It’s that time of year, the bags are packed and you are about to head off on your holidays. Your excited to head off an explore a new location, but you have one nagging thought at the back of your head.
How to take good photos on holidays?
Whether you are a beginner, competent amateur or professional photographer, we all have the same desire to be able to capture that memorable photo. However the key to taking a good photo isn’t having the latest and greatest equipment, it doesn’t matter if you are latest high end DSLR or a simple point n shoot camera.
What matters is how you compose your photo’s. Yes there are things you can do with that high end DSLR which you can’t do with a point n shoot camera, but that won’t stop you from taking a good photo.
Want to know how to take good photos on holidays? Here are 10 tips to help…
10 Tips to help you take good photos on holidays!
1) Get Up Early
For the best natural light to take photos occurs twice a day, at sunrise and sunset. The big advantage of getting up early is that most people on holidays tend to sleep in and miss the beautiful colours which accompany the start of the day.
2) Shoot First, Ask Questions Later
You want to shoot moments, not poses. If you ask for permission first, you will find your subject will then pose for the photo and often it will not look realistic. Shoot first, and then ask if its okay. Show them the photo you have taken (if you have a camera with a preview screen). Worse case is that they say no and you delete the photo. More often than not your subject will give you the okay.
Don’t forget the faces. It is so easy to do, we see an interesting subject and snap away. Forgetting about where their face is. Yes we are trying to get photos which are not posed, but you still want to capture the subjects face so that it tells a story. Now this doesn’t mean that they are looking at the camera, just that its an important part of the composition to keep in mind.
JJ, Chinese Gardens, Sydney, Australia
3) Get down to eye level with the kids
Children and animals, all too often you see photos taken from the photographers natural stance, looking down on them. Take the time, crouch down, or even lie down, by getting down to the level of your subject, child or animal, you will get a much better photograph. By having the camera at their eye level, you will capture so much more of their facial expressions.
4) Look for Reflections
It is so easy to get focused on our subject, that we miss interesting and different ways to capture them. Keep an eye out for possible reflections, be it water, a window or even a mirror. By focusing on the reflection and not directly at the subject you can create some amazing looking, but different photos.
5) Compose Creatively and Move in Close
Look for different ways you can compose your photo. Shoot with the subject off centre, but have it so that the background detail draws your eye back to your subject. Turn the camera on a 45 degree angle, so that the horizon is not horizontal. Try different compositions, this is the beauty of digital cameras, you can take the snap, look at it, if it worked keep it, otherwise delete it.
Another great composition tip is to move in close, instead of trying to capture the whole scene, get in close (either physically or with a zoom) and just focus on a small part of the bigger subject. This is particularly true for buildings, often the interesting detail will only be seen if you get in close.
Street Food, Macau, Macau
6) Be ready to take advantage of Opportunities
When you are on holidays you need to be ready to act. You may only have a moment to capture something amazing and if you have to dig your camera out of your bag, the moment may be gone before you have the camera up. It may be the way your children react to a new sight, a squirrel running up a tree or seagull at the beach. Whatever the opportunity you just need to be ready to act and take advantage of it.
7) Include People In Your Photos
The difference between a photo and a good photo is often adding some people. Get you wife, husband or children into the shot, it will help you frame the subject and often will make it more interesting.
Finger painting, Chen Clan Academy, Guangzhou, China
8) Use Flash Outdoors
Yeah, this sounds counter-intuitive. Flashes are for indoors not outdoors. Bear with me; the flash can be a big help when shooting outdoors. The reason is that the flash will fill in some of the shadows and even out the contrast so it’s not so harsh. This may make the difference between a ho-hum shot and something eye-grabbing. You will have to make sure you are close enough to the subject for the flash to have an effect. Play around with this, you will be surprised with your results.
9) Plan Ahead: Charge Batteries and Clear Cards
I know what you are thinking, that this is a no-brainer. However it is an easy one to overlook, when you are on holidays it is important that you get into a routine of charging the batteries each night and clearing the memory cards ready for the next day. There is nothing worse when you are half way through a tour and your battery is running low or you a madly going through the photos on your camera and deleting shots you don’t want so that you can take more.
It often pays to have a spare battery and extra memory cards with you, particularly if you are going to be out and about all day.
