Travel Photography 101 (and 102): How to Tell Better Stories with Your Camera

Travel photography is one of those wonderfully broad, beautifully versatile categories of photography. It can include street scenes, people, markets, food, vehicles, architecture, landscapes, wildlife encounters, and those in-between moments that can quickly become the most meaningful memories from a trip.

And that’s really the idea here and why I love "travel photography" so much. Travel photography is less about checking off expected shots and more about portraying the journey and, of course, making beautiful memories

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It’s the tuk-tuk ride through a chaotic city street. The quiet coffee before sunrise at a jungle lodge. The safari vehicle glowing in golden light. The winding trail with your fellow travelers ahead of you. The steam rising from a street vendor or food stall. And on and on...

Good travel photography helps you remember not just what something looked like, but what it felt like to be there. And good storytelling centers on feelinggs and sensations. Portray those for maximum effect.

Here are some of my favorite ways to level up your travel photography, whether you’re traveling across the world or just photographing a weekend adventure closer to home.

This article is based on my full podcast episode, Travel Photography 101, on The Wild Photographer podcast. If you’d like to hear the deeper dive, examples, and full discussion, you can listen to the episode here.

1. Make travel photography intentional

The first and perhaps most important point is travel photography should not be an afterthought.

When I’m on safari, in the rainforest, or guiding in polar bear country, it’s easy to prioritize wildlife and landscapes first. And frankly, I often do. But if you want strong travel photos, you have to give them real attention such that they break into that top tier of intentionality.

That means sometimes stepping back from the obvious shot.

Do you need another tight portrait of a lion? Maybe. But you also might want the shot that shows the safari vehicle, the guide, the guests, the dust, the binoculars, the anticipation, and then the lion in the distance. That’s the photo that tells the full story.

Travel photography often lives in the wider frame. It gives context. It shows how you experienced the place, not just what you saw.

2. Use lenses that give your photos a little extra character

You can absolutely take excellent travel photos with a simple walkaround lens like a 24–70mm or 24–105mm. In fact, those are great options because they’re flexible and practical.

But if you want to add a little extra visual magic, consider bringing a lens that gives you a more distinct look.

A 50mm prime, often called a “nifty fifty,” is one of my favorite travel lenses. It’s small, affordable, sharp, and often has a very wide aperture like f/1.8 or f/1.4. That gives you beautiful background blur and a lovely sense of intimacy for portraits, food, markets, and street scenes. (I also have an episode all about this very special lens)

A 16–35mm wide-angle lens is fantastic for tight spaces...narrow alleys, vehicles, boats, markets, temples, boardwalks, and interiors. It lets you exaggerate perspective and create a feeling of being right in the middle of the scene.

And then there’s the surprisingly useful 70–200mm f/2.8. While many people think of this as a wildlife or portrait lens, it can be incredible for travel. It lets you photograph candid moments from farther away, compress backgrounds, isolate details, and create that beautiful separation between subject and scene.

The lens you choose affects not just what fits in the frame, but how the whole experience feels.

3. Stop shooting everything from eye level

One of the fastest ways to improve your travel photography is to change your angle.

Most people photograph the world from standing height, because that’s where our eyes happen to be. But your camera doesn’t have to see the world the same way your eyes do.

Get low. Shoot from the ground. Hold the camera above your head. Tilt it. Photograph straight down. Look for railings, trails, trees, doorways, shadows, and leading lines that can guide the viewer into the scene.

A simple market display photographed from eye level might look like a snapshot. But photographed from directly above, it becomes pattern, color, texture, and design.

A hiking trail photographed from standing height might be fine. But hold the camera above your head and shoot down the line of hikers, and suddenly you have the trail, the terrain, the people, the landscape, and the feeling of movement all in one frame.

This is especially easy with cameras that have swivel LCD screens, and it’s even easier with smartphones. The point is simple...don’t settle for the first angle you see. Work the scene a little.

4. Train yourself to see interesting light

Travel photography often becomes magical when the light is doing something unusual.

I’m always looking for gradients of light — places where brightness fades into shadow. Think of an alleyway where sunlight just barely spills across one vendor. Or a market stall lit by a single warm bulb. Or neon light bouncing off wet pavement. Or a red wall casting a warm glow into a narrow street.

Light is not just “on” or “off.” It reflects, bounces, fades, softens, and changes color.

