung gates are inexpensive, but they do have a limited life span of a couple of dozen hikes.

Read more about day hiking with children in the guidebook Hikes with Tykes.