Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia is an awesome place to visit. Located about 45 minutes southeast of Richmond, if you are in the area, it is a great place to spend a day. When walking around Colonial Williamsburg, it is like taking a time machine back to the 1700’s. All of the buildings are of the time period, and they even have people walking around in costume and in character. You can go inside most of the buildings to see how people lived and made things back then, and there are even taverns where you can eat colonial fare.

I love going down there and taking candid pictures of the costumed interpreters. It’s a little tricky during the summer because there are a lot of visitors walking around. I try to frame my shoots with just historical people, buildings, or items in it. I think when a person that is dressed in modern clothes is in your frame, it ruins feel of the picture. At times, this can be very frustrating. For example: I’ve often missed a shot of a horse-drawn carriage that I patiently waited to get because a tourist or college student interrupted the image and background I was hoping to catch. On the bright side, I use these times waiting for the perfect shot to emerge make sure my camera settings and composition are correct, so hopefully next time when the carriage comes around, no one will be in the shot, and I can get the picture.

If you do not want to wait for every tourist to be out of your shot, here is a tip: If you have a tripod, bring it. Compose your shot using the tripod, and then take the shot. Then wait until the tourist moves a little, and take another shot. When you get back to your computer, open all of the images in Photoshop, and using the clone tool, you can clone the tourist out of the final picture. All you have to do is select the image that doesn’t have the tourist in a certain area and switch back to the first image and clone them out of that area. Repeat until all of the tourists are gone. The key to this is the tripod so that all of the images are the composed exactly the same.

Every time I go to Williamsburg, I have a great time walking around and taking pictures of the historical town. If you are ever in the area, you should make a stop and check it out.