Never mind the flash-bang-wallop

If you want to improve your holiday snaps, get a good pair of walking boots, says Chris Coplans

There you were, standing awestruck outside Angkor Wat, on your once-in-a-lifetime holiday. As the afternoon sun weakened and the temple stone turned a majestic pink, you pointed your camera and captured the image ...

Back in the UK, you eagerly await the return of your photographs, but, horror of horrors, on paper those temple walls have turned grey, the local woman's vibrant red dress is now puce and the sky has gone from a vivid electric blue to a bleached-out white. You've got post traumatic holiday photo syndrome. Can it be cured? Of course. You could join a camera club or invest time and money in a photographic course. Or you could combine them in a photographic holiday.

Hoping to develop Ansel Adams-style landscape photographs, I headed north. John Gravett and his wife, Gail, have run Lakeland Photographic Holidays since 1999. Guests stay in their Victorian house, Fern Howe, set in six beautiful acres atop the village of Braithwaite by Bassenthwaite lake.

As the train sped towards Penrith, my trepidation about reciprocity failure, exposure compensation and the "zone system" (as used by Adams) heightened. Would I be cast among photographic anoraks, shamed by their state-of-the-art equipment and dazzled (or worse, bored) by their dry techno speak? Would my photographic holiday turn out to be hard work and study rather than fun and games?

John, a professional photographer since 1983, has devised a simple itinerary for his guests. After a substantial Cumbrian breakfast he leads the group on a leisurely walk to one of his favourite spots. One day it might be to see the eerie, early morning mists over Derwent water, on another it could be the magic of heather-covered Blea Rigg or the strange, water-filled cave at Cathedral Quarry. John always tries to take his guest to spots well off the tourist trail. Once he's found a picture-perfect spot, he'll pass on a few professional secrets on how to capture it. Here are a few of his tips for novices:

Keep your lenses clean

Use a proper lens-cleaning cloth (about £3) to keep dust and fingerprints off. It will give much clearer, sharper results.

Avoid camera shake

The snapper's greatest enemy can turn a sharp scene into a fuzzy mess. Tripods are the best way to keep a camera stable, but may be too bulky for walkers. Some trekking poles have a camera screw at the top. Try supporting the camera on a wall. At least, take a firm hold on your camera, dig your elbows in to your sides and squeeze the shutter release gently. Some people hold their breath when taking photos, but this can cause spasmodic reflexes. Marksmen are taught to breathe out and hold momentarily while squeezing the trigger – the same applies to photographers.

Get some foreground in

Rocks, dry-stone walls, or companions – preferably looking out at the view.

Leave the sky out sometimes

Only include it if it's interesting. Nothing is more distracting than a bright, white, featureless sky in the top of the picture. It draws attention from the main subject.

Keep the horizon away from the centre

Photographs with the horizon running straight across the middle often look static and uninteresting. If the horizon is placed low or high in the picture, it gives a more dramatic result.

Don't try to get the whole view in

It never looks as impressive on a photo. The human eye scans a scene and picks out a few interesting elements – a barn, a group of trees, etc. It is better to take only one or two such elements in a photo.

Don't always have the sun behind you.

Taking shots into the light can give a greater impression of depth. Watch out for flare caused by the sun shining directly on to your lens; get a friend to shield the lens by holding their hand above it. Great photos can be taken in bad weather – I often photograph in rain, when the colours appear richer than normal, although I concentrate on close details.

After a hard day's shooting, Gail prepared a four-course feast for us while John developed our film. After dinner, we retired to the lounge for a slide show.

The beauty of this holiday was that it had all the benefits of a conventional guided walking holiday, with the bonus of professional photographic advice. Visit outside July and August and you can have some of the UK's most beautiful countryside to yourself.

Chris Coplans was a guest of Cumbria Tourist Board (08705 133059; www.gocumbria.co.uk) and VirginTrains (0845 7222 333; www.virgintrains.co.uk). Lakeland Photographic Holidays (01768 778459; www.lakelandphotohols.com) offers seven-night breaks from £385 per person, with full board, tuition and guided photographic walks. John Gravett and Chris Coplans will give a talk about travel photography at the Ordnance Survey Outdoor Show (www.theoutdoorsshow.co.uk) at the NEC, 14-16 March 2003.