Travel Photography How To

When we think about great adventure/travel photographers and spectacular imagery, National Geographic magazine immediately comes to mind. And the folks at Nat Geo just picked their best images of 2017, including the lead photo above of a black crested macaque captured on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. This striking shot appeared in the magazine’s March issue as part of an article on the social structure of monkeys.

Shooting evocative portraits in the field requires special skills, especially when photographing indigenous peoples in faraway locations. In this interesting tutorial, you’ll learn why one pro says the key to travel portraiture is “knowing where your subject’s eyes should be looking.”

I ended the March 2017 column on my must-have lenses for travel photography and the tripods that support them with a promise that there’d be a part two on the gear that goes beyond cameras and lenses to enable me to get the pictures I envision.

We’ve all become accustomed to placing shoes and laptops in separate bins while passing through airport security checkpoints. And now, new TSA regulations require the same treatment for cameras and all electronic devices larger than a cell phone

Although everyone loves travel photography, not everyone possesses the skills to turn that passion into a viable business. This month we spoke with six photographers working (and making money) in the travel photography business: Joe Becker, Todd Gustafson, Blaine Harrington, Jen Pollack Bianco, and David and Lina Stock.

Photographer Ami Vitale travels the world to capture those aspects of life we don’t ordinarily see. She helps us understand other peoples, their cultures, lifestyles, and traditions. She’s not afraid to take the journey, regardless of the perils she may face. And she comes away from the experience with images she shares with the world, much of it for National Geographic.

Want to see something you don’t see every day—something, in fact, you can’t really see at all?