Vacation: Tons of Time for Cool Pictures
Imagine this: school is over and your bags are already packed. It’s vacation time! You don’t have to worry about schoolbooks and homework for a while, and you’re ready to take a trip with your family. Any time you travel to a foreign place it’s fun to observe new scenery, like great beaches and palm trees, snow-covered mountains, or green meadows as far as the eye can see. In unfamiliar places there are lots of new things to discover with your camera: exotic markets with items that you’ve never seen before, strange animals and plants, and interesting people with unusual clothes. These are all perfect subjects that are just waiting to be captured in a picture. So jump right in to this new world and take pictures to your heart’s content.
Not Everyone Likes to Be in Front of the Camera
Be courteous when you take pictures of people because it’s not polite to take pictures of strangers in some countries. Talk with your parents about the customs of the place you’re visiting. If you’re still not sure, it’s always better to ask permission before you take a picture of someone you don’t know. You can try to communicate with gestures if you don’t speak the local language. You’ll probably find that most people don’t mind the attention of your camera, and some may even be flattered by it.
Taking a Vacation at Home
Even if you spend your vacation at home, you’ll have many great opportunities to take pictures and explore the world around you, like at a swimming pool or a museum. Many museums don’t allow flash photography, but you can usually take pictures if you turn the flash off 
. This is to protect valuable works of art that can be damaged by too much exposure to light. Ask a security officer or someone at the front desk if the museum allows photography. Generally, you won’t run into any problems taking pictures in natural science museums, where dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals don’t mind having their pictures taken. Summer camp is another place to capture interesting and meaningful pictures.
During the summer, many youth centers offer photography classes, where you can pick up some more great information about taking pictures.
If you go on a trip, try to tell a story through pictures. Start with pictures of your family packing suitcases and loading up your car, and include pictures showing your travel route on a map or your car’s GPS. Try to capture every stage of your vacation. Before your trip, it might be a good idea to make a list of pictures you’d like to take, like dad carrying suitcases, mom sleeping in the car, highway signs with the name of your destination, your hotel room, and so on. After you take the picture, you can cross it off your list. Keep a watchful eye for subjects that you hadn’t planned to photograph, like a beautiful view at a rest stop.
