Roadtrips or any trip for that matter are great opportunities for photography. However if it’s a trip you’ve done before like a work commute, you may start to feel that you’ve already seen everything there is to see. That there is nothing worth capturing with your camera and as a result you may decide to keep the camera in your bag until you reach your destination or possibly leave the camera behind completely. I recently made this classic mistake on a roadtrip where I left my camera in the back of the car with the assumption that the drive down would not be interesting enough for an image. By the end of the trip I realizing this was a grave error on my part.

Out of Sight Out of Mind

I was heading from San Francisco to Los Angeles for my cousin’s wedding. For those not familiar with the drive most of the trip takes place on Highway 5 where you can expect to see an endless repetition of farmland, cows, and fast food/gas station stops for hours. Since I was not anticipating any great images on the way down to LA I packed my bags along with my camera in the back of the car. My thoughts therefore focused on other things such as what to listen to next and when I’ll be getting In-N-Out Burger.

Becuase I was not expecting to see anything on the drive, the trip down felt long and visually uninteresting. As my camera was packed away in the back I didn’t really think about taking photos nor did I pay much attention to the areas we passed. By end of the drive down as expected I ended up without any photographs taken. My expectations were therefore confirmed and I didn’t think much more about it.

Resetting Expectations

However, the way back from LA to SF I decided to have my camera with me and to set my expectations to the point where if I saw something interesting I would take a photo and if nothing came up that would also be okay. By lowering my expectations I felt that I opened myself up more to the scenes in front of me and that having my camera easily accessible I spent more time thinking about making photographs than I did without it. Without the camera I stopped less to look around at my surroundings or what the light was doing. I may have even come across something that was interesting but would likely consider the effort to get my camera as far too troublesome. 

Ironically it was this part of the trip that I got some of my favorite images. We had stopped at a Shell gas station to fill up and I left the car to stretch my legs. As I walked around I noticed the teal colored sky and slowly setting sun contrast with the bright colors of the gas station. I then proceeded to take the following shots.

I likely would not have taken these if my camera was packed away. Once we were back on the road I then proceeded to look more at the scenery as a passenger and ended up noticing how the clouds were forming along the horizon and snapped this shot on the right while riding in the car. I began to see that even on this type of trip there were photo opportunities I just had to pay more attention.

What was previously “boring” was now interesting and I was enjoying the scenery around me much more. All these images were captured because I had my camera with me and the fact that I lowered my expectations and opened myself up. I proceeded to take more images while riding as a passenger and came away with a great image of one of the farms as seen below.

By the end of the trip I learned that you cannot know what you will see or experience, even when taking a familiar route. That by keeping yourself open and your camera handy it allows you to capture things that you may have missed.

So next time you go on a roadtrip let yourself be open and carry your camera with you. The worse that can happen is you come home with some images, possibly some great ones, which is always better then the alternative of having no images at all.