2. Help yourself out by taking pictures of signs.

3. There are three important things to remember about photography: lighting, lighting, and lighting. Early morning and late afternoon are best. High noon is the worst. In harsh sunlight try to get your subjects in shade and use a fill flash.

4. A fill flash (forcing your flash even outside) can help when taking pictures of people with dark complexions (see Mike's photo tips for more on this). Speaking of flash, do you know how to force your flash? Do you know how to keep your camera from firing the flash in low-light situations?

5. Try to get as many or more pictures without you or other members of the visiting group in them.

6. Take pictures of things, animals, plants and trees. You get bonus points for knowing how much that wheelbarrow, goat, well, or coffee plant costs. Watch for everyday photos...water gathering, games, cooking.

7. You're going to have to take the formal, group-lined-up photo. Know that this is something you'll do on your way to getting useful photos. For groups: try to take them when they're occupied with something else (even someone else taking the picture). Get a whole group shot, then start shooting into the crowd, capturing three or four at a time.

8. It goes without saying that you need to ask permission before taking a photo. You may be asked to pay for this privilege, and this is OK.

9. Look for frames...doorways, trees, windows, and have your subjects in, or looking out of them.

10. Close-ups, especially of faces, are usually key. It's so easy to crop in now, though, that this is less of an issue than it used to be. Give yourself some head room to allow for cropping.

11. Take digital pictures AT THE HIGHEST RESOLUTION you can. You can always reduce the size, but you can't go up. There's nothing more heartbreaking than to see a publication-quality photo that is only useful on the Web. Buy yourself some high-capacity storage to handle the increased size.

12. Take LOTS of pictures and then dump the duplicates and the less-than-stellar, really, you won't miss them. And, if you make yourself CAPTION EVERY PICTURE, you'll be glad to be working on just the best ones.

13. If you're taking 35 mm, order a digital CD right away when you go for processing.

14. The churches we attended in Africa were fine about taking flash pictures during worship.

15. Even if you don't anticipate creating a video resource from your trip, consider asking a member of your group to bring along a video camera. This was GREAT for (1) getting pictures in low-light situations; (2) for providing a source of documentation, quotes, etc.; for writing up the stories that came from our home visits; (3) for recording the music from the church services. If one of your group can take video like this--which doesn't have to be "make a video" quality--it will prove invaluable.

See photos and writings from the ELCA Communicators trip to East Africa at /hunger/stories/EastAfrica.html

Send your tips for taking effective, faithful images of the people you encounter when traveling the globe to sue.edisonswift@elca.org.

Sue Edison-Swift, is associate director for marketing and interpretation for the ELCA Hunger Appeal/Program and Disaster Response, 800-638-3522, ext. 2969, /hunger