Travel Photography How To

Midway in my talk with Daryl Hawk about his travel photography, he mentioned that it was relatively easy for him to approach people and get their okays for impromptu portrait sessions. “I’m polite, I know something of their culture, and I spend time with them,” he said. Then he added, “And I speak a universal language.”

The two questions in the headline above have been debated for years, and the queries keep coming as new high-res cameras continue to be introduced with no apparent slowdown in sight. There's no one correct answer to either question, because it all depends upon the type of photos you shoot, how you typically use them, and a number of other key considerations.

There’s one constant when shooting outdoor photographs: You’re always at the mercy of Mother Nature, and she’s anything but predictable. So you have two choices when weather is threatening or the light is less that ideal. You can either learn how to deal with it or go home.

Every so often one of our favorite instructors surprises us with a concept that really makes sense for capturing landscape scenes with maximum impact. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in the quick tutorial below, as Romanian pro Toma Bonciu demonstrates what he means by “layering” a scene from foreground to background.

Aperture is a key fundamental of photography, and one component of the Exposure Triangle—along with ISO and shutter speed—that work together to produce properly exposed images. But as you’ll see in the tutorial below, the f/stop you choose also affects photos in other important ways.

Nailing exposure can be be difficult once the the sun drops below the horizon, and one of the biggest challenges is controlling highlights for proper tonal balance throughout a low-light scene. This quick tutorial from the My Photo Journey YouTube channel describes the necessary in-camera adjustments in barely nine minutes.