Travel Photography Tips!

Introduction to travel photography and my top tips:

Planning is Everything: Whether you’re photographing for personal enjoyment, adding photographs to your portfolio, or wanting to market your images, planning ahead is very important. 

Research: Google is your friend and is a great resource for finding inspiration, researching locations and knowing their historical facts. Finding out opening times and even temporary closures for national monuments and/or places of interest is always a good idea.

Photography Restrictions: Some countries have different laws regarding what you can, and can not,  photograph. In Greece, I’m hearing that people are being asked not to photograph archaeological sites which is not necessarily legal or correct. Certainly, we are not permitted to photograph military establishments or even police emergency services. So it would be in one’s best interest to do a little research regarding potential restrictions of the location you want to visit.

Weather: The one phenomenon that we cannot guarantee is the weather. Obviously we need some form of decent weather to get the best images. My advice is to research two different weather forecasts online. By doing this you can make your own judgement from what each site says, but in the end it’s always a gamble.

Time of Day: So we know that there are two preferred times of our day to get the best shots. We know the morning provides an amazing soft, fresh light and that late afternoon/early evening provides those warmer, long shadows of light. I suggest photographing the same location TWICE. By doing this you will surely notice a big difference between your morning images and your evening ones. Unfortunately, having an expendable amount of time to do this isn’t always possible and may have to be done on separate occasions. Lest we forget night-time photography which proposes its own unique challenges: what subjects are you photographing, how much light do you have to work with (if any), will you be able to photograph with an additional flash. These are just a few examples out of many that come to my mind.

Equipment: An ongoing challenge for me is always the weight of my equipment that I carry. Previously I have found that having heavy equipment with me: photography bag, a variety of lenses, a tripod perhaps and  my filters have always weighed me down. To be honest, it’s quite uncomfortable and annoying when I’m  travelling around and on the move. For the past few years I’ve always bought good equipment, good equipment with its weight always in mind. I’ve found that light, carbon fibre tripods, a very light photography bag and a limited amount of lenses does the trick. I really believe that the more comfortable you feel the better the photographs will be.