Travel Photography Tips

"These travel photography tips
will help memorialize your next family vacation."

Just like all parts of a vacation, the photography portion must be planned. Photo opportunities should include local culture and famous scenes that would make it apparent where the vacation took place. Since the shots will most likely be taken outdoors, a time of day must be chosen to offer optimal lighting.

Planning

Photo Location Opportunities

While researching the area that the vacation will take place, find locally significant sites that will reflect the beliefs and traditions of the area. These could be historic churches, temples, and parks.

Find sites that the area is famous for. This could be certain theaters, amusement parks, famous restaurants, world record sites, and just about any site that is known outside of the vacation location.

Even after locations are picked, keep your eyes open for other spur of the moment photo opportunities.

Lighting

Keep in mind that most lighting for travel photography is going to be natural.

In general, for rural areas, morning and evening are the best for optimum lighting. The light is not as harsh so it is easier to get portraits without squinty eyes. Sunrise and sunsets also cast an interesting glow over the landscape and the angle of the light will really bring out the textures.

If it is a bit cloudy, lighting may be great all day long. The main thing is to get out there, enjoy yourselves, and capture the moment.

When photographing outdoors, I always recommend using a polarized filter.

Lenses

Most photographers want to incorporate at least some of the landscape in their vacation shots. The best lens to use for this is a wide angle. This lens will allow a person to still be prominent in the shot by being closer to the camera, while still keeping the background scenery perfectly in focus.

A standard lens is fine for general photography throughout the day, but a wide angle lens should be used for shooting a person and landscape in the same scene. The short focal length allows the wide angle lens to keep everything equally in focus.

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