How to take breathtaking photos on a trip? (regardless of your skill or tech)

These are some of the tips I use, wherever I go, so, enjoy.

In this day and age, digital photography became the best and the most lasting way of capturing memories and storing them for good. Almost everybody owns a camera, if not a digital camera, than merely by owning a smartphone, and those only get better as time goes by.

Usually what we want to remember the most are our travels, the new and amazing places that we have visited. Most of the time we visit those places once in a lifetime, except if it’s some traditional family voyage that we engage in on a yearly basis.

Since not all of us are professional photographers, or even remotely talented for taking any kind of photos even when our travel mementos depend on it, here are some tips how to take great photos, despite not being naturally gifted.

1. Focus on a subject

Mostly, your subjects will be either people, places or things. Or all three of those. The point is to try to incorporate the place you’re visiting, details around it with your favorite people in a photo. Favorite people being your partner, children or your travel companions. Either way you’ll get more than a decent photo.

2. Capture details

Sometimes when you’re focus is on a particular subject, when you’re shooting from far away the photos tends to turn out sloppy, or down right bad. In those moments, the best you can do is to get closer to the subject of interest.

One of the most effective ways is to zoom in on your subject, if the zoom is powerful enough, or to simply walk closer to your subject. This is a more advisable tactic, because no matter how close the zoom lens makes things appear, human eye can still detect the distance, so it’s better to try and capture the image up close.

3. Consider the eye of the camera

What we tend to forget (more often than not), and almost always end up disappointed, is that our eyes are immensely more sensitive, and perfect, in comparison with the strongest camera out there.

It is more adaptable and what we are able to perceive standing in front of us, usually is not what our camera is able to reproduce. Take that into consideration and carefully plan what to shoot, so you can save time on shots doomed in advance.

4. Mind the light

Lighting is everything. Literally. Photography is actually nothing more than a painting made with light. Whether you want to take best possible photos of your human subjects, or just some natural sight in it’s best, knowing where the sun is the perfect guide which you can never go wrong with.

5. Choose the time of the day

This is a fairly simple advice for all photography amateurs out there. There is no time like sunrise or sunset to take compelling and interesting travel photos, since the light is soft enough not to hurt the details you potentially want captured.

6. Change the perspective

Sometimes all you need is to change your outlook on things. Great example are the photos taken from up above. Of course, it’s highly doubtful that any of you will take a drone or an aerostat blimp with you on a trip, but nevertheless, you can always climb on a hill, cliff or any kind of elevation (depending where you are), gaze up or down and just snap away.

7. Divide the composition into threes

The common rule is that when you put something in the middle of a photograph, that something is the main subject of the image. But then again, it is a routine shot.

That’s why, when you want to draw an interest towards something that is placed off-center in the frame, you divide the frame into three section, while placing the subject either entirely within left or right section, or on the line of dividing of the two sections.

8. Emphasize the human subjects

This is important because, in case we are not traveling by ourselves, our traveling companions are responsible for the vast majority of our travel memories.

Most of the time we get easily distracted by the scenery or a specific sight that we want to capture rather than people in the frame, which is why it’s always better to frame your friends first, and then worry about the background.

9. Move around

Whether is just for the sake of reframing, a slight movement can be enough for you to change your view of a particular matter, or catch something interesting that wasn’t there before. You can move a few steps forwards or backwards, crouching down or shifting, in any case you are bound to make a more interesting shot than by just standing put.

10. Take control

Almost always when you are the one shooting other people, they want to interfere and try to set up the shot themselves, half the time not being aware of what thery’re doing.

They want a certain arrangement that might look good in their mind’s eye, but not from the photographer’s perspective, which is why it’s necessary to take a stand and direct your own shot in the way you see it fit.

That is the only way you’ll get remotely decent photos, and your subjects will be grateful too.

No matter what kind of equipment you use, this collection of low and no-tech tips will surely improve your skills when it comes to capturing memories during your trips.