Take Better Travel Photos
practical suggestions that may help you
The Chinese Mexican standoff… a 21st century phenomenon… Research published earlier this year has suggested that there are an estimated 3.5 billion cameras currently in use across the globe. The reality of this mind blowing statistic will be all too familiar to those of you that travel and take photographs, inevitably meaning that in the prettier and more interesting parts of our planet, if you decide to point your camera at something you will more than likely be sharing your vision with at least one other digital sensor.
So what makes one person’s travel photos better than another’s?.. and how can you improve the quality of your own? Well, over my years of travelling it has become increasingly apparent to me that the truth about learning to shoot great images really only comes down to two things:
Life experience and camera experience.
Life experience is a very personal journey that every photographer essentially takes alone. The way to learn from the life experience of other photographers is to study their photographs and use them as inspiration for your own journey but as far as I’m concerned I can’t tell you how to let your life experience unfold. Only you can allow that process to happen.
Camera experience on the other hand is something that is a little easier to communicate. Camera experience represents the interface between your life experience and your photographs and is something that appears to evolve in a remarkably similar way across the careers of most photographers. As such, it is certainly something that I may be able to offer some of you some interesting insights into.
The internet is awash with tips on improving your photography which appear to ignore the simple fact that photography is an intuitive art form which owes everything to our innate human ability to understand what it is that we all find beautiful or interesting rather than to any set of cerebral laws that we could ever sit down and learn, so I’m not planning on making this an article about the rule of thirds or the ‘decisive moment’ or any of that stuff that I predict will blossom naturally in anyone who wholeheartedly practices this craft.
Instead, here I have summarized five simple practical choices that I made in my photography career over the years that definitely helped me to improve the quality of my images. If any of them strike a chord with you then give them a go… they worked for me.
. . .
1. When shooting people, stop using your long lens so much
After many years of perusing the portfolios of aspiring photographers, I can safely say that the single most common factor I see leading disillusioned travel photographers to accumulate huge collections of mediocre travel images is an unhealthy dependence upon using long lenses for shooting pictures of people. I hate to say it folks, but for most people the inconvenient truth about this addiction is the fact that it is born out of one thing and one thing only… fear.
I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that the English language has evolved the use of the verb ‘take‘ to describe the process of taking a picture. For me, this etymological hint serves as a reminder to us that when we photograph someone, maybe we shouldn’t overlook the fact that we are in fact taking something from them and that in just about every other aspects of our lives, when we take something from someone we normally ask first and say thank you afterwards.
Why should it be any different in photography? Asking and thanking involves connecting with people and long lenses make that a very easy thing to avoid. They tend to put a large distance, both physically and emotionally between you and the people you are photographing which does a fine job of insulating you from any potential intimate interaction.
I’ve seen it many times before. This lack of intimacy will show in your images.
Losing your big gun will mean that you will have to start connecting with your subjects again. I know all too well how nerve racking that process can be. Believe me when I say that even after all these years, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I have to approach a stranger in order to photograph them. That’s a fact of life for me but as far as I’m concerned a healthy and invigorating life involves addressing a lot of uncomfortable feelings like these, so if you recognize an aspect of yourself in what I’m saying then you will have to feel the fear and do it anyway if you want the power of intimacy to resonate within your images.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a place in this world for long lenses… I use a 200mm f2.8 and 400mm f5.6 but I would say that when I’m shooting people, I generally tend to use them in order to condense the background contents of my frame, often when I am photographing somebody in their environment. However, using a long lens to pick off people in a crowd like a sniper shooting his victims is certainly something that I don’t condone if you want to make your images stand out from the rest of the drones of travel photographers who are regularly shooting unexceptional head shots and portraiture on their long lenses.
Using a long lens to condense the background contents of an image (400mm)“What about the fact that when you use a long lens you get more candid shots of people because they don’t know you’re taking their picture?”
Candid?.. Yes, possibly.. Dull? .. most definitely. I’ve often heard this argument used to justify hiding behind a camera, fostering laziness and producing bland, unengaging pictures IMO. Why not try and get a candid shot with a short lens?… now that’s a real skill.
