You may love to take pictures on vacation, but it is another level of adventure – New York photography tour. Photo tours of New York offer you an incredible number of options that are simply not available to you if you walk through the city on your own. Ensure that you have the most picturesque and beautiful trip possible, take as many pictures as you possibly can, and walk with a tour guide who knows the locations that provide the proper perspective.
How Is A Photo Tour Different?
Taking a tour specifically to take pictures is a step above and beyond what you may normally do on vacation. The traditional tour implores you to enter buildings, bask in the history of the city, and focus on the next destination. A tour with photography lovers encourages you to test your craft, to use all your gear, and to vary the scope of your shots.
You are doing much more on these tours than going to the tourist spots everyone else chose. You are often led away from the busiest locations in the city, and you are taken to each borough so that you may see a variety of landscapes. New York is far more diverse than you thought, and the city opens before you like a flower when taking a tour such as this.
What Should You Pack?
Your packing list is quite extensive, and you must take great care to bring everything you could possibly need. This list is not exhaustive, but it prepares you quite well for the day ahead.
- Comfortable shoes–you cannot walk the expanse of New York is terrible shoes, and you may need a change of socks if it is a hot day. Your shoes may stop you from taking the pictures you love.
- Seasonal clothing–you may wear a windbreaker to ensure you may stay out of cold winds even in the summer. You must wear warm layers in the winter, and you must wear breathable fabrics in the summer. New York exposes you to quite a lot of light and wind coming off the ocean, and it is difficult to enjoy the journey if you are too hot or too cold.
- Camera strap–your camera strap is your best friend on this journey. The camera hangs around your neck quite comfortably when you have a proper strap, and your arms get a break from a long day of snapping panoramic, action shots, and stills.
- Hat–You need a hat for this adventure because you cannot always get the sun out of your eyes. You have no chance to frame a gorgeous picture if you are blinded by the sun.
- Extra memory cards–you need memory cards for your camera so that you may move on to a blank storage space when you have taken too many pictures. You may choose a storage card that is extremely large, or you may organize the pictures on cards labeled morning, afternoon, and night.
- Backpack–you need a backpack to carry all your extra items. Keep a change of clothes in the bag, store your camera in the bag, and ensure that you have a lock on the bag for your safety.
- Extra lenses–you need a lens that allows you to shoot at night, at long distances, and something with a quicker shutter speed. Each new lens provides you with a new opportunity to capture the essence of the city.
- DSLR camera–the DSLR camera is the most versatile of any you may buy, and you must ensure that you have a camera you are comfortable using. Do not use a new camera on this Jorney, and ensure that you have chosen lenses that fit the camera.
- Flash–you need a flash when you are taking night pictures that will not turn out without extra light. You cannot rely on streetlights, and you simply cannot use someone else’s equipment.
- Tripod–your tripod may fit in a bag that slings over your shoulder, and you may set up for panoramic and a series of stills or action shots you have planned.
New York is one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world, and you may well purchase anything you need along the route of your journey. However, it is quite difficult to stop for a moment and slow up the group because you forgot something. It is simpler for you to have a full backpack ready to go before the tour begins.
Shooting In The Morning
Morning photo shoots are incredible because you may have fog coming off the water, cool winds blowing between buildings, and low lighting that slowly grows during the course of your walk. 
Morning shoots are interesting because you cannot guarantee how long a shot will remain until the sun gets in your way. You may find that certain shots are too dark, but they become just right only minutes later.
One of the reasons why a tour of this kind takes so much time is the length of time it takes to wait for light to get just right. Your entire group may stand around for a few extra moments hoping for the right light, or you may be waiting for the sun to shine between two buildings.
Ask your photo tour guide where the sun shines in each location, allows them to explain the shots should be framed, and let them clear a path for you. City dwellers know that there are tourists everywhere, and they often clear the way for you to take a good picture. Spending that extra few moments makes quite a difference, and you may come back to these same locations that night.
Afternoon Shots
Afternoon travel photography is intriguing because you never know if you will have strong light or clouds. You may run into summer showers, or it may begin snowing in the winter. Shooting in the middle of the afternoon gives you many chances to work with shadows, and you run into a plethora of people who are going to lunch. New York never truly slows down, but it is an interesting place to picture when everyone else is at work.
Ask the tour guide if they know any good places where people congregate for lunch, and you must get a nice lunch yourself. The pictures you get from your lunch date may depict a diner that is tucked into a neighborhood you would never have seen, and you must ensure that you get to know the people on the tour during these private moments.
Evening Portraits
New York is the city that never sleeps, but it has a completely different feeling in the middle of the night. Night shots of the city show people going home, couriers finishing their routes, and lights in the city framing everything. You may take pictures of the water where all the boats are flashing their lights, and it is quite simple to enjoy the city when it quiets down.
