I love to travel. Even though it’s become a much larger pain in the backside than ever before, each trip I make presents innumerable opportunities for photographs. Because I’m in terra incognita, I look at everything with more intensity and curiosity than anything I might see in my own backyard. Over the years I’ve developed a sort of repertoire of techniques that I draw upon, and I’d like to share some of them with you. For photographers, travel is more of an adventure than a vacation. My camera is always with me when I travel because I consider photography such an integral part of my psyche that I just can’t leave it behind. Taking pictures is just too much fun.

When photographing people, watch for the “moment.” Interaction within a group, large or small, indigenous or tourist, will tell the tale much better than a static shot of people looking at your camera. Try to be unobtrusive. Keep the camera to your eye, making exposures as opportunities present themselves. Above all, avoid the urge to “chimp” your images, looking at the LCD after each picture to see what you got. It’s distracting to the subjects, onlookers, and you. Besides, you might miss something.

Isolate your subject. Use a telephoto and a large aperture (200mm and f2.8 in this case) to put emphasis on the subject by making the background out of focus. If the subject is lit, try to position yourself so the background is at least partially in shadow. Doing so will lend additional emphasis to the subject. Photo 2

Pan the camera. Following action and using a slow shutter speed (1/5 second here, but shutter speed should be chosen for the speed of the action) results in a blurred image with some portion recognizably in focus. To pan the camera successfully, find the subject and start panning before tripping the shutter. Note the location of the part of the image you want to remain important and its place in the viewfinder. Keep it there for the duration of the entire pan. It’s also a good idea to pan past the end of the exposure, as you’ll avoid stopping the camera movement too soon.

If you’re working in a basic, automatic camera mode, your built-in flash may pop up. Switch to Tv (Shutter Priority) and set the shutter speed you want. This shot would be just a snapshot if the flash had gone off. 

Wait for the peak of the action. When any object moves back and forth there will be a short time at each end of the arc where some action freezes. Situations like this require a shutter speed fast enough to catch the peak but slow enough to allow faster movement to blur. This hula dancer was photographed under stage light at 1/15 second, f3.5, ISO 400. The Tungsten (Incandescent) white balance preset was also used, along with Continuous Shooting, to increase the chance for a successful image. It’s almost impossible to nail something like this with just one shot.

Watch where you’re going. Whether you’re shooting just to document your trip or to fill your stock files, pay attention to the country you’re driving through and be sure to stop when the scene looks “right” (and it’s safe to do so, of course). As an aside, color is always more saturated after a rain.

Wait for Sweet Light whenever you can, or make sure you’re just out with your camera. At the Magic Hour just before and immediately after sunset colors are warm and rich, and not seen at any other time of the day. First light of dawn is also beautiful, but usually not so intense.

Look down. Great compositions are not always found at eye level. This plant was slightly off the path, but moving the camera closer to it and pointing the lens down in an atypical manner revealed this unusual view.

Isolate details. Much as you would with people, get close to the subject with a longer focal length lens and use an aperture large enough to gently blur the background.

Use local architecture to frame areas of interest. If the exposure had been made for the buildings the resulting overexposure of the landscape would have made a rather ugly picture. The landscape by itself would have been just as dull, given the early morning haze. As it is, the building’s old facades and retrofittings add a sense of interest and antiquity to a very tranquil scene.

Use shadows to your advantage. Since few people like to see people they don’t know in their travel photos (but tourists are everywhere) use building shadows to silhouette your fellow travelers and add visual interest to your shots beyond simple documentation of your location. Also, try to keep your fellow travelers’ backs to you. That makes them even more anonymous.

Anonymous people add interest to patterned compositions. Architecture, and the repetition of detail, presents many opportunities to record line and form and you should certainly take advantage of that whenever possible. Images of this nature, however, are actually improved by the addition of a human being into the shot because the scale of the building becomes apparent as the design becomes humanized. Obviously, it’s not something that can always be controlled, but it certainly should be photographed when it happens.

Use Exposure Compensation to saturate the colors of sunset. Depending on which metering mode you use, you may find it valuable to dial in Exposure Compensation to get even richer colors than may be noted by your eyes.

The first image, shot in Av Mode, did a terrific job of photographing exactly how the sky looked just a few moments before sunset. The second image, made just a few seconds later with a -1 stop Exposure Compensation represents this sunset more as we imagine it. This scene is now transformed into one of those idyllic images we see in our mind’s eyes.

Shoot the icons. In hundreds, if not thousands, of locations around the world there are iconic images that represent the location.

For almost 70 years, the USS Arizona has been leaking a small amount of oil a day since it was sunk at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Arguments have been presented on both sides for stopping it or letting it continue, but the point is that those leaks represent the monument possibly more than the actual monument itself.

Bad weather is your friend. Don’t hunker down in your hotel room, get out there and shoot. This blizzard was a nasty event that lasted the better part of two days, caused me to miss a flight, and basically made my life miserable as far as my actual wedding job was concerned. The bottom line, though, is that it was beautiful in its ferocity.

In between shooting obligations for the actual job, I made several hundred images of this blizzard within just a block or two of my hotel. It was unpleasant, but so what? If the picture’s everything, what’s a little frostbite among friends?

In situations where I’m photographing many items or situations over the course of the day I’ve found it very valuable to also photograph some notes. When I find an item of interest that’s not immediately identifiable I’ll make a note with a black marker in a small notebook that I keep in my gadget bag. The marker makes the note easy to read, even from a catalog thumbnail, and helps tremendously when I need to identify a subject. The best part? It costs nothing to shoot, and the note will stay with the files and any catalog unless you delete it.

You can also take a picture of a menu, napkin, or other identifier to help you keep track of where you where or what you did.

Shoot after sunset but try different presets. Your camera’s sensor is an amazing instrument. Using the Av Mode, the sensor can read and communicate a correct aperture/shutter combination to the processor to produce wonderful images for you, but different Color Balance presets will produce different colors.

You’ll need to use a tripod anyway, so take another minute or two to rack through the choices, just to see what might happen. This first image was made with the Daylight preset, the second with the Incandescent.

Contemporary digital cameras are perfectly capable of metering moonlight as well as sunlight. Should you be lucky enough to see the moon rise behind a nice composition, well, bang away. You may need to do some Exposure Compensation, because the moon will be such a bright spot in the dark heavens, but playing with the camera will be worth the results. Play quickly, though. No celestial object will wait for you.

Always, no matter where you are, keep your eyes open for humorous moments. It doesn’t matter where your sense of humor leads you, your audience will laugh at your ability to see the world the way you do.