And speaking of color, white balance matters. If your camera is always on auto white balance, it may try to neutralize the very color that made the scene interesting in the first place. Warm sunset light, cool Arctic light, neon street light, or the glow of a night market can all be muted if the camera tries too hard to make everything “normal.”

Try experimenting with auto, cloudy, and daylight white balance. Cloudy will often warm the scene, bringing out yellows, reds, and oranges. Daylight can preserve a cooler blue tone (a prime example of when I want to emphasize the blues above), which works beautifully in polar regions, beach scenes or shadowy environments.

Yes, you can change white balance later if you shoot RAW. But setting it in-camera can help you commit creatively to the feeling of the scene while you’re actually there.

5. Use the best times of day — but don’t ignore the rest

Golden hour is famous for a reason. The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset often give you soft, low-angle, warm light that makes almost everything look better.

But the length of golden hour changes depending on where you are. Near the equator, it may be more like a golden 15 or 30 minutes. Near the poles, especially close to the solstices, that gorgeous low-angle light can stretch for hours.

Blue hour — the time just before sunrise or just after sunset — is another fantastic window, especially for static scenes like lodges, vehicles, signs, boats, camps, or street scenes.

(Check out my video tutorial on how to photograph the blue hour here)

The tradeoff is that you’ll likely need a tripod or some very steady technique because shutter speeds get slow quickly.

And midday? Don’t give up. Harsh light can actually be wonderful for black-and-white photography, high-contrast scenes, silhouettes, and dramatic shadows. If the light feels too intense, look for shaded alleys, covered markets, forest paths, or spaces where reflected light is bouncing around in interesting ways.

There is almost always a photo to be made. You just have to adapt to the light you’re given.

6. Experiment with overexposure and underexposure

Travel photography is a great place to get creative with exposure.

A perfectly “correct” exposure is not always the most interesting one. Sometimes underexposing a scene makes it moodier, more mysterious, and more dramatic. Sometimes overexposing gives it a bright, airy, magazine-like feel.

One fun way to explore this is by using spot metering. Instead of having the camera evaluate the whole frame, spot metering tells the camera to meter from a very small area, usually at the center. If you meter (holding the shutter halfway for most cameras) from a shadow, the scene may become bright and high-key. If you meter from a sunlit branch or wall, the scene may become dark and dramatic.

It’s a quick way to inject creativity into markets, streets, vehicles, boardwalks, camps, and other travel scenes.

Remember: you are the artist. The camera’s meter is a suggestion, not a commandment handed down from the photography gods.

7. Use aperture with purpose

With travel photography, I often live at the extremes of aperture.

If I want a dreamy, cinematic slice of focus, I’ll shoot wide open at f/2.8, f/1.8, or even f/1.4. This works beautifully for portraits, food, flowers, market details, and any situation where I want one subject to pop out from a soft background.

If I want everything sharp — a full market display, a textured wall, a street scene, or people and wildlife in the same frame — I’ll go to f/8, f/11, or even smaller if light allows.

The trick is to pair aperture with your angle. If you want a thin slice of focus, shoot down the line of your subject. For example, photograph a row of fruit from an angle so only one part is sharp and the rest fades away.

If you want everything sharp, square up to your subject (I was very deliberate in the above "leaves" photo. Photograph straight down on a display of peppers, textiles, flowers, or shells so everything sits on the same plane of focus.

Aperture is not just a technical setting. It’s a storytelling tool.

8. Use shutter speed to show motion

When travel scenes have movement, you have two choices: freeze it or embrace it.

If you want people, vehicles, or general activity sharp, a shutter speed of at least 1/200 or 1/320 of a second is usually a safe starting point. But when the motion itself is the story, slow things down.

Try 1/30, 1/15, or even 1/10 of a second for moving vehicles, passing cyclists, running kids, chopping hands in a market, waterfalls, boats, or city streets. The goal is to keep part of the image sharp while letting motion streak through the frame.

One of my favorite types of travel photos is taken from inside a moving vehicle — a tuk-tuk, boat, train, or safari truck — where the subject near me is relatively sharp, but the world outside is streaking by. It instantly gives the photo energy.

It says...we were moving, this place was alive, and I was right there in it.

9. Photograph people and wildlife together

One of the most powerful travel photos is the image that shows people experiencing wildlife.

A tight wildlife portrait is wonderful, of course. But a photo of travelers watching bears, whales, tigers, gorillas, penguins, or elephants gives the viewer a sense of scale and context. It shows what it was like to be there.

