Preparing for a Photo Expedition (Pre-Build Smug Mug Page)

I'm blessed to be able to go on one or two pretty significant trips each year.  I always depart with the intention of building a set of pages on my SmugMug site that will host images captured by me, my family, and when I am lucky fellow travelers. Sorting, rating, post-processing and ultimately posting the images to my site takes a fairly large amount of time and effort.  Having the images appearing on the site as fast as possible is useful, having some of them appearing during the trip encourages other to participate making it even more important to me.

My desire for speed combined with my natural inclination to laziness has spurred me to create a cookbook for pre-trip prep to make posting of images faster during and after the expedition.  This post lays out the steps I go through to setup my working environment for a trip, your milage, will of course, vary.

What is a BarrettPhoto Book?

The books I create are compilations of images taken at a specific event or series of events.  My intent in putting them together is to capture memories and build something that is a worthy keepsake for the participants in the event.

Photo books allow me to utilize images that would otherwise end up in a shoebox or just sit on a disk drive into something that I am proud to share with people who may be interested in where I have visited and/or seen.

Some of the books are intended for any/all participants in a group trip, such as the Grove City Alumni travels that Linda and I enjoy participating in.  So far, I’ve produced three such books, with one more slated for June/July of 2018:

• National Parks of the High Plains, June 2015
• Galapagos, January 2017
• Machu Picchu, January 2017
• National Parks of the South West, June 2018

Travel Memory Books

A few years back I discovered photo books as a way to make my images from travels a powerful tool for bolstering my memory and enjoyment of vacations and other trips.  Before that, I had taken pictures, often printed some of them, looked at them and put them in a box or drawer.  When I looked at them years later I really couldn't appreciate what I was looking at.  The images just didn't work as a way to really remember the event.  Putting those images into book format forced me to really think about what I saw, adding some organization and narration, allows my to save the memories much more accurately and gives me something that I can look at long after the fact and once again enjoy the experience. These books, for many people have become the ultimate souvenir.

South Dakota / Wyoming Travels

Black Hills, Yellowstone & Tetons

Linda and I recently traveled with a group of Grove City alumni on an Orbridge tour of National Parks and Lodges of the Old West. I had intended to write daily, or almost daily blog entries but that plan ran afoul of three problems:

1. Blogger is crippled on an iPad, it needs keys that don't exist on a touch interface,
2. Internet access is spotty at best in South Dakota and Wyoming,
3. The trip was packed with activities allowing little time to write or reflect.