Are you interested in working on your travel photography but don’t know where to begin? In this blog post, I’ll outline a couple of super simple steps to help you start practicing your travel photography.
It’s surprisingly a lot easier than you may think to practice your travel photography.
Whether you want to document your personal travels like we discuss in this blog or become a professional travel photographer, we all begin this journey the same. And that is usually by practicing our photography first. If you want to document your trips to faraway places and dream locations, you first have to gain the necessary photography skills and learn how to use your camera.
To take good pictures, you need to practice taking pictures, and to take better travel pictures, you need to practice taking travel pictures – which you can technically do without traveling very far.
In this post, we’ll discuss simple steps to help you start practicing your travel photography.
Start with what you have:
Often the first thing that might be holding you back from getting started is not having the right gear. Don’t delay taking pictures because you don’t have a fancy camera.
You can use an old camera you have lying around or even your phone camera. I started documenting my personal travels with my iPhone and sometimes still do because it’s easy and a lot of times very convenient.
There are even photographers on Instagram with huge followings who only shoot on their phones. So don’t delay practicing because you don’t have the right gear.
Get out and start with what you have.
After several years of shooting my travel photography with my iPhone, I was able to upgrade to a camera in 2019. I currently still use that Sony a6600 for travel photography. It’s a great small mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses but it’s not the smallest once you start adding lenses. The Sony RX100 VII is a great pocket camera alternative too if you’re looking for something simpler.
When purchasing a new camera, do your research to make sure it aligns with your needs. You likely will not need the most expensive camera out there to get started.
Start where you are:
Another big roadblock for those of us who want to work on our travel photography is not being able to travel to “pretty destinations” to take pictures.
Instead of wasting time daydreaming about working on your travel photography, get out and shoot where you are. I am almost positive that most travel photographers started this way. By documenting places near them.
You can get creative and shoot in the town you live in to begin. Don’t let yourself make up excuses that your town is boring, find a way to present it in a fun way instead.
I have traveled to a lot of surprisingly boring places and I have tried to seek ways to make it look exciting in my photographs. Making boring places look magical is a good skill to practice.
So act like a tourist in your town. Get out and shoot as if you were documenting your travels in a new town. Don’t let where you are be an excuse stopping you from practicing travel photography.
Travel to nearby places:
After you’ve mastered your local area, if you’re able, take a day or weekend trip to a nearby place.
When I wanted to work on my travel photography while I was working full-time in Monterey, I took advantage of my weekends. I’d often take solo day trips to nearby places like Carmel, Santa Cruz, or Big Sur and practice taking pictures! All of which were within less than an hour of where I lived.
If you want to take amazing pictures while traveling to once-in-a-lifetime destinations, you can seriously benefit from practicing taking pictures in nearby places. It will be nearly the same as when you travel to those dream locations.
When I first started doing this, I had to put in a lot of effort to make it happen and often felt frustrated that my personal travel images weren’t as great as I wanted them to be. But to get better, you have to practice. And there’s something freeing about taking action on your goals. Moving from daydreaming to action-taking was huge for my travel photography, even if it wasn’t glamorous at first.
After you’ve mastered your local area, plan a trip:
Once you feel confident with your camera skills and ready to begin documenting new places, plan a trip further away and try documenting your time there. It doesn’t have to be to another country or bucket list location, it can just be somewhere new and exciting for you!
Keep learning
Once you get over the hurdles of getting started with what you have and where you are, you’ll be able to learn how to use your camera and take pictures while traveling. And when you start learning how to use your camera, you might discover that you have a lot to learn about setting up and taking good pictures.
And it’s exciting to be at this point. If you realize there are things you do not know or understand, head to Google or YouTube, and you’ll likely find the answer to what you’re seeking there. No matter how good you get at documenting your travels, always keep learning!
Closing Remarks
As you can see, practicing your travel photography can be quite simple.
If you want to take good pictures on your travels, start with what you have and where you are. Pretend you’re a tourist in your local area and document your town. Once you feel like you’ve documented your local area well enough, branch out and make short day trips to cities or places nearby. After that, plan a trip of your own and document your travels. Along this journey, never stop learning!
If you love travel and photography, let’s be friends on Instagram!
