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10 tips to improve your travel photos

10-tips-improve

While traveling we love to take pictures and sharing them with you. We have taken several photography classes between us and now have years of practice under our belts. Travel memories may last a lifetime, but photos are a really great refresher for our brain.

We want to share our top ten tips that helped us improve our photos and will help make your friends jealous of your social media posts.

1. Bring a tripod

tripod

Bringing a tripod is key for high quality photos. It stabilizes the camera reducing a blurry photo or shaky video. It is also great for long exposure night pictures. It also helps you get a cool photo of yourself without asking anyone to take it for you or being stuck with a selfie arm in the image. You can also get above the crowds, using the timer and holding the tripod up as high as possible!

2. Get closer

get-closer

The best photos have the highest quality. One more step can make the difference, rather than using a digital zoom, which creates a pixellated image. If you want a great photo do not be lazy and you will notice the difference. It also helps naturally crop unwanted elements in your photos such as cars, wires or other people.

3. Try different angles

angles

Trying different angles can improve the photo in a big way. Different perspectives give the photo a particular personality, making it a stronger and more interesting. It can also avoid unwanted elements in your photos, which automatically means a better photo.

Some things you can try are raising the camera a little bit or bring it down to ground level. sometimes you just need to walk a bit around the object you are photographing. It depends, but you will never know unless you try it.

4. Be patient

patience

Patience is key when traveling, the same applies to travel photography. You might have to wait minutes, hours or even come back another day to take the perfect photo. For example if there are other tourists trying to take the same photo, just wait until they move and then you get the perfect shot.

If you do not like how the photo comes out at first, do not be afraid to spend some time setting up the image you had in your mind.

5. Frame your subject

frame-your-subject

The perfect picture comes with the perfect framing. This can mean framing your subject within another element such as a tree, a bridge, etc or just knowing where your element will be within the picture. Get ready to experiment a little bit.

6. Take multiple photos

multiple-shots

The perfect photo is hardly ever the first one you take but the only way to know that is by taking several shots. Try photos with different angles, framing, or even try a candid shot. Be fun and explore your options.

However, do not just take more photos because you can, with a digital camera. Not only will your memory space fill up quicker, but nobody wants to go through 50 photos of the same thing.

7. Try using the manual settings

manual-settings

This might sound too professional for some of us but sometimes the best photos will come with knowledge of the manual settings. I recommend to start getting to know your camera and start playing with its settings before your trip.

There are tons of articles that will help you understand how the manual settings work for your specific camera, so do a quick Google search. You should learn when to choose ISO over shutter speed or F-stop and vice versa to get your desired image. If this sounds like another language to you, do not fear!

8. Do a little research beforehand

do-some-research

Before you head out on your adventure try to get an idea of what you want to go out and shoot. The best way to know what you want is to find some inspiration. Look at Pinterest, Instagram and other social media platforms of your favorite photographers or the specific place you are going to visit.

I am not telling you to not be creative, but it is always good to get a little bit of inspiration before heading out to a new place. It can also reveal some hidden spots in the city you are planning to explore.

9. Wake up early

wake-up-early

The best photos are taken in the early morning. Why? There are no tourists out and the light is super beautiful! Waking up early is the best to avoid crowds in popular spots, giving you more space and time to experiment your photos.

10. Do not forget to enjoy the view

enjoy-the-view

The most important thing is to also enjoy your travels, otherwise just Google the destination and get someone else’s perfect photo. The best photo is the one you take with your eyes! You can capture the sounds and colors of the place on camera, but never the smell or feel of being there yourself.

We hope this article helps you improve your travel photography skills. We can not all professional photographers but we can be confident about our amazing photos. If you have any other travel photography tips, please let us know in the comments below! Let’s make Travel To Blank the best community of travelers together!

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Gemma

Sunday 11th of December 2016

Useful tips, it's great having so many blogs telling you where to get the best shots now, good point well made! Love framing shots too.

Victoria Yore

Thursday 8th of December 2016

Particularly like your suggestion to use manual settings! Love this post

Kelly | A Pair of Passports

Thursday 8th of December 2016

Lovely tips guys! We are getting a new camera this month and the first thing I want to do is learn Manual settings - I've been shooting on automatic settings my whole life but really want to push it to the next level!

Travel To Blank

Thursday 8th of December 2016

Thank you! Automatic always takes good photos, but manual allows you to take the exact photo you want.

Dinah

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

I´m starting off with photography and this gave me a good overall insight. Thank you!

Travel To Blank

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

Awesome! If you have any more photography questions, feel free to ask!

Coralee

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

All really effective yet simple trips. What sized tripod do you travel with. Anyone in particular? Thanks :-)

Travel To Blank

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

We travel with a simple 60in tripod that shrinks down to 25in. We take a cheap but effective one on our travels as if it gets damaged or lost it is not the worst thing in the world. We use the Amazon Tripod right now.

We are also looking into monopods, to cut down on the weight and size, but they are a bit more pricy.