Camping Trip Photo Ideas, Hour by Hour
Camping photos tend to be all scenery and no people: twelve versions of the same valley and no evidence of who you were with. The hourly prompt fixes the ratio, because most hours of a camping trip are not spent looking at the view - they are spent hunting for a mallet.
Twelve prompts run from pitching to the last light. Signal is the real constraint out here: shoot on the hour regardless, and let the uploads catch up when you next find a bar.
How to run it
- Length
- 12 hours · 12 photos
- Start it
- When the car doors open at the site, before anything comes out of the boot.
The shot list
- 1
The site, empty
The bare patch of ground before the tent. You will want the before.
- 2
Tent, going up badly
Mid-assembly, poles in the wrong holes. Not the finished tent.
- 3
What came out of the bags
The full spread on the ground. Somebody brought something absurd.
- 4
The first attempt at fire
Whether it worked or not. Smoke counts.
- 5
Feet up
Whoever sat down first, from their own point of view.
- 6
Cooking, outdoors
The pan, the stove, the questionable hygiene. Close.
- 7
The walk
From behind the group, not in front. Backs and boots.
- 8
Something small
Bark, a beetle, a boot print. One thing under a metre away.
- 9
The view, once
You get one. Make it the one you would keep.
- 10
Golden hour on the tent
The light hitting the canvas, whoever is inside it.
- 11
Around the fire
Faces lit from below. Do not use the flash.
- 12
Torch and dark
Whatever the torch lands on last before bed.
Three things worth knowing
- Photos queue on the phone and upload when signal returns, so shoot on the hour even in a dead spot.
- Cold kills batteries fast. Whoever has the power bank should take the late hours.
- One view photo per trip is the rule that makes the other eleven interesting.
Run this list with Sway
Start a Sway for these hours, send the people you are with its link and follow the list hour by hour. Everyone gets one shot per hour, and when it ends the hours come back as a single split-screen video.