Creating unique travel photos

Creating unique travel photos

One of the biggest challenges for new photographers is creating unique travel photos. We have all seem the same boring photos so with just a few tips your travel photos can be show stoppers. 

Here are some tips.

Details 

Many people get the idea that they need to show everything in a photo. That only makes confusing photos. The more you can focus on details the more interesting will be your photos. Here are a couple of examples. There were many photos of Holy Week in Mexico but these photos focus on detail and become fine art. They are intriguing rather than big crowd shots. People want to look more and ask you questions. That means you have their attention because you are creating unique travel photos. 

Tell a story

In Creating unique travel photos nothing captures the attention than photographs that tell a story. That’s what photography is, storytelling. Great photography tells the viewer a story – without using words. So take advantage of the purpose.When you see something that could tell an interesting visual story, take the photo before the moment is gone. This will also be more fun for you. Where is the story? Here are some great examples. You can see that once you get into it the possibilities are endless. Also look for emotion. Once you begin to look for the story you will find them everywhere. Not the devout man kneeling outside of the church. Then the lovely woman in white dancing with a horse in a traditional Peruvian dance and last the women making a deal for whatever she is buying. This are photos that fill views with curiosity and delight.  Many of these images are from one of my books. 

Take your photos early in the morning and just before sunset

These times of day have the most beautiful light. Play with it. By rising early this will place you in your location for blue hour, which occurs during the hour before the sun rises. During this time the sky will have a deep blue hue with wonderful saturated colors. Blue hour is an ideal time for urban photography because buildings are still lit and streetlights are on. It’s also a great time for landscape photography because of the different colors that are present in the sky. As the sun rises above the horizon, golden hour begins. Now the color of the sky will be incredible shades of red, orange and yellow, creating warm golden tones in your photos. If you don’t manage to get to your destination at sunrise, stay late and you’ll capture golden hour while the sun is just above the horizon, and blue hour just after the sun sets.

You could take a photo at sunset and break the rule from the last post and take into the sun. At this time of say with the correct setting you will have a silhouette. You will be creating a unique travel photo.

Avoid Crowds

Depending on the emotion you want to convey in your photo, large crowds or no crowds may be best. For the scene below taken in New York, I wanted to capture a serene photo of the statues looking down on a single person, so I had to get up early to avoid the crowds.
Of course if your message is to show the hussle bussle of an area you may want to break this rule. But in general crowd photos are just too much.

Simple tips on Creating unique travel photos. Have fun and I know with these tips you are going to have wonderful photos. 

Here are some other excellent sites to learn more: The wander lense; Nomadic Matt:   digital photo school