5 Travel Tips for Photographers

Guest Blogger
All photos in this post taken by the amazing Kyle Hepp

I travel a bit for work. And by a bit, I mean that in the past four months I’ve shot weddings in 

I will be finishing up this streak of destination (for me) weddings with one in Paris (France) and Lake Anna (Virginia, USA) in a week and a half.

At first when Jamie asked me to guest post for The Modern Tog I didn’t feel like I’d have much to offer. But then when she said it would be great if I posted traveling tips for weddings, I thought “Ah HA! Now THAT, I just might be qualified to write about!”

So here’s 5 Travel Tips for Photographers that I’ve learned along the way.

1. Buy your own plane tickets

All photographers have their own way of doing things. But personally, I’d rather not have the client in charge of my transportation.

I include all travel fees + cost of shooting the wedding in one lump sum that I present as a quote.

Then the client pays me a 50% deposit and signs a contract. From there I am responsible for making me own arrangements.

I like this for a few reasons.

First, you won’t get stuck on a red-eye because it was the cheapest flight available which is all your clients care about. When I quote the client, I’ve already looked at flights and I know more or less how much it’s going to cost me to fly in on a decent flight that doesn’t have a million stop overs or a weird schedule.

Second, if you travel a lot, it’s worth sticking to one airline alliance (OneWorld and StarAlliance are the biggies) so you can rack up airline miles. I prefer to book my own journeys is so that I can choose to fly on OneWorld. I earn miles with them which is one of the big perks to traveling for work. Plus, I have preferred status with them, so it’s obviously much more comfortable for me to be able to go to the airport, not have to wait in line, get upgrades on flights that aren’t full and have my luggage come out first on the carousel. I don’t want to travel without being able to make that choice for myself.

2. Your equipment goes in the cabin with you

No if/ands/buts about it. Every airline has different policies, but for the most part the general rule is one large carry on bag and a smaller purse sized carry on bag.

My husband Seba and I have small sized Tenba Messenger Bags. They fit under the seat on every plane we’ve ever traveled on. They look small enough that not once have we ever been stopped and asked to check our bag when a flight is full.

You can also ask at the gate if they’ll let you have early boarding (they’ll stamp your ticket with Group 1) to assure that you’ll have overhead bin space for your carry-ons. I hear that most of the time if you explain that you’re carrying expensive equipment and traveling for work, they’ll let you. I’ve never asked though, because like I said, we’ve never had a problem.

3. Watch your stuff going through the x-ray machines in security

I’m not so much worried about somebody stealing the bags as I am that they’ll start taking equipment out to search the bags and won’t be gentle with it.

The last time we were in France a security guard picked up Seba’s bag and asked him a question in French. He said he didn’t understand and she grabbed his bag, opened it and threw one of the lenses into a bin with no regard for the fact that she was basically playing catch with a $1600 dollar piece of equipment. It felt like a slow motion scene from a movie when Seba and I both dived in at once saying, “NooooOOOOOooooo,” and then mimed to her that we would unpack the bags ourselves.

So yes. Lesson learned. Don’t let security get their mitts on your gear because they have no regard for how breakable it is.

4. Opt Out

Speaking of security, OPT OUT if they try to make you go through their super duper x-ray (backscatter machine).

I’m not going to get  too political on you, but TSA is a giant waste of time and their backscatter machine, which has never caught a terrorist, sees you naked – and they have unclear policies on whether or not those photos are deleted or what happens to them afterwards.

Also, the radiation is dangerous. I opted once and the girl right behind me did as well. She said she was a doctor and there was no way she’d ever go through one of those machines because of the serious risk they pose for causing cancer. If you opt out, you get a light pat down instead. Sometimes it feels like a nice little backrub, depending on who is feeling you up.

In full disclosure, I am a MAGNET for that machine. They don’t have them at every security check point in every airport. Lots of times they do have them but they’re not using them. And they only choose one out of maybe every ten or so passengers to be scanned. But, if I didn’t opt out, I’d be walking around town glowing green with a second arm sprouting out of my ear by now because I get picked Every. Single. Time.

We’ll be going through a line and I’ll say to Seba, “Oh good, they don’t have the backscatter machines turned on.” We wait for another twenty minutes, it’s our turn to go through the x-rays, nobody’s getting a backscatter scan and then BAM! I get up to the front of the line and they’re all, “One minute please, Miss, we’re turning on our machine over here. Could you just come with me?”  

OPT OUT. Every time.

5. Arrive at your destination early

Arrive at least two days early to your destination (or one day, if you could get there driving within 24 hours).

I’m paranoid. The airline industry sucks. We all know that there are more cancellations and delayed flights and horror stories than ever before when it comes to traveling these days.

So I try to schedule our flights to have us in two days before a wedding, just in case.

If something went wrong, we’d have time to reschedule, take a train, take a bus, drive, or figure something else out to be able to make it in time for the wedding.

Usually, you’ll be fine and you’ll make it there when you’re supposed to make it there. But you just never know.

Once, when we arrived at the airport in Santiago and told the check in desk, “Hello, we’re here for our 11am flight to Buenos Aires.” The lady responded, “What 11am flight? That doesn’t exist.” The airlines (Lan) had canceled the flight and forgot to notify us.

We couldn’t get booked out until 6pm that evening.

By the time we were checked into our hotel it was around 10pm and we were supposed to meet the bride and groom for dinner. Fortunately, in Argentina, 11pm is a very respectable hour to start eating your cena, so the couple was happy to head out a little later.

But, imagine if that had been the day before the wedding! I would have been freaking out. And I would’ve been exhausted if we had an early start time the next day.

Bonus, if you do arrive on time, then you have two days before the wedding to relax, scout the venue, get to know the bride and groom, etc. Win/win!

If you have any other travel-related questions, just ask in the comments and I’ll respond!

Kyle Hepp is an International Wedding Photographer based in Chile, specializing in multi-cultural couples and/or destination weddings. Her goal is to shoot a wedding on every continent. Yes, even Antarctica. Dream big, why not?

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