Tips for taking beautiful travel photos
Travel photography can be described in many ways, but for most people it simply means taking memorable photos of the things they experience while exploring the world. Travel photography includes road trips, long vacations, or trips within your own local area that require you to pack up and leave home. Before you load up the car, check out these quick tips to make sure your photos turn out as great as your adventures.
Get the right equipment
If you want to know what kind of camera takes the most detailed and beautiful images possible, it’s a large format camera. But if you want to go hiking, you probably don’t want to take a huge 8×10 camera with you during the day. Before you leave home, take a realistic inventory of your equipment and compare it to your plans: anything you don’t realistically need or could become a burden should be left at home. For almost all applications, an SLR camera with one or two lenses and a battery backup should be more than enough.
Find the overlooked beauty
So you flew to Paris and came back with pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. But the problem is that everyone else who has been there does too. If you are truly interested in creating memorable and unique photographs, you must be willing to go off the beaten path. Take a tour of unknown places or ask the locals for advice on where to find the best sunrise in the city. The world is beautiful, and photography allows us to capture its beauty, but there are many amazing photographs that get lost if you’re not actively exploring. Try to find new places and try to lose yourself in every place you see and you will probably find the beauty hidden just out of sight.
Safe work
In addition to bringing backup batteries, you should also make sure you have a few rolls of film (or an extra memory card). Another good idea is to always put your takes in brackets. Bracketing means taking three photos instead of one; the first is shot at the recommended aperture, then the second and third are shot at too low a setting and another too high. Travel photography is unique in that many of the photo opportunities you have will never be available to you again, so bracketing ensures you’ll have plenty to work with when you return home.
share your story
Every time you go somewhere, you should think of yourself as an ambassador of the place you are visiting. Imagine that your photo editor has assigned you the task of telling a story with the photos of your trip. Every photo you take during your trip is part of a bigger story of your vacation as a whole. Whenever you can, try to make each image have meaning and represent a part of your journey. For example, a good subject to shoot in the desert would be isolation, while celebration would be great for a crowded place. You should always have some sort of connecting line between your images.
Without a doubt, travel photography is one of the most fun photography niches to focus on. You get to work hard doing what you love and creating beautiful images, all while exploring some of the most exciting places on Earth. As long as you shoot with a purpose and use the right equipment, your friends are likely to admire your travel photos for years to come. Just remember to take some time to enjoy the experience while you’re there; it’s easy to get caught up in the camera and completely miss the joy of the journey.