Try this technique next time you decide to approach someone to take his or her picture. Instead of snapping them and bolting, try asking them if they wouldn’t mind if you accompanied them for a little while whilst you take some photos. If they say no, then thank them and move on. However, if they agree then in my experience before not too long they will have forgotten you are there, and your resulting images will have a far more intimate feel to them. This technique works particularly well when you are visiting people in their homes. Just make sure you can give the situation your full time and attention, which also means forgetting about your cameras . The quality of your images will be a direct reflection of the degree to which you engaged with both your subject and their environment… and in my experience, the biggest part of that is usually what happens when your cameras are packed away in their bag.
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2. Start using fast, prime lenses
Not a lot of people realise this, but a fixed 50mm f1.8 lens is probably the cheapest lens you can buy for your DSLR. Sadly, the first thing that many aspiring photographers do after they’ve spent a small fortune on a state-of-the-art digital camera is to go out and spend an equally exorbitant amount of money buying a zoom lens that, whilst it may well have the ‘latest’ auto focus and auto exposure technology, is very often stuck with an aperture that will only open as far as f3.5.
For me, some of the greatest photography happens in the places where light is delicate and soft. (See tip no. 4). These are the places in which prime lenses really come into their element. Rooms lit by fire light, dark corridors, very early mornings and late dusk… to get sharp punchy pictures in these kind of environments you will need a lens with an aperture that opens to at least f2.
I sometimes hear people say that you can compensate for a small aperture with ISO. This is a grave mistake in my opinion. If you believe this then you will be missing out on the incredible benefits of using fast fixed lenses. Even your expensive f2.8 zoom lens will struggle in a room lit by candlelight, but pop a relatively cheap 50mm f1.4 on to your body and the room will literally come alive with potential images.
When people sing the praises of prime lenses they tend to focus on the image phenomena that these lenses produce, in particular bokeh and the really shallow depth of field that fast primes can give you. Whilst I appreciate that these are great selling points for these lenses, what actually excites me more about using primes is the way that they can literally shift your whole attitude to image making by opening you up to new possibilities. Allowing you to venture into very low light situations is one obvious opportunity but many of the ways that primes can influence your photography tend to be a little more esoteric in my experience. Somehow, their visual clarity and simplicity will influence the way you choose to use them and that can have quite a profound effect on the kind of pictures you produce. Primes also compel you to zoom with your feet rather than the barrel of your lens offering you more dynamic perspectives on a situation and they do a great job of inspiring a more minimalist, uncomplicated view of photography that will definitely be reflected in your imagery.
Sometimes, I feel that zoom lenses encourage people to be a jack-of-all-trades whilst a beautiful fixed prime lens may gently tempt you to become a master of one. In my experience, once you’ve started using primes, it’s hard to go back.
85mm – f1.2 – 1/8000 sec – ISO 50Over the years I’ve owned just about every lens there is, but I can honestly say there’s still nothing quite like the feeling of going out into a vast crowd of people at dusk with just a 50mm f1.2 and a smile. This is photography at its most Zen in my opinion.
If you’ve never owned a prime before, start by going out and buying yourself a second hand 50mm f1.8… it may just change your life.
3. Stop using auto exposure
In my experience, as your photography skills improve, you will naturally begin to reject the automatic functions on your camera. (excluding autofocus, which I class differently) The first one to go will no doubt be auto exposure. Cameras aren’t too bad at predicting exposure when you are shooting in ‘flat’ light, but other than that they are terribly naive when it comes to predicting what you want. Luckily for you, digital SLRs allow you to review an image instantly, so these days there is no excuse for messing up your exposure.
Once you start taking your photography seriously, controlling every aspect of your exposure will become imperative, especially if you follow my advice in tips no.2 and 4 and start shooting in low light situations.
I’ve been using roughly the same simple technique for manually exposing for many years now: Whilst making sure that I am always acutely aware of changes in light intensity, upon entering any situation the first thing I do is meter for the highlights in that place. This means making a correct exposure for the brightest part of the situation that I anticipate to include in my frame. Then I know that I can shoot away to my hearts content until I reframe or notice the light change, at which point I will adjust the aperture (or shutter speed) appropriately using the respective dials on my camera.
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