How A Professional Photographer Should Document A Vacation

Don't you dread viewing your friend's and family's vacation pictures and videos? Even when I go on vacation I take so many bad pictures and videos that I don't even want to go back and view them again. What if we spent a little more time on our next vacation and shot pictures and stills with a particular project in mind? That is what this couple did and now they have a tight 4 minute video that is fun for anyone to watch.


Here is another great vacation video shot completely on a GoPro by Daniel Ferro.



Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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30 Comments

I need a vacation, great vibe all around. Nice visuals and style on both vids although I'd prefer a different soundtrack in the first one and less than 50% of the shots being the guy trying seduce the camera in the 2nd.

Got a green screen, no images, on both vids, and when viewed direct from Vimeo as well, why is this?

I think flash has crashed on your computer and you need to restart your browser

Your GPU driver crashed. You should upgrade that and flash if you haven't.

your browser - gateway from the matrix. both of those two videos WAS shot on green screen... Welcome to reality, Neo...

very awesome videos, i would be cool to see a BTS video on the first one

Really nothing interesting. No lights, no script, no models, no gears...

This looked very good. Well done. Music was mad annoying and IF I SEE ANYMORE ABUSE OF THE PAN LEFT TO RIGHT DOLLY ACTION IM GOING TO KILL EVERY DSLR USER. The elephant perspective shot was real cool and the girl standing up on the swing was very nice.

This team did a great job.

lol isnt that the reason why people get a dslr, so they can pan left/right with their diy slider... lol

I've got a vacation coming up in June! Might give this a go in Hawaii!

I bet the doublement gum had something to do with all these great artsy shots too. I wonder though when they watch this back if they remember having all this fun or just the memories of constantly framing up shots?

@PatrickHHall:disqus Everything is for peoples but in everything you have to know when to say stop :) Weed sometimes helps creativity but we remember all of our journey ;)

Cool video, I'll try to make some nice behind the scene during my vacation.
I will go to Greece next Sunday for the next 4 month...

Thank You :) So you will have enough time to make 4 videos.

I hope so, you know how it works... sea, sun... I might get lazy :-)

Wow...that first one is so VAIN....do people really do that when they go on holiday, shoot their behinds, take artsy shots of their 'gum' & twirl around on the beach with umbrellas? I'm doing it all wrong obviously.

everyones different, you do what you like :) great vid

This is really freaky. I came back on December the 20th from a Three month trip though South East Asia - and visited Koh Lipe (the island in the video) in the beginning, and Angor Wat (temples) near the end of my journey. I even shot some photos of the girl, with her brother, at 2.15 in the video.

I guess it's a small world.

The first one is way to technical for a vacation video. I would like to see even a hint of smile on their faces. This video lacks soul, so to say, whereas the second one, although very well organized, has that spontaneous feel to it, seems just more emotional, real and fun. I definitely prefer '3 days in Rio'.

I recently visited Ladakh (for 6 days)........took some shots & have made a video of stills -
http://www.youtube.com/user/neerajfreespirit1?blend=1&ob=5#p/a/u/0/L...

Just ordered a GoPro for my vacay in 2 weeks.

If you look at the link below, straight to vimeo, you will see the list of gear he used on his vacation to make this film. Shot on a Canon 5d mkii.

http://vimeo.com/23383691

For another example with more "soul": http://vimeo.com/11569346

Thanks, adriana! This one is great! I love it!

Got me a GoPro and all sort of gear and now waiting on some SD cards from Bhphotovideo... this is a great idea for vacations and i'm leaving for France next week... should be awesome. 

Any ideas what kind of postprocess was used in the second video? (my favorite of the two, too). 

She's HOT!

Took a road trip to Canada last year and stayed on a friend's island called Hogg Island. Here is a fun video we made of the trip :)  

http://vimeo.com/14033771

did these http://vimeo.com/22103489 & https://vimeo.com/33987540. both iphone and 7d combos. 

877-648-7312

I really enjoyed this but can't help how remembering with a few pics and enjoying
the moment was fine. I would just leave out the "should"