Improve your Travel Photos with these 7 Lesser Known Travel Photography Tips
I’ll be the first to admit – I am not a great photographer. In fact, I do stuff that other photographers would shun me for – I visit locations mid-day, I often sleep in for sunrise, and by the time sunset rolls around, I’m either eating dinner or already in my hotel for the night. But, I’ve been ‘into’ photography since 2011, when I bought my first DSLR camera – a Nikon D5100. So you could say that I’ve been doing this awhile.
My travel photography has improved a lot since I first started – I’ve read tons of travel photography books, read all kinds of photography tips from blogs, watched oodles of photography youtube videos – and while the information is useful to beginners, it’s becomes repetitive after a while – all the travel photography tips blogs all say the same things.
Every other blog post on “travel photography” tips always go straight to the basics – rule of thirds, learn how to use your camera (I mean….duh!), shoot during the golden hour, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. That’s boring. While I do know and follow (as well as break) those ‘rules’, these are additional practices that I, personally, have found in my travels that help me get the pictures I want.
Or don’t want. Like I said, I’ll never be the world’s best photographer, I screw up my photos all the time and I won’t win any awards. However – I sell all my photos on stock sites and I do very well with it – enough to get by each money on that income alone. (I’ll get into the stock photography side hustle in another post).
The travel photography tips that follow below will assume you know the basics. Let’s get going!
Travel Photography Tip #1: Photographing Mountains and Canyons can be tricky
Photographing sunrise or sunset in the mountains isn’t as simple as showing up for sunrise or sunset, getting your shots and headed out on your merry way. Depending on the location of the mountains, some spots are much more ideal for photographing during sunrise rather than sunset. Sunrise may give you that beautiful alpenglow, whereas sunset can just have the mountains fall into darkness. Canyons can be filled with dark shadows in morning or afternoon.
To avoid disappointment, do some research before heading out on that early morning hike.
- It’s obvious, but the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. If you’re trying to photograph a mountain range while you’re facing west, it’ll generally be best for sunrise photos. Alternatively, when you’re standing facing east, it’s a better location for sunset.
- If you’re trying to photograph a location in a canyon, sometimes the best time of day may very well be midday when you won’t get shadows.
Travel Photography Tip #2: Visit the Gift Shops
Hit up the gift shops and check out the postcard racks. Spin it around and you’ll find all kinds of local landmarks photographed in the best possible light. This can give you inspiration on what to photograph in the local area, as well as help you find other nearby spots you didn’t know about! In fact, that’s how I found out about the Angel Oak Tree when I was in the Charleston, South Carolina area.
Travel Photography Tip #3: Do your research
To make the most of your trip, you’ll have to do your research of photography spots ahead of time. My go-to website for doing this research is Flickr. You can visit the photographer’s album, find related groups to the area, or even click on the geotagged map to find what others have photographed in the area. Flickr might seem so ‘last decade’ but it’s still a useful site, especially for travel photography research. I have found so many off-the-beaten path locations that I would’ve have otherwise known about – for my (partial) Route 66 road trip, there’s no way I would’ve ever found out about all the cool neon signs and abandoned buildings without doing research on Flickr.
And once I find locations I want to photograph, I save them on my Google Maps, so it’s easy to remember the exact location of where I wanted to photograph.
Other good sites are Pintrest searches and other travel blogs like this one.
Travel Photography Tip #4 – Read Books
I own a few very specific travel photography books. Specifically, PhotoTripUSA’s “Photographing _____” series of books. I own them all and they’ve been an incredible resource for finding interesting locations in the western and southwestern United States. Unfortunately, some of them are out-of-print – but I have them all linked below in case you want to check them out. They’re all worth the money – I haven’t found any book series that comes close to the information provided in these books.
Photographing California North – Volume 1
Photographing California South- Volume 2
Photographing Oregon
Photographing Washington
Photographing the Southwest – Southern Utah Volume 1
Photographing the Southwest – Arizona Volume 2
Photographing the Southwest – Colorado/New Mexico – Volume 3
Travel Photography Tip #5 – Bring props
If you or your travel companions are going to be in your travel photos, you might want to think about bringing along some fun props. Now, I realize this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – especially if you’re a ‘serious’ photographer looking to get gallery-quality landscape photos or trying to look like a insta-influencer. That’s not me. I like funny shit in my photos. The easiest props to bring along are silly sunglasses – I actually own a ‘sunglasses prop bag’ that I bring along on trips. After all, your run-of-the-mill ‘tourist standing in front of X tourist attraction’ photos are nice, it takes that goofball of a person to wear, say, alien sunglasses in that photo instead. Other props my sister and I own are wigs, funny hats, scarves, umbrellas and stuffed animals.
Additionally, you can use something even from nature as a prop – like a leaf!
Travel Photography Tip #6 – Be Mindful of Your Clothing Choices!
When I’m on vacation, I dress for comfort. 99% of the time, I’m wearing athleisure outfits. My sister and I both love dressing up for the 4th of July – nearly every year we make sure to plan a trip around the 4th just so we can dress up in our patriotic clothing for the week.
If you want to wear your fun, flowy, fancy dress at an unconventional location (like on the summit of a mountain or middle of a flower field), your best bet is to wear your comfy clothes and stuff the dress in a backpack and just change there — although trust me, you will get looks and stares and some eye-rolling from other hikers if you do this.
Another tip is to think about your environment – are you going someplace where there’s a lot of lush, green scenery? Well, try not to wear green on that day or you won’t stand out in the photos. A jacket or top that’s yellow or red would look amazing!
Travel Photography Tip #7 – Use a variety of different lenses
The main lens I use for my travel photography is a Sony 24-70mm f/2.8G lens, as it’s convenient and covers decent range where it will take the photo I want without having to fuss around changing lenses. However, I do like to capture unique perspectives in my photography, so I will break out a fisheye lens (I use the Sony Rokinon 12mm fisheye lens) and a telephoto lens (Sony 100-400mm).
Using a fisheye lens is a ton of fun and will for sure get you some unique photos, as not a lot of photographers use it. I like using my telephoto lens for landscape photography, moreso than using a traditional wide angle lens as it can capture unique perspectives and details of often-photographed locations.
