For the past two years, I have been working as a travel photographer, collaborating with dozens of travel influencers and photographers. This experience has taught me how to prepare for my trips differently in order to capture the best travel photos. Most of us, when planning a trip, focus on researching accommodation options, flights, tickets, prices, guides, tours, and top activities. We arrive at our destination and hope to get good photos. Unfortunately, this approach doesn't always work. Have you ever opened Google Earth to scout for your favorite photo spots before traveling?
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Central Park, New York, looking away from popular Bethesda Terrace. Knowing where and how to get good compositon can be game changer for your travel photos
A little known travel photographer's secret:
My photography mentor, a popular travel photographer in the 70s and 80s, gave me this advice when I began my journey in travel photography: 'As soon as you arrive in a new city, visit a gift shop and buy a variety of postcards. These will help you understand how other professional photographers have composed their photos at key tourist destinations.' While not many of us buy postcards anymore, there are modern alternatives available for preparing for a good photo shoot before your travels.
Research, Research, Research:
First and foremost, make exploring travel content for your destination an essential part of your travel planning. Arriving at your destination without any idea of how to take good photos might not yield the best results, unless you're a professional photographer who can create great compositions anywhere. Even skilled travel photographers can take bad pictures
How to Research Best Photography Location At Your Travel Destination
: There are a few different approaches you can take:
Use Dedicated Photo Spot Maps Platforms for Your Photos:
This is probably the easiest way to ensure you capture great photos at your destination. Crowdsourced photo spot platforms like PhotoSpot offer a map view of all the photo spots shared on their platform. Think of them as social media, but with a photo location finder for each photo or video posted. You can easily zoom in on your destination to see how other photographers have taken photos there. Ensure your photo spot platform provides the exact location where the photo was taken, rather than clustering them together for a general area. For example, if you are visiting Times Square, it's a large, crowded area, and you'll need to know where to stand to get the best photo composition (spoiler: it's not the red stairs near 47th Street where most tourists take photos). Here are the best photography locations in New York:
https://photospot.us/wishlistInfo/bXaJHjF2kYVEXIrv0Hqh
2. Use a Combination of Social Media and Google Maps/Earth
: Do you prefer browsing travel content on social media? Most social media platforms now have location tags that you can use to search for your destination and view content posted there. This works great if your destination is a small, enclosed place, like a popular restaurant. However, if you're visiting a national park or even Times Square, you'll need to do more research. Once you've found your favorite photos or videos of your destination, head over to Google Maps or Google Earth to get a rough idea of where the photo was taken. While this method is indirect and may seem tedious, the volume of content on social media can offer more options than standalone photo spot apps.
3. Stock Photography Websites:
This is a little-known secret and the modern equivalent of finding the best compositions at your travel destination. Most stock photography websites, like iStock and Unsplash, label the location of the photos. You can search your destination on these websites and see how professional photographers have taken their photos. You might still need to use Google Maps to pinpoint the exact spot where the photos were taken.
4. Save Your Favorite Photo Spots:
Navigating a new place when traveling can be challenging, and getting the best photos often takes a back seat. I see many people trying to get a good photo at popular tourist destinations. Usually, the best spot for a good composition is just a few steps away. Putting in some effort before your trip to save your favorite photo spots can make things much easier once you arrive. You can save your favorite photo spots on PhotoSpot, which creates a map of your saved locations. For example, here's my collection of places I want to photograph when traveling to India, with a map view:
https://photospot.us/wishlistInfo/7tZ3CGqbTIa7fILfKPRs
5. Take a Guided Tour:
Guided tours are not just good for getting to know your destination better; your tour guide can help you find the best photo spots since they've spent a lot of time researching the location. Most tour guides will stop at the best photo spots for explanations and photo opportunities.
How to Embed the Best Photography Locations in Your Itinerary
: Did you know one of the best uses of AI is finding the best photo spots at your destination? At PhotoSpot, we've combined the power of AI with the photo composition skills of photographers. When you plan a trip with our AI travel planner, we automatically embed the best photo spots and location finders into your itinerary, so you don't have to spend time researching. Research shows that for Gen Z and Millennials, getting good travel photos and videos is the #1 criterion when planning a trip. With so much of our lives now online, this makes sense. At PhotoSpot, our goal is to bring travel planning and travel content together, so you can spend your time enjoying your travels rather than researching photo spots. -Sam