Yep, I’m thinking about traveling. My guess is that if you are reading this you are too.  Won’t it be  wonderful to be on the road or in the sky again? I can’t wait to see new and familiar sights.  I’d also like to to practice new photography skills I learned  during  lockdown attending workshops and webinars on travel photography. 

Here are five tips summarizing some of what I have learned. 

Use Your iPhone

Use your iPhone.   The cameras on the more advanced phones are astonishing. People often ask me what kind of camera I use and I’m happy to extol the virtues of my nifty little Olympus Mirrorless camera but, my gosh, a Smart Phone is a handy and powerful tool especially if you have a newer one.

 For example, if you have an iPhone starting with number 11 you have the option of shooting on portrait and changing the F stop.  So, what does that mean? It means you can have a narrow or long depth of field. That’s camera talk for how much will be in focus.  

 You probably wouldn’t think about putting your camera into portrait mode for lots of images but guess what, you might want to. 

For example, if you like those images with the blurry background (called Bokeh) set your phone to Portrait, go up into the right hand corner, click on the F and then on the slider below, slide to the left.  That gives you shallow depth of field and an out-of focus background.  This is great for when you want to draw attention to the subject (duh) and/or blur out an icky or cluttered background.

The newer phone cameras also have a wide angle lens and the most recent ones do much better at night.  

Go Beyond the Postcard

Go beyond the postcard. I’ll never forget sitting on a lecture with the legendary Nat Geo Photographer, Jim Richardson, where he was asked how he worked and determined what he would shoot when he was sent on the assignment.  He responded, “When I do my research and scouting I go to the stores with postcards and look at all the images.  I know I want to do something different.”  My guess you can do the same today by going to Instagram, searching your destination to see what others have captured and then try to be original.

Jim Richardson also said, “If you want to make more interesting photographs, stand in front of more interesting subjects.”  

Eliminate Distractions

The best  bit of advice regardless of kind of photography you are doing is look at the background and edges of your frame.  Move around so that you eliminate anything distracting.  This is hard to do in street scenes, but it is amazing what moving a few  feet one way or the other can do.  Watch for poles that look like they would be growing out of people’s heads.  Big splashes of white light that can be super distracting.  A major part of a photographers job is eliminating distractions so the viewer spends more time looking at your subject.

Use Color Effectively

Use color effectively.  It  conveys a mood.  It also can draw attention to a subject.  Color can generate Wow’s.  I recently watched a webinar given by a world renown travel photographer who said to watch for and include red in your images as much as you can.

Follow CLAP

 Want to know what  a pro looks for in her photography?   Nevada Wier, a respected and wonderful travel  photographer teaches the concept of CLAP.  She says to look for Color, Light, Action or Pattern (Pattern to represent the concept of good composition).   A really good image will have at least two of these elements.

For more about the webinars I’ve been attending, go to Virtual Travel