Outdoor Photography How To

Early last year I started planning a month-long trip to Botswana and South Africa, part of which would be spent leading a photo safari. From the start I knew that my photography would include much more than wildlife. It’s my business, and my pleasure, to explore and experience beyond the obvious subjects suggested by a location. As a practical matter, I have to photograph much more of what a destination offers and deserves; as a personal matter, it’s often what’s best about my job.

Are you in the habit of always letting the camera make decisions on your behalf? If so, sooner or later you'll want to switch out of Auto and experiment with other exposure modes than provide far more control. Otherwise you'll have difficulty expressing your creative of vision as your skills evolve.

Do you avoid using Lightroom’s powerful Tone Curves because you find them confusing or difficult to use? Well those days are over thanks to the simple tutorial below from Danish travel photographer Alex Bjorstorp.

One of the first techniques I learned in photography was to use long exposures at night to blur traffic lights. I liked it decades ago, and I still enjoy seeing artful streaks of light superimposed over an urban environment. You never know exactly what the resulting images will look like, and that’s part of the fun. When the background happens to striking, like the Walt Disney Theater in Los Angeles, California (#1), the combination of abstract lights and architecture makes a winning photograph.

Sometimes we come upon a scene that would make am awesome photo—were it not for bland, boring light and ugly distractions in the background. Rather than move on or come back another day the next time this happens, we suggest you watch the tutorial below with a fast and effective edit for making dull images "really POP."

Nighttime is a great time to shoot on city streets because streetlamps, car trails and colorful shop windows often create a sparkling tableau. And in rainy weather, reflections on pavement adds impact to the scene.

The most common goal when editing our landscape photos is to imbue images with vibrant colors and accurate exposures that enhance all the details of a scene. But what do you do when photos you capture look more like a snapshots—either because the light isn't interesting or there's nothing particularly captivating about the scene?