This is the first article I published in Shopartgallery's Page On Facebook and is dedicated to Travel Photography, a fascinating world in which once you've entered, is very difficult to leave. It becomes a burning passion that makes you long for the next opportunity to go out with your camera.
Have you ever stopped at least once in front of a picture that caught your breath and made you dream of magical places? I know I have. Take a look at these shots, aren't they marvellous?





I have travelled to different places and took a lot of pictures, many of which have been published in various magazines and websites. I cannot claim to be an expert but in all my years of travelling, I gathered quite a bit of experience. I learned that it is not enough to hold a camera to get great quality photos.
Today I put together some tips and tricks that you might find useful for creating spectacular travel photos:

1.First you need to think about what story or message you want to tell when you take a picture of a place. You must ask yourself, “What kind of photography do I want to do?” “What will the photo be used for or how will a customer use it?” “If the photo is not for sale, where do I want to show it?” Once you’ve answered these questions, you need to think about composition.

2.Composition. Taking simple snap shots is easy, anyone can do that. Creating powerful imagery is where the challenge lies. To create stunning photos, you need to look for the focal point of that landscape or scene that will convey your message. Try different angles that will give life to the story that you want to tell before taking the shot. Use the RULE OF THIRDS, one of the most popular photo composition rules, to capture attention and create a dynamic composition. Just imagine a photo is split into three equal parts, both vertically and horizontally. Those imaginary lines dividing the photo are called the power lines. Placing the subject in the centre of a photo is not always a good idea. It creates a static atmosphere and can be unappealing to the viewer. For a well balanced composition, place the main subject on the power lines or on the points of intersection between them.
Also, do not get caught in the habit of shooting only in landscape mode. Try the portrait mode too and you will be amazed by the results!

3. Accurate knowledge of your camera is a must in order to obtain great results. To produce exactly the type of photos you want, you have to know your camera’s capabilities as well as the range of lenses to use. The quality of your photo equipment is also very important. I’m not saying that you cannot get beautiful photos and sell them using regular photographic equipment. I’m just saying that exceptional quality photos can only be obtained using specific equipment. This particular topic is very broad and subject to various arguments. We can discuss this more in future articles.
4.Another MUST in order to get the perfect shots is to use a tripod. When shooting in certain lighting situations the camera can produce vibrations that have a negative impact on the photo, resulting to blurry images. Therefore a tripod should be solid enough to support the weight of the camera, especially if you use heavy lenses. Similarly, without a tripod, you may need to compensate by bumping up the ISO. Keep in mind that increasing the ISO makes the amount of noise grow proportionally. That in turn could compromise the image quality. It is never a good idea to think that it’s okay to get noise because it can be cleaned in post-production. This concept is true only in a very small percentage. Using software to reduce noise can result to a substantial loss of picture quality because noise reduction leads to loss of detail.

5.Don’t be afraid to use the full manual settings of your camera. Shoot in RAW only instead of JPEG. If you need to make some changes to your photos at a later stage, the JPEG file will be useless. Every time a JPEG file is modified and saved, the photo quality decreases. Shooting in RAW gives you more control on how to post-process your images after a shoot. Once the editing process is finished, you can export the file to JPEG format or to TIFF and then JPEG.

Since summer is almost here, I encourage you to go out and take exceptional travel photos. Put them up for sale on your personal website, micro or macrostock agencies and send it to webmaster@shopartgallery.com . We will publish the best works in our Facebook page!