All photos © Emiliano Granado.

Commercial and editorial photographer Emiliano Granado had been shooting several fun, family-focused travel assignments for Budget Travel. When he and a writer were brainstorming ideas for the next assignment, Granado suggested a cruise. He had never been on one, but was interested in it as a photographic experiment. Granado says, “From the beginning, I knew I would photograph this cruise two ways—for the magazine, and for myself,  turning it into a personal project. After 5 days on the boat and 60 or 70 rolls of 220, I was on the shuttle bus from the boat to the terminal and the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘Thank God that’s over.'” Granado blogged about the lessons he learned from photographing this story.