These travel photography hacks will level up your travel photos from amateur to professional, no matter if you’re shooting with an iPhone or an expensive camera. These are all tips I wish I would have known when first starting!
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Clean Your Camera Lens
First and foremost, often the best and most neglected travel photography hack is to clean your camera lens. This is true of any lens — DSLR camera, mirrorless, etc. — but it’s especially true with phone camera lenses. One of the biggest mistakes people make before shooting or recording is not wiping the lens prior, resulting in light blurs and dust specks to show up on the footage. Trust me, I’ve forgotten to clean my lens too, but it’s amazing how much more photo clarity a quick wipe can bring.
Straighten Your Horizon Line
Second, another common travel photography mistake that has a ridiculously easy fix is to straighten your horizon line. Professional travel photographers can immediately tell the difference between another professional’s photo versus an amateur’s purely based on whether the horizon is parallel to the top and bottom of the photo. Crooked horizon lines ruin photo visuals, especially when taking landscape shots. So, straightening the horizon line — either by actually straightening your camera when shooting or by skewing the photo crop in editing — makes the world of a difference in travel photography.
Make Your Backgrounds Bigger With Lens Compression
This next travel photography hack is one that is much less obvious, yet I use it on nearly every single trip to make my travel photos more epic: lens compression. Lens compression is a zoom lens phenomenon that makes the background appear bigger in the photo. This travel photography hack is especially useful in the mountains, as it makes the mountains look bigger in the photo — as grand as they look in real life. To do this, you’ll either need a telephoto lens (I recommend 85mm minimum; more zoom equals bigger background) or a phone camera that has decent, clear zoom capabilities (5x or more). Zoom into the shot and physically back up if needed to keep the entire subject in the photo. I have a quick video demonstrating this travel photography hack here!
Frame Your Photo Well
Framing is a photography element of design that can bring your travel photo and photo subject to life. Basically, good framing uses subtle, still objects in the photo to “frame” the subject of the photo. In travel photography, most of my photo framing is done with foliage (leaves, trees, branches, plants, etc.) or intriguing architecture (arches, door frames, etc.). Place the subject of your photo centered inside the “frame” for easy yet beautiful photo composition.
Find A Leading Line
Similarly, leading lines are another element of design that draw the viewers attention to the subject of the photo. In other words, leading lines are “lines” that lead to the subject of the photo. Leading lines are often very easy to incorporate in travel photos if you take the time to look for them. Roads, beach shorelines and hiking trails are just a few examples of easy leading lines to add into your next travel photos. Like framing, place the subject of your photo on the leading line or at the top of the leading line for easy yet beautiful photo composition.
Add Foreground
Remember learning the difference between foreground, mid-ground and background in elementary school art class? Time to put that knowledge to the test! Not only does adding foreground to your travel photos highlight your photo’s subject, like framing and leading lines, but it also adds a lot of valuable depth to your photo. You can easily add foreground to a photo by using foliage, flowers or props (which we’ll talk about later) in the lower portion of your photo. Sometimes, framing can even double as foreground. I recommend keeping the foreground out of focus, though, blurring out the foreground and keeping the true subject in focus. This will give the photo more depth.
Invest In A Prime Lens
Speaking of blur, have you ever wondered how travel photographers get that smooth background blur, also known has bokeh, in their photos? Well, learning manual photography is the best way to effectively add that blur, but, from my experience, manual photography can only get you so far. While manual photography is important, investing in a prime lens with a low F-stop (i.e. a lens that does not zoom) in combination with manual photography will get you the smoothest, most crisp imagery and background blur. I recommend either a 35mm or 50mm prime lens with an F-stop lower than 2.0 for the clearest travel portraits. In fact, my 35mm F/1.4 lens is my most used camera lens among all my gear. I never travel without it. You can read all about my favorite travel camera lenses here. Just remember that, with a prime lens, you will not be able to zoom in.
Use An ND Filter During Midday Light
Now, that being said, in order to manually increase background blur, you need to let more light into the photo. How can you do this in the harsh midday sun without overexposing the shot? The answer: an ND filter. Although shooting during sunrise or sunset will often offer you the best light conditions for epic travel photography, sometimes tight travel itineraries have to include midday shoots. This is when an ND filter (neutral density filter) can be really helpful. Basically, an ND filter acts like a pair of sunglasses for your camera lens. You can adjust the lighting and darken the photo with the ND filter so that you can manually add more light in for more background blur.
Use A CPL Filter To Minimize Light Reflections
Another camera lens filter that most travel photographers travel with is a CPL filter, or circular polarizing filter. Like the ND filter, think of a CPL filter like a pair of polarizing sunglasses. What’s the different between regular sunglasses and polarizing sunglasses? The polarizing lenses minimize light reflections. The same is true for polarizing camera filters. Polarizing filters cut through clear objects like water and windows to minimize the overexposed white light reflections you would otherwise see in the photo. This is exceptionally useful when shooting oceans or lakes on a sunny day. It enables you to fully capture the true color of the water.
Hold Props
Lastly, one of the easiest travel photography hacks to enhance your travel photos is to incorporate relevant props. It’s super easy to incorporate props, and props truly bring photos to life. Some of my favorite props to use in my travel photos include wide-brim hats, drinks, culturally relevant foods, flowers, beach bags, backpacks, hiking poles, etc. Plus, if your subject holds a prop, he or she will be doing something with his or her hands. This eliminates the awkward “what do I do with my hands” feeling entirely. You can get more ideas for easy travel photo poses here.
More Travel Photography Hacks For Beginners
Travel Photography Tips For Beginners (W/ Examples)
25 Easy Poses For Travel Photos (With Examples)
Beach Picture Ideas For Instagram You Need Now
Cheap Travel Camera Gear For Better Photos
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