Forget about doing any Bali photography tours, you’ll spend most of your time driving around and there’s really not a lot of places that are worth photographing. Perhaps the exception is Ubud, which is what you’ll see in the photos – terraces rice paddies, temples and shrines and rain forest will probably have any landscape photography reaching for their favourite wide angle.
You definitely don’t call Bali a photographers paradise. Yep, for sure, you’ll get some nice sunrise or sunset shots and beach shots, but other than some temples, there’s not much here to be photographed outside of Ubud. I mean not much in terms of iconic places, landmarks or otherwise. Take a point and shoot and you’ll be right and hold onto your gear tight if you make it to the Ubud Monkey Forest (which by the way, is on every Bali Photography Tours itinerary).
Flying Back From Bali
The little buggers are notorious for stealing stuff, and camera’s are not off limits. Some of them have figured out how to unzip backpacks and if you decide to feed them, don’t be surprised to have a whole bunch of monkeys swarming all over you and your camera. Anyway, there’s not a whole lot of people offering Bali photography tours and for a reason – you can find most places rather easily by yourself.
For sure, any one of the bali photography tours could take you “behind the scenes” and take you to some places off the beaten track, but Bali is a place you could do this by yourself, safely, and with a little bit of research. It’s not as if you’re going to be taken back in time to a village where the people have never seen a TV or white face. Bali is relatively developed because of the tourism so it’s going to be difficult to come across real traditional cultural things.
If I was to go back there for some photography, I wouldn’t think of doing any of the Bali photography tours. I’d just stay in Ubud, hire a car, maybe get a local guide for a few hours, get some advice about where to go from them, and just do some exploring myself.
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