WOW. I find it kinda hard to believe that it has been a little more than a month since we got back from our Bali trip! I will definitely be blogging about our very first vacation with two little ones in tow since I already have a number of requests coming in, but for now, let’s kick things off with our experience with WanderSnap! When misterchewy and I embarked on our three-week long honeymoon trip to Europe in March 2013, we the husband lugged our DSLR and tripod everywhere we went. We got pretty nice pictures at the end of the trip, but it was at the expense of the hubs suffering from muscle strains and backaches! Not forgetting the fact that it was quite a hassle and also time consuming having to set up the tripod and place the camera on self-timer mode!
Now that we have a baby and a toddler, our aim is to travel light! Bringing our DSLR and tripod is definitely not an option, even though it is quite tempting because of the quality of photos a DSLR can give. I felt worried initially, that we might need to resort to taking boring selfies and end up with poor quality pictures for the entire trip! Luckily for us, we got to know about WanderSnap a couple of weeks before flying to Bali. In a nutshell, WanderSnap is Asia’s marketplace for connecting travellers with local snappers to capture selfie-free moments.
As of today, there are over 250 snappers across 30 Asian destinations on WanderSnap. Through this platform, I viewed works by various photographers and made my selection based on our travel period, destination, type of camera gear used, and price! For each successful booking, $5 actually goes towards teaching photography to low-opportunity youth so they too can create art for a living!
Why WanderSnap? It is a safe and trustworthy platform for travellers to engage local snappers to capture their holiday moments at an affordable price. Every snapper has their own styles, and by viewing their galleries, you can select your desired snapper if his or her style resonates with you. You can expect to receive about 10 to 30 edited photos per hour of shoot, which is certainly very reasonable. Online payment is hassle-free and the money will only be released to the snapper after the photos have been provided to the traveller.
A few days before our trip, I decided to engage Sasha because I really love the photos that she had posted on her gallery. Her photos have a nice rustic feel and more importantly, Sahsa seem to have plenty of experience photographing families with young children!
3rd of March was our 4th traditional wedding anniversary, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than to have our precious family holiday photos taken in a natural and candid way! I was in charge of our travel itinerary and had planned an entire day of sightseeing that day. We had a local driver to take us to places we wanted to see and Tanah Lot was our last sightseeing destination before returning to our resort.
I chose to have our photoshoot at Tanah Lot in the evening because I heard that the sunset at Tanah Lot is incredibly beautiful! I think we were supposed to meet Sasha at 4pm to commence our 2-hour shoot but unfortunately, our driver was half an hour late in picking us up in the morning. Plus, the bad traffic conditions made the travel duration longer than expected and I had to text Sasha to postpone the timing of the shoot.
Thankfully, Sasha was very kind and understanding enough, so we agreed to meet an hour later at the ticketing entrance of Tanah Lot. We didn’t have any problems locating each other and chatted along the way to the temple. The hubs and I were quite surprised to learn that Sasha is a Russian living in Canggu (South of Bali). In fact, she had stayed in Sri Lanka and Thailand for a few years previously. Sounds pretty adventurous to me!
One thing great about having a local snapper help capture our photos is that we could free ourselves from having to fumble with cameras and selfie sticks. Taking photos of the kids out of the baby carriers would be difficult, especially for Cayla’s case since she’s still a baby. With a photographer to follow us around, we could leave the baby carriers and stroller in the car. It was splendid because there were finally plenty of full body shots of the kids, instead of them partially hidden in the carriers. LOL.
While some photos were posed, misterchewy and I are glad that Sasha managed to snap candid photos of our little family. As we had a long day, all of us were sweaty, sticky and tired! While it was slightly easier for misterchewy and I to keep smiling for the camera, the girls were a little cranky and not very willing to cooperate. It was tough to get them to smile because both of them wanted to sleep. Haha.
It was really great that Sasha was being extremely patient and cheerful throughout the shoot. Plus she was really enthusiastic in engaging the girls. Her calm and positive demeanor certainly impressed us!
Despite having to deal with uncooperative and unsmiling kids during the shoot, the hubs and I are surprised that the photos turned out better than expected! These photos portray what travelling with young children is like and when we look at them again many years down the road, we will definitely be teasing the kids for being so whiny and cranky during the shoot. Haha! Anyway, enjoy the photos and let me know what you think! 🙂 Also, scroll to the end of this post for a special discount code!
Get $50 credit simply by creating an account with WanderSnap via this link https://wandersnap.co/friend/travelwithcharlene during signup! Till 30th June 2017! Thanks WanderSnap and also Sasha for these beautiful holiday memories of our family!