Tower Bridge, London, England
10) Give Everyone a Camera
This is one of my favourites. Instead of having just one person with a camera, give everyone in the family a camera. You will be surprised with the results. Everyone will have a different perspective and this will result in slightly different pictures even if you are all taking a photo of the same subject.
These are just some of the things I think about when when I am out and about taking photos while on holidays.
I would love to hear how you go using these tips, let me know in the comments below how your photos turned out. Do you have a tip you would like to share, leave them below in the comments as well.
Thank you so much for your tips. I am going a 3 day white water river rafting expedition in a couple of weeks in the Colorado mountains. This is the trip of a lifetime and I keep thinking about how i want to capture as much of the memories that I can. I plan to put a few of your tips into action.
Take Care,
Heather
Heather,
That sounds amazing, the beauty of the Colorado Mountains, some many opportunities to capture something memorable for yourself.
When you get back from the trip, leave us another comment with how the trip went and how good your photos look 🙂
Brendan
Thank you so much for emphasizing that one does not need to have the latest model of camera or the most expensive. Most of the people nowadays feel like they are excellent photographers already just beasue a DSLR camera has been hanging around their necks or glued in their hands. I think that is just pure vanity.
I love the tips that you have shared and I would like to try these out on my vacation, which I believe may be soon enough.
Thanks!
Chanan,
I understand where you are coming from, way too many people get a DSLR as a status symbol not because of what it can do. Don’t get me wrong there a things you can do with a DSLR which you cannot with a compact camera, but most of us don’t need or wouldn’t use those features.
I hope you have a wonderful vacation, and please come back and let us know how the photography went.
Brendan
Hey there! I just recently bought a dslr camera and I’m not good at taking good photos. But I want to learn taking good photos and do it as a hobby. After I read your article this is a pretty nice guide also a good tips to take good photos. Thank you for sharing this information and I will try my best to follow these guides.
John,
I can only offer one piece of advice, get out there and take photos. The best way to learn how to use a new camera is to try out all the functions. Find a nice subject and spend an hour photographing it, changing the settings between each photo and see what the difference is.
Enjoy
Brendan
When I’m on holidays, I like to get up early to take photos as you can get some great shots at sunrise, I don’t take photos of people so much because I like to get photos of scenery and landscapes.
It’s interesting that my wife can take photos of the same things I do and come up with better ones than I have because she has taken it from a different angle to me.
I do like your point of moving in close as I have been guilty of getting taking what is potentially a really great photo and only to spoil it because I was too far away and should have moved in much closer.
I put this down to experience and I like to think I’m getting better at it, thanks for your tips here; it’s been a good post to read.
Adrian,
I also like to get up early and get some shots around sunrise. The colours, well you don’t get anything like it during the rest of the day (I personally don’t think sunsets are as nice, but that could just be me).
Always think about where you are taking your photo from, what angle, how far away, should I get lower, or higher. The nice thing about using a digital camera, is that it doesn’t cost anything to take another couple of photo’s. (Just remember to pack enough memory cards)
Good luck with your photography
Brendan
What great practical tips! Helps you to move from taking indifferent photos, to good photos – wish I had seen this before I went on my adventure!
Susan,
Thank you for dropping by and leaving a comment. Glad you enjoyed the article and found it helpful.
Don’t worry, you will be armed with this knowledge now for your next adventure.
Brendan
I find taking pictures of people a bit challenging. Many locals don’t feel comfortable and it feels intrusive for me shoot their daily activities without asking for their permission first. But even if you ask them, some may say no.
How do you go about taking pictures of people without offending them? It would be great to know.
Hi Cathy, thanks for dropping by and joining the conversation.
This is always an area which takes some getting used to. One approach is to get into a conversation with the locals, more often than not once you have chatted for a while most people will let you take some photo’s. The problem is, if you are travelling in a foreign country you may not speak the same language. The other issue is that these photo’s may become staged.
The other option is to just take photo’s as unobtrusive as possible. This has the advantage that the photo’s don’t look staged. The downside is that some people don’t like people taking their photo unasked. A strategy to use here is to go up to them after you take the photo and show it to them. If they don’t like it, delete the photo in front of them.
I find that a combination of the two approaches usually works for me. At the end of the day you just need to be approachable with the locals and respect their decision. Good luck and happy snapping.