Travel photography can encompass all the skills and consideration you apply to other types of photography. Depending on your locations, these can include landscape photography, portraits, animals, and everything in between. Here we will share five tips which will hopefully help you get the most from your travel images.
Tip 1: Time-of-Day
The most pleasing and dramatic light occurs at sunrise and sunset. This means that you will have to get up early and stick around late into the day to capture these golden moments, but the results will be worth it. That’s not to say other times of the day can’t produce good images, but if you want the what is widely considered the most beautiful lighting, you can’t beat the start and end of the day. This will obviously depend on where you are in the world, so a bit of preplanning is always in order.
Tip 2: Learn Where You’re Going
Having as much information as possible about the places you visit is always beneficial. This can be anything from points of interest, spectacular landscapes, events that are taking place, and the variety of people you meet. Sometimes, for the risk-takers, it’s also about where you are not allowed to visit. The more you dig into information on an area, the more likely you are to find the choice spots or stumble into the most visually impressive shots. Local knowledge is invaluable, so along with preparation, ask locals about areas of interest. Learning a bit of the local lingo goes a low way, even if its basic greetings or how to ask for a beer. You’d be surprised how many of the most iconic travel shots of all time came from being able to communicate with the locals.
Preparation for visiting somewhere is great, but there’s nothing like jumping in the deep end and getting involved with the local culture. Feeling a place out by trying out the local cuisine, wandering through markets, or checking out the nightlife will give you a perspective like no other. With little nuggets of local knowledge, you may find yourself getting off the beaten path and seeing points of view that only locals will be aware of.
Tip 3: Learn Your Gear & Your History
Preparation is critical, and this also includes learning your gear inside out. If you’ve bought into a new camera body or lens, learn about them thoroughly before you set off. Some travel photographers prefer to edit images as they go, while others wait until they get home for any postprocessing. If you have thousands of the photos to edit, you need some robust editing software which can handle batch editing to localized adjustments. If you need to get up to speed on editing tools like Photoshop or Lightroom, then a quick online course will work wonders from the likes of PHLEARN or similar. These are formal courses which will take you step-by-step very quickly through the essentials of what you need to know.
When you’re travelling, you want to be as lightweight as possible, which means you’ll have to leave most of your studio back at home. This could also mean leaving things like that expensive flash or reflector at home. Learning to shoot with natural light is something you will learn on your travels if you aren’t practised already. As travelling light is vital, you don’t always necessarily need a full DSLR setup. Some incredible travel photography has been taken on lower spec’ed cameras or even Compacts over the years. Many times it comes down to skill level and composition, rather than the kit you use.
Learning from the best is always a smart way to go, and this applies to travel photography. There are thousands of images online, so shortlist some of the most renowned travel photographers such as Bob Krist and Art Wolfe and check out their pictures for inspiration. Also, check out what the top-selling travel stock images on websites such as Shutterstock to learn what it resonating the most with advertisers these days.
Tip 4: Check out Where You Live
You don’t necessarily have to travel halfway around the world to capture fantastic images. Cities to countryside all have areas of interest with many times a great image being down to perspective, composition, lighting and just capturing that right moment. Getting out locally is also great practice. All the skills you learn locally can be translated to your worldly travels, so there is really no excuse to get out there.
Tip 5: Make Friends
This doesn’t mean swapping phone numbers with everybody you come across but rather having the mindset of everyone you want to capture to be personable and friendly with. Portraits are great close-up, so ask permission and if possible, find out a little about themselves, as this could lead to further opportunities. You may even want to send them a copy of the images. In essence, try to be interested in the people around you, as this will have the knock-on effects of relaxing your subjects and providing more naturally posed images.
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