5 Secrets of Great Travel Photography

Rustavi, Georgia. Rotting watermelon on landing. 

1.       Take your camera with you at all times, even if you're only walking to the corner market from your base. If you've got a big-buck camera that you hesitate to carry with you everywhere you go, fine, but in that case, also bring along a point-and-shoot that fits into a pocket.

Lost Creek, Missouri.

2.       Have your camera easily accessible. In other words, not at the bottom of your bag, making you think twice about taking an impulse shot.

Rustavi, Georgia. This woman gave me this loaf of bread. Just because.

3.      Have duplicate batteries, chargers, and SD cards in case of theft, loss, or sad demise. Carry an extra battery with you, always. It’s damn frustrating to run out of juice just before some potentially great shots present themselves.

San Francisco, California. Hayes Valley.

4.       Like the big fish that got away, your fantastic travel photographs didn’t happen if you never uploaded them to an external source (i.e., laptop, Ipad, Facebook) before your camera got ripped off, dropped into the pit toilet, or was stepped on by an elephant. Upload photos regularly, by which I mean at least every 2 or 3 days.

Nazret, Ethiopia. English Alive Academy. 

5.       Set the review time for your camera to “off.” You want to be able to take photos as quickly as possible, not wait for interminable seconds before you can catch the next shot.