I am no expert on taking photos and am a good amateur photographer, at best. However, I have a ton of great photos from all of my trips over the years that have been framed and gifted because they turned out so great. So with that, here are my thoughts on taking great photos during your travels.
First, take a real camera with you! While the ease and quality of our mobile devices have made the bigger cameras unnecessary in so many situations, the reality is, a better quality camera takes better quality photos. Sure, your smartphone has a great zoom feature, flash options, and more, but it doesn’t have the bells and whistles that a good camera has.
Second, make sure you have a card that has plenty of memory and takes multiple angles of your photo. Inevitably, you may have several of what seems to be the same photo but you never know which one is the “best”.
Third, I always take photos of signs to remind me of where I am. So for each place I travel, I’ll take a shot of the street sign, a sign of the building, or anything else that will help me remember where I am. I sometimes use these photos in my post-travel albums to help tell the story of my travels.
Be sure to play with the lighting options when you have time. Sometimes a flash is necessary but sometimes it’s not. I often take photos with both just to give myself options when I return.
As much as I try to get people to take photos of me so that not every photo is a selfie or an “usie” when I’m with my husband or friends, I highly recommend you work on perfecting the selfie, especially when you are traveling solo.
I learned how to take great selfies when I started traveling for work and often was solo on adventures in these areas I was fortunate enough to travel to. These were the days before cameras on phones so I had a pretty decent camera and learned how to frame up the selfie to take really good photos along the way.
I used to be really bad about traveling and having all these fabulous photos of people and never including one of myself. So once I figured out the selfie with the “good camera”, as my husband calls it, I have great photos of me in locations both with people and solo.
When you get back home and start going through the photos from your trip, take advantage of the free editing tools available on your computer! From basic things like cropping the photo and minor color adjustments to adding in filters to make your photos stand out, editing is key for your travel photos.
My final tip for your photos is to have fun and take a few moments to savor the awesome locations you are in without being behind the camera. Definitely take photos that you can share and use to remember your trips. But overall, take time to soak in the scenery, the sounds, the smells in between the photos you are taking.
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