If you travel a lot, I bet you must be taking a lot of photos of the location. My Travel Photography Tips will help you shoot memorable photos on your next vacation. Photos are the memories you keep for yourself.
You look back at the pictures and relive the thoughts and feelings you felt at that place. However, I think this feeling is more pronounced if the photos you take while travelling to places were captivating and captured the place, people and moment in an exciting and stimulating manner.
I have been a photographer for over ten years and travelled to places and clicked photos that I cherish. I do not collect souvenirs when I travel, but my prized souvenirs are the photos that I take with my camera.
My knowledge and skill of photography have helped me to make timeless photos on my trips. Over a period of time, I have realized that for everybody who loves travelling, it is worthwhile to spend time learning photography skills.
From my experience in photography over a decade, below are my Travel photography tips to all travellers who are not a professional photographer but want to capture photos that they would love to look back in time. These Travel photography tips will help you create timeless and beautiful images on your next travel expedition.
Here are my top 7 travel photography tips
1. Photography Gear:
You may have heard expensive camera gear can make good photos, this may be true in a few scenarios and depending on who is behind the camera. However, this is not always true for your travel needs.
Get yourself a camera that fits your skill and budget. If that too seems too much, just get set with your mobile phone camera. However, I recommend a decent DSLR will help you shoot amazing photos after little training and skill.
Addition to the camera, it is essential to have a few choices of lenses in your camera gear based on the place you are travelling. The wide-angle lens should sit permanently in your photography kit. A wide-angle lens is useful for landscape photos. It is also a go-to lens to shoot heritage architectural landmarks.
It would be best if you considered carrying a telephoto lens if you are visiting places like a national park or a wildlife safari at your destination. In a nutshell, I recommend you to do some research about the destination and accordingly decide on the lens choice.
Another vital part of the equipment I recommend you to carry is a lightweight tripod. It gives you so much freedom to your compositions. It helps you to shoot at slow shutter speed during the night, you can shoot time-lapse, self-portraits, panoramas, and motion blurs.
I don’t recommend you carry it all around the day in the entire trip. However, you can plan to take specific photo opportunities by some planning where it comes in handy.
2. Wake Up Early, Stay Out Late
Opportunity favours the bold, but it also favours the early. I still remember my first Photowalk to a railway track in a nearby forest, with my photography mentor at 4 AM on a cold winter morning. We went there to shoot wildlife (Spotted Deer) that were only seen early morning due to low footfall of people from the city.
Countless times I have witnessed unforeseen benefits just by being early at the place. Waking up early on your trip and going out to take photos helps you in two ways; first, the lighting (golden hour) is excellent, and second, you encounter less distraction in terms of people or other tourists. Please get to the place even before it opens for tourist, you will get the opportunity to take the otherwise impossible shots.
Get early on the beach, and you can have your own sweet time to make compositions and making photos before the beach get crowded with people. Shooting a sunrise on the hill station is a reward only early riser’s get. Don’t miss the opportunity of creating great photos just for that extra hour of sleep.
There are rewards of staying out late. Urban-scape is abuzz with activity at this hour, and you get an opportunity to capture the lives of people and vibe of the place late night. Use this hour to take photos capturing the cultural heritage of the city.
3. Destination scouting and research.
To make memorable photos on your trips, a crucial Travel photography tip that I can give is to research about the destination. Destination scouting will provide you with a fair idea about the place and the kind of photos you can make.
A quick research about the area on the internet will give you an idea about people, location, and the culture of the place. You can plan how to capture those elements in advance. You will be able to plan what time of day is best suited to take photos along with the vintage points available at the location.
You can learn more about destination scouting on routeatour.com.
4. Approaching People for a Photograph.
Native and Local people are the ones who carry the tradition and culture of the place. Often you get tempted to capture that essence in your photos. Different places have different traditions; at some places, societies are open, while few may be conservative. Same goes with individuals; few are warm in greeting people and allow you to take their photos, while there may be others who get offended if you shoot them.
From my experience, the majority of people will be warm and welcoming. When you plan to Photograph someone on your trip, try getting into a conversation with the person. Talking to them will be a nice gesture, asking about something that you do not know will break the ice, like a bus stop of a taxi stand or direction to a famous landmark will help you get into a conversation.
After a conversation, asking for a photo will lead to an affirmative result. Remember this travel Photography Tip and always appreciate and thank them for their favour, time and photo.
5. Breaking out from the crowd.
We love taking vacations with our family members or with a group of friends, or you are a part of a larger tourist group with a guide. Most often, they may not be into photography, and this may hamper your creative thinking to make great photos at the location.
Often they may not like to spend time at a location you may find great from a photography point of view. In situations like these it is recommended to break out of the crowd, let them know that you plan to spend time at the location and you will join them back after some time, or back at the hotel. Caution: have clear directions about your place of stay and nowadays its wise to be connected over mobile phones.
Patience is the key in photography if you think its worthwhile waiting another hour to capture the sunset from a vantage point, do it. You may not come back to a place again in your lifetime, so don’t miss the opportunity. Breaking from your group and dedicating it to photography is one of my most crucial travel Photography tip that I recommend to all my readers.
6. Remain Low-key
This Travel Photography Tip will not only help you out of trouble it will help you protect your gear. Photography gear is expensive and is your prized possession. Do not let your actions pose any threat to your equipment and your life.
A photographer is top targets for robbers and conmen. Protect your gear from any such potential threats. Keep your gear low key; it is advisable to carry your equipment in a secured bag and only take out one at a time while you shoot.
Use generic camera strap (straps without any brand logo printed on them). Do not open the entire equipment at open places. It is always advisable to have your camera insured against theft.
7. Backup your Photos
Over time, the lesson I learnt the hard way is to backup my photos. I have lost entire trip photos for a couple of times. I cannot emphasize more on this, always back up your images as frequently as you can. Losing Photos from the entire vacation is the worst thing happening to anyone of us.
I prefer using two memory cards in my camera (my camera gives me that option). So if one card goes missing or gets damaged, I have the entire set on another one.
Secondly, I am not a big fan of high capacity memory cards. I use medium-capacity memory cards so that I do not shoot an entire trip on just one card, shooting on multiple cards gives me security against loss and damage.
Thirdly I backup it on an external storage device. I usually do not carry my laptop, but I have a card reader with me so that I can take a backup at any public café.
Conclusion
These are my top travel photography tips. If you find them interesting, please let me know in the comments, also would like to hear from you, what is your favourite travel photography tips that you recommend to all the travellers out there? More tips to take your travel photo to next level here.
Learn more about tips and trick about photography from my blog articles below
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