25 Travel Photo Tips

Have you ever returned from your vacation, started going through your pictures, and wished you could do some of them over? Have you looked at some of them and questioned what you were thinking? Would you like to bring home better pictures from your vacation?

This list of tips is derived from viewing and critiquing tens of thousands of photographs over many years. I have critiqued my own vacation photographs. I am a professional photographer, a moderator in many internet photography groups, and I am the editor at the Travel Photographers Network. Over the years, I have developed a keen eye for what makes a good photograph and what makes a great photograph.

These tips come from a culmination of my experience and are sure to help you compose and take better pictures that will make your vacation memories even more special.

1. Picture Modes: Nearly all point-and-shoot cameras today have different modes - portrait, landscape, action, indoors, etc. Check what mode your camera is set to before you snap that picture. If you want to make a person stand out from the background, use portrait mode to reduce the "depth of field" or range of objects in focus to only things about the same distance from the camera as the subject. Objects further away will become blurry and create a soft canvas against which your subject will stand out. If you want everything in your picture to be in focus from near to far, use the landscape mode in your camera. That will tell the camera to increase the "depth of field" or range of objects in focus.
2. Flash On/Off: It may not make sense at first, but using the flash outdoors can help lighten those dark shadow areas of your scene. If there is bright light behind your subject, it will confuse your camera into thinking the whole scene is bright. The camera will darken everything to compensate. Turn on your flash and it will provide that extra light on your close-in subject to balance out the exposure between the bright background and darker foreground. Also learn to turn your flash off when you want to capture the natural lighting of a scene. Dawn and dusk can provide some brilliant colors to the sky and surroundings and flash can ruin them. If you are indoors and want a picture of a stained glass window, turn off the flash and let the light shine through the window into the camera. This will enhance and capture the true spectacle of the colors in the glass.
3. Steady Camera: Steady yourself by leaning against a lamp post, or using a fence rail, or placing the camera on a table top or seat back. This is especially important when you are taking a picture in low light or when using landscape mode. Both of these situations frequently cause the camera to use a longer exposure time, leaving more opportunity for bluriness due to "camera shake" in the final picture.
4. Clean Background: Look carefully across the entire viewfinder frame before snapping the photo to insure everything you want is in the picture, and anything you don't want isn't. How many pictures are there with poles or trees or bushes coming out of people's heads, or a garbage cans overflowing with rubbish, or another person you didn't see when taking the picture?
5. Straight Lines: Check that things in your picture will be horizontal or vertical as they should be. All to often people return from their vacations and the horizon of an ocean sunset isn't level, or the Eiffel Tower looks more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
6. Picture Orientation: Learn to use both vertical and horizontal orientations for your pictures. It is easy to raise the camera in haste and snap a picture always in horizonal (landscape) orientation, however not all subjects are best captured that way.
7. Subject Placement: Place people off center in pictures to allow room for background objects of interest to stand out while still showing context for the person in the photo. It is easy to fall into a pattern of always putting people right in the center of a picture. It creates symmetry and many people like that. Placing a person to the left or right in a horizontal picture, or near the bottom or top in a vertical picture leaves room to include other elements of interest.
8. Photograph Yourself: Get pictures of yourself. Family photo albums are filled with pictures of everyone but the person who took the picture. Make sure the photographer gets in picture too. Ask another bystanderd to take the picture. Rest the camera on a ledge, tabletop, upside down glass, etc, and use the camera's self-timer.
9. Self-Timer: Read your camera's manual and play with the self-timer. These are great for letting the photographer join the fun. There are also a number of products on the market called "table top tripods" that will let you rest your camera on uneven surfaces. Many also have clamps or bendable legs that let you attach them to stationary objects like fence posts or door frames. These in combination with the self-timer allow the photographer get in the picture.
10. Include Humor: Look for opportunities to take funny pictures. These can be funny scenes, or scenes you make funny through some form of interaction. Classic examples are hands underneath the sun holding it up, fingers appearing to push back against the Leaning Tower of Pisa to keep it from toppling over, etc. Kids are great at creating these pictures and they make for some really unique pictures.
11. Instant Review: Look at your pictures on your camera's screen as soon as you take them. Make sure you captured what you anticipated. It takes seconds to review them and taken another. It takes money and time to go back to a place after you've returned home and realized your picture isn't as you remembered.
12. White Balance: Learn how to use the white balance setting on your camera, and remember to check it before you push the button. Daylight has a different white balance than indoor lighting, and not all indoor lighting is the equal. Most people set their cameras to "Auto" everything. They miss some terrific opportunities. There are different white balance settings for a reason. Learn the difference between Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Florescent and Flash. Once you learn when to use them to correctly capture colors under different lighting conditions, you can purposely set them to other settings to skew the colors in creative ways as well.
