Better Travel Photos Without Buying Anything

Timing beats equipment

The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset do more for a photograph than any lens. Midday sun in southern Europe is directly overhead, which flattens everything and blows out stone.

As a bonus, those are the hours when famous places are quiet, so you also get the picture without forty other people in it.

One compositional habit

Put something in the foreground. A doorway, a railing, a branch, a person's shoulder. Most disappointing travel photos are a wide view of something distant with nothing near the camera, which removes any sense of depth.

The second habit: take three steps to the side before shooting. It is amazing how often that removes a bin, a sign or a parked car.

Photograph the small stuff

The pictures people keep are rarely the monuments. They are the breakfast table, the hand-painted menu, the shoes by the door, the train window.

Take those deliberately. In ten years they will place you in the trip far better than the postcard view will.

• Shoot the market, the ticket, the map, the meal
• Include people you are travelling with, not just the view
• Take one photo of where you slept, every time

Etiquette

Ask before photographing people close up, particularly market traders and anyone praying. A gesture and a smile is usually enough and the answer is often yes.

Respect posted restrictions in religious sites and museums, and do not use flash near old paintings or textiles.

Afterwards

Back up once during the trip, not only at the end. A phone left in a taxi should cost you a phone, not the holiday.

Then delete ruthlessly. Forty good photographs from two weeks is a wonderful record. Two thousand is a folder nobody opens.