TRAVELERS' TOOLBOX

Take Your Best Shots

By Valerie Rains , Friday, May 13, 2011, 12:00 PM | Subscribe to the magazine

Joe Routon, of Haddonfield, N.J., combined five shots to get this expansive Florentine scene.
(Joe Routon/myBudgetTravel)
An Iconic Façade: Rochester, N.Y., resident Stanley Hattman's photo of these twisting, ochre forms (chimneys atop Antoni Gaudí's La Pedrera apartment building in Barcelona) works in two ways-it captures a typical Gaudí architectural feature, but it also stands alone as an abstract image with its own appeal.
(Stanley Hattman/myBudgetTravel)
Reflections: Ralph Velasco, of Corona del Mar, Calif., snapped a far more surprising photo by just zeroing in on the reflections in this shot of a cluster of canoes on the Ljubljanica River in Slovenia.
(Ralph Velasco/myBudgtTravel)
A Group Portrait: Kyle Murphy, of Redondo Beach, Calif., made a pact with his Nile adventure-tour cohorts that they wouldn't take any overtly touristy snapshots—that is, until they acted out "Walk Like an Egyptian" and ended up with a fun and engaging group shot.

(Kyle Murphy/myBudgetTravel)
A Memorable Meal: Lynn Farrell, of Scottsdale, Ariz., staged her shot of grilled calamari at the Merolagia restaurant in Mykonos, Greece, to take in the no-frills paper place mat, the distinctive glassware, and the beer bottle in the background.
(Lynn Farrell/myBudgetTravel)
Your Hotel Room: For Donna Carroll, of Boca Raton, Fla., the prime time to shoot her west-facing room at South Africa's Cape Town Ritz Hotel was just before sunset.
(Donna Carroll/myBudgetTravel)