Summer is the season for travel, and that probably means you're packing your digital camera and headed off for warmer, drier, wetter, or just plain different environs.

This week I have some advice that will make your vacation pictures stand out from the crowd.

What Makes It "It?"

My cardinal rule when taking travel pictures is to avoid typical postcard shots. I really don't like to end up with the same photos that everyone else has already taken, so I avoid taking pictures while standing in front of visitor centers, scenic overlooks, and popular tourist attractions.

But that doesn't mean I don't capture the essence of whatever locale I'm in. Indeed, I often ask myself what is truly unique about the city I'm visiting. What makes it "it?" Paris, for instance, is virtually defined by the Eiffel Tower. But rather than shooting it from the courtyard along with everyone else, I've tried to capture the tower from more distant neighborhoods.

Or consider the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. Sure, I could take a picture of the Grateful Dead house or some of the more famous storefronts--but everyone does that. When you get right down to it, what says Haight Ashbury better than the actual street sign?

Shoot Some Panoramas

Vacations loom large in our memories, so the pictures we take should be just as big. That's why I always nab a few panoramic shots of interesting vistas when I'm on the road with my family.

The first panorama I ever took was in front of the famed Abbey Road studios outside of London. But as a relative newbie in the digital photo universe, I made the mistake of discarding the individual shots after stitching them into the wide picture on my computer. Now all I have is a relatively low resolution wide-format picture of the street in front of the Beatles' recording studio, and I can't re-create the panorama with modern technology.

So don't make my mistake. Take a series of full-resolution images and use your favorite image editor or panorama stitching program to assemble them into a finished product. Then save it all for posterity--the individual shots as well as the final panorama.

Weave People Into Your Picture

You might be tempted to try to capture famous landmarks and beautiful scenery without any people marring the scene. Likewise, you might want to take pictures of your friends and family in front of those same locations--the classic "I was here" photo.

There's nothing wrong with either approach, but why not be a little more subtle? I like to try to weave people into my photos in a less obtrusive way, almost as if I'm telling a story or capturing a scene from a movie.

For instance, if I had asked my wife to pose in front of the Arc de Triomphe, she probably would have stood there as if she were posing for her driver's license. (She looks great on her driver's license, mind you.) Instead, I posed her: I asked her to lean on the post and look at the monument while I took some pictures. The result is something that I think is a little more lyrical.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started thinking about your next trip; look for a few more travel photo suggestions next week.