13. Black & White: Some scenes lend themselves to black & white. Take that color picture first, then switch your camera to black & white mode and give that a try. You may be surprised at the striking difference and what you notice in the black & white version that doesn't stand out nearly as strong in the color version.
14. Proper Exposure: Digital cameras let you review a great deal of information about your picture on the camera's rear display. One of the most valuable pieces of information is the "histogram". A histogram is a horizontal bar graph illustrating, left to right, the distribution of dark to light tones in your picture. Vertical lines closer to the left represent darker tones. Vertical lines closer to the right represent lighter tones. If the vertical lines run off the left or right edge of the histogram, the picture may be under or over exposed. Review the histogram after taking a picture, and learn to use your camera's exposure compensation feature to adjust as necessary. This insures your don't over or underexposed the picture, and gives you the opportunity to adjust and take it again while you are still there.
15. Subject Focus: Nearly every camera made today shows the photographer what it is focusing on if the shutter button is pressed half way. The display on the rear on the camera (point-and-shoot) or in the viewfinder (SLRs) will place a square box over people's faces, or objects the camera finds in the scene. Use this to insure the camera is focusing on what you want to be sharp in the picture. As a by product, you may find yourself holding the camera more steady and thus your pictures have less "camera shake".
16. Posing People: Every photo album shows people standing on front of some location to illustrate they were there. Don't be afraid to pose differently. Lay down. Sit. Kneel. Lean against something. Stand on your head! For group photos, not everyone has to stand together. Split people into groups that can surround a subject, or have different people position themselves in different places in the scene. Make it fun, unique and memorable.
17. Multiplicity: Another fun thing is to take the same picture several times, but with a person standing in different places in the scene for each picture. Combined them into one picture that shows the person in all the places at once when you get home. There are lots of computer programs that can blend multiple pictures together into a single photo. For even more fun, do this with multple people in the photo and alternate who is taking the picture so that everyone shows up multiple places in the combined picture.
18. Stitching Panoramics: Some scenes simply cannot be captured in a single photograph because they are too wide or too tall. Take several pictures, making sure each overlaps part of the others. You can "stitch" these pictures together on the computer when you get home and create fantastic panoramic pictures of a coast line, cityscape, waterfall, tower, etc.
19. Culture: Look for things that represent the culture of the place you are visiting. These can be people such as street vendors or restaurant owners or people you meet along the way. They can be architectural elements such as churches, interesting houses, gardens, statues, government structures, museums, or even interesting streetscapes. They can be signs, pieces of art, events, etc. And don't forget to capture the "color" of a place. Some culture feature strong colors in their dress, their buildings, their religious symbols, etc. All of these things provide a sense of place and add flavor to your experience and your memories. Write down the names of people you meet so you can tag them in your pictures later.
20. Observe: Look around you when you take a picture. There may be a picture right behind you that is just as interesting as the one you are taking. Also look for the details in addition to the "big picture". Buildings and people's home often have architectural details or personal flair that provide their own personality and create an entirely separate picture that is interesting in its own right.
21. Vantage: Not all photos have to be taken from ground or eye level. Consider getting to a higher or lower vantage point. An interesting perspective from a different point of view can turn an otherwise mundane photograph into something more interesting. Get down on the ground and point your camera up. Walk up the stairs to get a higher viewpoint. When touring the inside of a building, point your camera outside and use a window or door opening to frame your subject.
22. Lines: Look for lines that can lead your eyes through a picture. A long hallway, street or highway, alley, railing, train tracks or other similar element can draw the viewer through the picture from near to far. And it doesn't have start or end in the center. A picture can be more interesting when the leading lines cut diagonally across the picture from the lower corner on one side to the upper corner on the opposite side of the picture. They can even cut straight through along the left or right edge of the picture. Curved lines also add interest.
23. Texture: Look for things that exhibit texture. Texture can come in larger form like a cobble stone street or bricks that make up a wall, or in smaller form like rust on an iron railing or lamp post.
24. Patterns: Look for repeated or interesting patterns. They can be man made like the rivets on an iron bridge, or naturally occuring like waves or layers in rock.
25. Scale: When photographing something really large or really small, look for ways to convey a sense of scale. This can be accomplished by placing a person or some other well known object in the picture that helps illustrate a relative difference in size to the main subject of the photograph. The Grand Canyon is all the more grand when a person is placed on the opposite side of the picture as the canyon itself. Even putting a finger next to something small will convey just how tiny it is.

Travel photography should be fun, memorable, and unique to your own experience and personality. Don't be afraid to let yourself shine through in the pictures you capture.