5 tips to capturing your best travel photos
- Bradley Ramacher
- Apr 5, 2017
- 2 min read
I get many questions about the secrets behind good travel photos; well, I can confidently say that capturing the perfect moment is easier than you think! Here are 5 basic tips toward improving your opportunities, and your shots.
1. Capture moments of beautiful lighting before they disappear. When you are staring at a meadow lit flawlessly by the sun between clouds, or out across fog-covered mountain tops, be sure to take some photos before the light changes; because it will. Quickly. The same setting can change dramatically multiple times in just a matter of minutes, so when your gut is screaming at you to take the shot, take it!
2. Don't be afraid to be patient for a shot. This is the other side of rule #1. If you want to capture a certain feel of a scene via specific lighting at a specific time of day, then set up and kick back! Many photographers will set up in one location for several days in order to snap the perfect moment. If you want a specific setting to look a specific way, then take as long as you need. Remember, you're not wasting time; you're creating art!
3. Keep people small or not-at-all in larger-than-life scenes. Typically with travel photos, you want the focus to be the scenery, nature, wildlife, or landscapes of the place you are visiting. Therefore, with the exception of purposeful photos or city/village shots, keep people out of the frame if you can. If it cannot be helped, make sure your subject is the prominent focus and unnecessary objects are as unnoticeable as possible. (Pro-tip: you can always try removing unwanted people/objects in post-production!)
4. Take your shots from good to great with a little post-production. This rule should be taken delicately; your work should be able to stand on its own. But sometimes, colours simply need a bit of brightening, or a horizon line needs to be straightened. Perhaps you want to add a blur filter to enhance focus in a particular area, or a shot could do with a little more contrast. We have post-production tools like Adobe Photoshop for a reason, and there is no harm in using them to enhance your work. Just use your best judgment when editing.
5. When in doubt, just take the shot. This is perhaps the most useful rule of them all. If you find yourself contemplating a photo of an object or a scene, snap a few photos and put yourself at ease. Nothing is worse than getting home and regretting not having captured a few takes of a scene now that it is burned into your memory. Guaranteed, you will find yourself revisiting those shots more than you think.
