Editor’s Note: Alex Schare won our August photo contest with his captivating shot of the Haleakala crater, above. We asked Alex, an avid amateur photographer, to share his tips to fellow readers on capturing great photos while travelling. Please welcome Alex!

No matter if you like to spend your vacation lounging poolside or exploring the outdoors, chances are you enjoy having some pictures to take home to show your family and friends, or to instantly transport you back to paradise on a cold Canadian winter day.

I am a hobby photographer with no formal training, but with a few tips and tricks anyone can turn sometimes disappointing vacation pictures into keepsakes that really stand out.

Come Prepared

Being prepared is the single most important rule of photography.

Depending on your equipment, make sure you’ve got an appropriate lens installed (such as a zoom lens for wildlife photography), your camera batteries are charged, and there’s lots of room on your memory card.

When it comes to storage media, bigger is better—this will allow you to take many pictures on the go, and if there’s too many you can always delete some afterwards.

Being prepared will allow you to whip out your camera at a moment’s notice and capture great moments, such as a whale showing off its tail, pictured above.

Know the Golden Hours

The Golden Hours are roughly defined as the three hours after sunrise and the three hours preceding sunset. During this time, the light is much softer and warmer, and will add a beautiful glow to your pictures.

During the day (especially around noon when the sun is highest), light intensity might be so strong that your pictures appear washed out.

The best way to mitigate this is to use a polarizing filter (think sunglasses for your camera) if possible.

If you’re using a point-and-shoot camera, you can hold your sunglasses right in front of the lens to achieve a similar effect. Rule of thumb: If you’re wearing sunglasses, your camera should too!

Bring a Tripod

Tripods come in a wide range of sizes and have a wide range of uses.

Good night photography relies on long exposures (long enough that a person could not possible hold a camera perfectly still long enough), so tripods are essential.

Tripods also allow you to get a group picture with everybody in it, or to use a level to make sure your pictures are perfectly straight.

Think Before You Click

When it comes to time-sensitive subjects such as wildlife, feel free to happily snap away.

The more pictures you get, the higher the chance you’ll have a really nice one (and for the rest, there’s always the delete button).

But when you’re not pressed for time, try to think of what you want the picture to look like when you look at it later.

Even just taking a few seconds to think about factors such as composition can make all the difference between a nice and an excellent picture.

Get Creative

There are virtually no limits to what you can do with your pictures with modern software.

One such technique is called High Dynamic Range photography, or HDR for short.

For HDR, several shots of the same subject with different exposures are fused digitally and details such as colour and intensity enhanced.

This will result in a dramatic and eye-popping picture, and the strength of the effect (from natural-looking to truly psychedelic) is completely up to you.

There are many programs out there that allow you to do HDR, including Photoshop—I use Photomatix. You can download a free trial that’s fully functional, but it puts a watermark on each finished picture. The full version costs US$99.