Tips for Taking Great Travel Photos

One of the things I love the most about traveling is taking photos. I studied photography in school and trained in film on manual cameras (way back in the 1900s!). I was a very late convert to digital photography; when I finally made the switch, I lost a bit of the love I had for playing with light. Pressing buttons didn’t fulfill me like working in the darkroom or fiddling with my film cameras did. Now, however, I absolutely love working with scale, framing, and composition, and those are the main skills that I practice when taking pictures.

The reality is that most of us just want to capture nice pictures of our trips. Fancy equipment and training aren't necessary. That being said, if you can (fairly) easily take those travel snaps up a notch, why not give it a try? Here are some tips that have worked well for me over the years.

• The best camera is the one that you are actually going to use. It took me years to accept that I could get high-quality photos from a phone, and now I travel solely with my iPhone. Many of the photos on this website were taken on an iPhone 14.

• The number one skill you need to get good travel photos is patience. I will happily wait for people to pass by to get an uninterrupted shot or walk around something several times to find the angle with no power lines or trash cans in it. I budget extra time into my travel plans, knowing I am going to want to stop a lot for photos.

• Don't overlook the small things. Sure, we all want the shots we see on Instagram - the Eiffel Tower or the sunsets in Santorini - but don't forget to look for beauty in the seemingly ordinary. The tiny frog in this post captured my eye in Costa Rica just as much as the famous landscapes.

• Speaking of the classic shots, try a unique angle. There are a million different ways to photograph a geyser in Yellowstone. Don't confine yourself to the standard head-on viewpoint.

• Don't worry about what photos will look good on your feed. Capture what speaks to you and what will most remind you of your trip in the years to come.

• One of the biggest benefits of digital photography is that you can take pretty much limitless photos, even with a relatively small storage capacity. That being said, it’s still worth it to be thoughtful about how many photos you’re taking. If you go back to your camera roll after your trip and you have thousands of photos to sift through, it’s much less likely that you’ll actually do anything with them due to being overwhelmed by the sheer volume.

• Print your photos out! I make photo albums and frame my favorite images, and they hang all over my home. It makes me so happy on a daily basis to catch little glimpses of our trips. 
  

What tips would you add to this list? Share below!