The challenge is depth of field. Often the people are in the foreground and the wildlife is much farther away. To get both reasonably sharp, you generally need to step back, zoom out, use a wide focal length, and choose a small aperture like f/11, f/16, or even f/22 if conditions allow.

This may feel counterintuitive because your instinct might be to zoom in. But zooming out increases depth of field and gives you a better chance of keeping both people and wildlife sharp. You may need to crop later, but with modern cameras, that’s often a very reasonable tradeoff.

10. Try zoom compression for more compelling scenes

Zoom compression is one of my favorite travel photography techniques.

The idea is simple...instead of walking closer with a wide-angle lens, step back and zoom in with a telephoto. This makes the background appear larger and closer to the subject.

It works beautifully when you have a person, vehicle, animal, or object in front of an interesting background — mountains, temples, markets, architecture, dunes, forests, boats, or dramatic clouds.

A 70–200mm lens is fantastic for this. It lets you create layered, graphic, visually compressed images that feel much more intentional than a standard wide-angle snapshot.

It also helps with candid photography because you can work from a little farther away without being right in someone’s face.

11. Get better candid photos by using burst mode

Candid people photography is hard. Truly good candid moments are fleeting, and expressions change constantly.

That’s why burst mode is so useful.

If people are laughing, clinking glasses, walking through a market, greeting each other, or reacting to something, don’t take one frame and hope for the best. Take a short burst and choose the best expression later.

This is especially helpful when photographing fellow travelers or guides. One person blinking can ruin a photo. One awkward half-smile can make the whole thing feel off. Burst mode gives you options.

Posed photos are useful too, by the way. A posed photo does not have to look stiff. Ask people to interact, tell a joke, look toward each other, or toast their glasses. Then shoot the moment just as it becomes natural.

The best people photos often live somewhere between posed and candid.

12. Be respectful with street photography

Street photography and people photography require care.

People are more aware than ever of being photographed, and understandably so. Always be respectful of local customs, personal boundaries, and situations where photography may not be welcome.

If you want a close portrait, ask permission. Even when you don’t share a language, a smile, a gesture to the camera, and a questioning look usually communicate what you’re asking. If someone says no, that’s the end of it.

For broader street scenes, you can work more quietly by keeping the camera at chest level, using a wide-angle lens, and not constantly bringing the camera to your eye. This helps you document the feeling of a place without making every person feel like the subject of a photoshoot.

And when you do take someone’s portrait, showing them the photo afterward goes a long way. Better yet, if you travel with a small portable printer, giving someone a physical print can be a wonderful way to create a real exchange rather than simply taking an image.

13. Don’t underestimate your smartphone

Smartphones are phenomenal travel photography tools.

They are easy to carry, subtle, fast, and surprisingly capable. They’re especially good for wide-angle scenes, deep depth of field, people-and-wildlife context shots, street scenes, and creative angles.

A few quick smartphone tips:

• Use the volume button as your shutter so you can shoot from high or low angles more easily.

• Tap the screen to focus, then drag up or down to brighten or darken the exposure.

• Use portrait mode when you want shallow depth of field, even for flowers, food, market details, and close-ups.

• Use live mode on an iPhone, then convert moving scenes into long exposures for waterfalls, traffic, or motion blur.

• Use 2x or 3x zoom for candid people photography, but be careful with maximum zoom, as quality often drops.

• And perhaps most importantly, use your phone when it helps you stay present. Sometimes pulling out a large camera changes the dynamic of a scene. A phone can be quicker, quieter, and more natural.

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The real goal: photograph the feeling

Travel photography is not just about documenting where you went. It’s about preserving the feeling of the journey.

The classic wildlife and landscape shots are wonderful, and you should absolutely take them. But don’t forget the moments around the edges: the vehicles, meals, markets, trails, signs, boats, boots, laughter, weather, textures, and light.

Those are often the photos that transport you back most powerfully.

So on your next trip, challenge yourself to think beyond the obvious. Get low. Step back. Zoom in. Slow the shutter. Warm or cool the white balance. Photograph the people watching the wildlife. Capture the motion, the mood, and the story.

Because years from now, when you’re looking through those images, you may find that the best photo from the trip isn’t the perfect portrait or the postcard landscape.

It might be the one that simply makes you say, “Oh yes. I remember exactly what that felt like.”

Enjoy it out there!

Court