Travel Photography How To

Whether you're on vacation or traveling for business there are times when you'll want to use the smartphone in your pocket to memorialize a destination, and this tutorial from the Happy to Wander YouTube channel reveals instant improvements you can make when photographing people, iconic landmarks, street photos, and more.

If you've never tried shooting nighttime cityscapes photos it's time to gets started. That's because urban scenes that seem boring during the day are transformed into magical opportunities full of sparkling lights, brightly lit windows, colorful signs, and interesting reflections once the sun drops below the horizon.

Last week we featured an interesting video from one of favorite wildlife and landscape photographers who insists that your camera's Aperture Priority mode is preferable to shooting in Manual for certain situations. We're following up on that today with a quick tutorial from Vanessa Joy who demonstrates how to use shutter speed to capture images with a variety of creative effects.

One post-processing technique that has surged in popularity among landscape photographers is the so called "Orton Effect." Sometimes it's overdone, but when applied correctly you'll love the creative, dreamy look that you achieve.

We were all taught early on to always shoot with the sun to our back, and that worked OK for beginners looking for the easiest way to capture a "Kodak moment." If you're still following this familiar "rule," it's long past time to be more creative, and one effective way to do that is by setting aside what you learned about composition and try shooting towards the sun.

Congratulations to the winners of GuruShot's Travel Stories photo challenge! Thank you to all the participants for sharing the magic of your adventures through stunning views, lively street scenes, and quiet moments that captured the spirit, uniqueness and beauty of different places around the world! 

It can be extremely challenging to capture accurately exposed photos of scenes with a wide range of brightness values from white to black and everything in between. This tutorial from the My Photo Journey YouTube channel explains how to get the job done in the camera by selecting the oft-ignored Spot Metering mode.