IF THERE'S one thing you should remember about travel photography, it is this: Never let the camera get in the way of your vacation.

Many amateur or overzealous photographers spend so much of their time trying to compose the best photos, they fail to enjoy the sights and sounds which they paid a tidy sum for. I'm sure you've seen those vacationers who lug huge zoom lenses, big flash guns and clunky ultra-fast DSLRs up the tour bus (and sometimes trip over their own gear).

Unless you are being paid to take those travel photos, enjoy the moment even as you go about shooting.

The hardware

FIRST, go light on the DSLR gear by using a light zoom lens or prime lens. Yes, an ultra-fast f2.8 professional zoom lens will let you shoot anything but it also weighs 1kg. If you go on a long hike with several of such lenses, you'll soon tire out and will not have energy to shoot well.

Compromise. Use a light zoom (say about 28-80mm focal range). Personally, I prefer to bring just a few prime (non-zoom) lenses like the 24mm, 50mm and 100mm to cover wide, normal and macro scenes without breaking my back.

You don't want to be dragging a DSLR everywhere either.

So bring a backup compact digicam for the times when you want to shrug the weight off your neck or when there's a high chance you may lose your expensive camera (like during soju-drinking sessions in Korea).

Some people lug a laptop to back up their photos during the trip, but that's overkill too. A few memory cards will do the trick - they are dirt cheap these days. Just don't lose them while travelling.

The shooting style

NOW that I've covered the gear, here's how you can take great photos without trying too hard.

If you are in a tourist-filled area, look for postcards showing photographs of the same area. Figure out from which vantage point the postcard photo was taken and just do the same.

Voila, your photo album is now 'postcard perfect'!

If you don't want to take such unorthodox short-cuts, then try the Zen Photography Method (I coined this).

Just enjoy the holiday as you normally would, and take out your camera only when you see a beautiful scene you'll never want to forget.

Before you look through the viewfinder, visualise how you'd like to remember the scene and frame it accordingly.

Then start taking the photo and tweak the camera settings until you get what you want.

True, you would be taking fewer pictures than you normally would, but the shots would be of higher quality because you spent more time thinking about how to compose them.

Look for contrast too. At its simplest, contrast can mean having subjects that stand out well from their background, thanks to their shape, size or colour.

If you have a complex-looking subject (say the intricate facade of a temple), keep the background plain. Or vice versa with plain subjects.