When you’re on a bicycle tour, you feel like you’re part of the landscape, not just riding over it! At least, that’s the feeling I get whenever I’m on a cycling journey.

Digital photography and cycling have both seen a huge upsurge in the last few years. Because of technology, eco considerations, and health concerns, the merging of these 2 pastimes seems natural. There’s no other mode of travel where you can just put your foot down, aim, and shoot, so for a serious amateur photographer like me, the two go together like pedals on a bike.

In this article I’d like to pass on some of my experience, which applies to a single day ride, as well as a multi-day cycling tour. I’ll cover equipment, taking advantage of your opportunities, and final presentation of your work.

On a bike, obviously weight and ease of handling are major considerations. The modern point and shoot digital cameras are ideal for this, but if you’re looking for better quality, you can use a Digital SLR camera. On some of my big tours, such as Europe, I wanted the best quality I could get, so I took my Pentax *istDS with Sigma 18-135 mm zoom lens, and shot in RAW mode. I have a special handlebar mounting camera bag that I brought on the flight as hand luggage, and then attached the mount to the rental bike. This bag quickly releases from the bike, and comes with a shoulder strap, so I can easily take it with me. In keeping with my “foot down, aim, and shoot” approach, I can quickly get the camera out, since it’s right at my fingertips. Keeping the camera in a backpack or pannier would be very cumbersome, and would defeat the whole purpose. I also have a Canon G7, and recently purchased a Panasonic LX3. The LX3 is alleged to be the ultimate street camera, and with its Leica f2.0 lens, RAW mode, and very large sensor, may force the Pentax into a more studio nature work.

One piece of equipment that can be very useful is a tripod. But since most cycle touring is done during daylight hours, keeping the camera steady in low light conditions is not the major consideration. A regular tripod is also a fairly heavy piece of equipment to carry if you’re touring, so that’s out. But a tripod is most useful if you want to get into the picture. I have a mini tripod that has a Velcro strap that you can use to attach the camera to a fixed object, like a sign or a fence post. Often, I’ve attached the camera to my bike, to use it as the tripod for a group shot with me in it. Before you laugh me off as being narcissist for wanting to get into the shots, just remember that this is a photo journal that we’re talking about, not just a bunch of post-cards!

Once in a while, the shooting opportunities are exceptionally good on a bike ride, so I keep my camera around my neck using a neck-strap. Not a problem for me, since all my cameras came with neck-straps. But since most small point and shoot cameras come with only a wrist-strap, I suggest making something up with a lanyard.

I can’t tell you how many times while driving my car, I came upon a fabulous photo chance, but either didn’t have a camera, or it was too complicated to stop and park. Well this just doesn’t happen when riding a bike. I once rode by a potential shot; actually it was a statue on the front lawn of a country home in PEI. I couldn’t get this missed shot out of my head, so I rode the 2 or 3 km back, my wife reluctantly following! When we made it back to the scene, the original shot I had in my mind was completely lost, but I set my wife up to mimic the statue. The photo was very humorous and made it into the final trip photo album.

While I’m still on the car analogy, there’s another point that comes to mind. When cycle touring, you have a relatively long look at things you pass by. You can evaluate them as subjects, frame them in your mind, and maybe even build the subject into an abstract theme. Do you ever have this creative feeling when you’re walking? Probably. Well, this feeling is very difficult to achieve while driving by in a car, but happens all the time on a bike.

The lesson here is never to pass up a shot, especially with digital. You can always delete later. In fact, I would encourage you to clean up the bad stuff often, so as to not only save memory, but also to keep your photo journal organized and focused.

Speaking of photo journals, your photos should tell the story of your trip — not just post-card like shots, or people posing for the camera. Mix it up — scenery, especially with your travel partners in the scene, wildlife, plant-life, and interesting landmarks. For example, instead of just an interesting scene, get the road into the frame, and a cycling partner riding away from you. This looks even better if you can get the road to diagonally cut across the frame. Get the bikes into the scenes, especially if they’re bulging with panniers and other touring equipment. Your laden down bikes waiting in line with autos to board a ferry tell a lot of story in one shot.

Another shot that always works, is to photograph your partner while you’re both riding. Shoot her either slightly in front of or behind you, while including some interesting scenery behind her can really tell a story of where you’ve been travelling. This kind of action photography, though, when you’re also part of the action, requires a neck-strap mentioned earlier.

The last point I’d like to cover is what to do with your final work. Don’t just leave the photos on the computer, or even worse, on the memory card in the camera. Get some photo management software, like Picasa, upload the files, and get to work. The sooner after your trip, the better, since you’ll soon be planning your next bicycle tour, and won’t have time!

The first thing you should do is to delete all the bad files. These are ones that are blurry, heads cut off, extremely under or over exposed, and so on. The viewers of your trip won’t say anything, but they will lose interest very quickly when exposed at this junk. Note, as mentioned earlier, that you could have been doing a lot of this work while on the trip, in the evening. The next step is to rate your photos, and pick out the ones you’d really like to show. For example, if you have 5 shots of your husband holding his bike at the same location, just pick one, even if they’re all technically perfect. Viewers become bored very quickly with repetition.

Finally, what to do with your artwork? Don’t just leave them on the computer, but print them, put them on a website, or load them into a photo frame. You can use the free photo viewing services of Flickr or Picasa. This is great because you can show off your trip anywhere where there’s a computer connected to the Internet. Put captions on all your photos, as this builds up your storyline. But be careful of using personal information, such as last names. Even though I put many of my photos on the web, I still keep paper photo albums up to date. It’s very enjoyable and convenient sometimes to just pull an album off the bookshelf, without sitting in front of a screen. They’re good at parties, as well, as the guests can give each picture as much attention as they want. (Hopefully lots of attention, after all the work you’ve done!)

The last media I’d like to mention are the printed and bound albums available online, or from photo service outlets. These can be so beautiful you won’t want to put them on a shelf, but leave them on your coffee table. A friend of mine who owns a cycle touring company, which offers trips all over North America and Europe (http://www.tailwindtouring.com), gives each of his tour customers a bound photo album included in the trip price.

Bicycle touring and photography go together like both hands on the handlebar and there are unlimited possibilities for inspiration when on a bike. Just put a little careful attention and planning into your work, and you will have photo albums worth showing.

Tags: bicycle touring, canon, europe, G7, Panasonic LX3, Pentax istDS*, photography