You may come through parts of the city where shops are closed, and you may circle back to places where you took pictures that morning. Please recall that the photography is a full battery of photo ops, and your night shots simply close out a wonderful day. You may have planned to take pictures at night with the people in your group, or you may use the flash to capture people and things that are obscured by the darkness.
Your evening shots may be taken with long exposure to see the trailing lights that pass through the city, or you may move as the exposure occurs. Evening shots in New York are often thought to be the essence of city life, and you may create a series of images that is unique to you. No one will ever see the scene that you create, and it simply will never happen again.
Where Are You Going?
The photography tour of New York takes you through all the city’s boroughs, and you may ensure that you see each part of the city. Manhattan is the busiest city in the world, and you will walk past some of the most iconic buildings in the world. You are not taking pictures of buildings so much as you are taking pictures of the way the city grew.
The new tower in lower Manhattan shows how modern architecture has made tall buildings stronger, more beautiful, and shimmering. You are taking pictures of the bridges that leave the island, and you will walk past many old churches and skyscrapers. The Empire State Building is an old style from nearly a century ago, and the Chrysler Building is an Art Deco building that you must see to believe.
You may take a walk past the old churches in the city such as St. Mark’s, and you may find that these old churches give off a vibe that you cannot describe any other way than in reverence. Manhattan thins out as you move farther north, and you walk past parks, markets, diners, shops, and subway stations that all have their own flavor.
Chinatown, Amsterdam Avenue, Harlem, Little Italy, Soho, Tribeca, and every other neighborhood is there for you. The highline uses the old elevated train tracks to make a park, and you walk past pretisgious institutions such as NYU and Columbia. Central Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the world, and you may take a detour to the Central Park Zoo or lake as part of the tour.
Brooklyn
Cross the Brooklyn Bridge while snapping action shots of cars and people whizzing by. Go into Brooklyn where the buildings are not quite as tall and you run across many different residences hidden among the restaurants, breweries, and art galleries. You may come past the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and you may stop for dinner in the borough. 
The borough has quite a lot of people vending on the street, and you come across people who are biking through at high speeds. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is a refurbished old yard that has been handed over by the government, and you may stand at the Navy Yard, shoot photos on the water, and it has many attractions that will capture your attention.
Coney Island is perhaps the most famous attraction outside of the busy parts of the city, and you may take quite a few shots at a distance. The tour could bring you closer and closer for more and more pictures until you are on top of the roller coasters and ferris wheel.
Take a turn back to the water where you can see the Statute of Liberty, and you have a wonderful view of Jersey City which sits just to the left of the statue.
Queens And The Bronx
Queens is a bustling part of the city that sits northeast of Manhattan, and you may be taken by the low-lying building and business that have been here for quite some time. Yankee Stadium sits in the Bronx where you may come to see the Yankees play, or you may go to the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center to watch the US Open. Of course, you are hoping to take pictures of the locations here, and you may photograph different places that show your sporting tour.
The River
The river provides you with quite a lot of shots that help picture nature against progress. It is quite interesting to have the building of the city sit along the water, and you may take pictures of boats coming up and down the river at any time.
The Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean beckons you when in New York City, and you must take as many pictures as you can from the Navy Yard and other select locations. If you take those pictures at night, you can almost see the curvature of the earth. The water in this area provides a bit of a refreshing perspective, and you may even catch whales swimming off the shore.
You may choose to take part of your tour on a boat, and snapping photos of the city front he water gives you a hole new perspective that you cannot get from the shore. You may see everything from the Staten Island Ferry to Coney Island in one picture, or you may travel up the river where you pass under such landmarks as the Brooklyn Bridge or the Harlem Bridge.
Editing And Finishing Advice
Editing and finishing of your photos is often the most fun part of this tour, and you may make friends with your tour companions and tour guide during the journey to learn. The tour guide often has quite a lot of advice for finishing because they have taken this tour so many times. They are happy to show you how people have framed or finishes their pictures in the past, and they often come up with new ideas on the move.
You may share your photos with people on the tour that you have gotten to know, and you may all work together to create beautiful albums of your time in the city. You are covering a very large area, and it would be wise to speak to other photographers about what they shall do with their pictures.
Schedule A Tour Today
You have quite a lot of things to bring with you on this tour, and you must pack properly so that you may truly enjoy taking picture after picture on this tour. You make friends with the tour guide, and you may have quite a few new photography buddies. New York City is too vast to pass by without looking around at all the photo opportunities. Every corner, every person, and every business has something to offer. You are taking pictures at every time of day, and you are truly experiencing New York in a way that no one else can because they do not have a camera in their hands.
