Travel Phone Photography Tips for Beginners

 

Nowadays, with Instagram and TikTok dominating the smartphone world, your phone is not only a means of communication but also a travel diary, visual storyteller, memory constraint, or even a compensation for lost profits.

Although professional cameras are the best, your smartphone today is filled with extraordinary cameras that can capture a glorious image, provided you know how to utilize this imaging device.

No matter where you wander, in which country you take your hiking adventures in, what beaches you have ever seen or made an attempt to take their sunsets, these are the top travel phone photography tips to start the level up in your travel photography.

1. Rule one: Clean Your Lens: The First Rule of Sharp Shots

It may seem to be a no-brainer, but it is usually overlooked. Your phone camera takes on pocket lint, fingerprints, and dust when on the move.

Without even having to do anything with the lens, it is easy to simply clean it with a soft cloth or microfiber wipe, and a blurry photo will be clear again. This is to be done prior to every photo shoot.

2. Learn how to see Light: Nature is supreme

Photography is all about light. Warm, soft light can be produced during the golden hour (just after sunrise and before sunset,) where travel photography can be shot.

Midday lighting may be too harsh, causing heavy shadow effects and blown out highlights. When taking a picture in bright sunlight, you can aim to have the light on your subject either at the side or behind so as to create dramatic effects.

Night shots? Ambient light could be used for streetlights, storefronts, or the look of neon signs. Unless it is a dire necessity, do not use the built-in flash since it flattens your photos.

3. Touch to Focus, Swipe to adjust exposure

Don’t just point and shoot. Touch your subject on the screen and you will focus.

The majority of smartphones also allow you to move the focus/brightness by swiping your finger up or down.

This puts you in control of creativity and makes you avoid under-exposed or over-exposed photos.

4. Use Gridlines to get a Better Composition

Turn on the gridlines in your camera. These will allow you to use the Rule of Thirds which is a traditional photography tip that plays on dividing the frame into nine equal portions.

Make your photo balanced and more aesthetic by placing the points of interest (such as a landmark or a person) at the place where the lines meet.

5. Do not Zoom In-Use your Feet

Smartphones have poor image quality due to digital zooming. Instead, just walk up to your subject when you require a close shot.

When that cannot be done, do a broader shot and crop it later.

The resolution of modern phones is high enough to be cropped without much quality loss.

6. Keep it Steady

The best composition can be smeared with a wobbly hand. For stability:

• Use both of your hands to hold the phone.
• Hold your elbows to the body.
• To support yourself on a wall or a stable surface, in this case it is present.

When shooting low light, bolster the phone on a mini tripod or even on a rock or a backpack.

7. Play Around with Angles

Do not simply shoot at eye level. Get low, shoot low or get elevated. The strange angles result in peculiar ways of looking and a standard view becomes more captivating.

Shoot the peddlers at their waist level or architecture of the temples at ground level in a dramatic style.

8. Use Portrait More Wisely

The portrait mode blurs the background to provide the depth-of-field effect which is used to imitate the DSLR-style of photography.

It is fabulous to capture images of people or food and items in a traveller market.

But it is not effective when there are complicated backgrounds or when the light is bad, so revise and retake it when necessary.

9. learn Panorama/Wide-Angle

Panorama mode: it is a great shot in case you want to capture large sweeping hills or seascapes.

To capture a city view or architectural arrangements, utilize the ultra-wide camera on your phone (or any you have) to capture more in the picture without motioning back.

Pro tip: To eliminate panorama distortion, move slowness and steadiness when taking panoramas.

10. Edit Thoughtfully

A good photo can be edited to become a beautiful one. Take apps such as:

• Snapseed (recommended to be used by the beginners)
• Lightroom mobile (to have more control)
• VSCO (as a filter because of aesthetic filters)

Raising and lowering brightness, contrast, sharpness and saturation but not over-editing it. Be natural and leave the original scene to do a justice to itself.

11. Give a Story

You should not take just any shots, but take some pictures that say something. Consider other than the monument or the landmark. Capture:

• Citizens at work
• Street signs
• Traditional food close shots
• The faces of the person you are travelling with
• Behind-the-scenes moments

These natural-life photos are more realistic and revealing to your travel album.

12. Action Shots Take Burst Mode

To shoot moving subjects (such as birds, waves or a crowded market place), use burst mode (press and hold the shutter button) to do a number of frames in a short amount of time. In the future, select a sharp and expressive shot.

13. Save Your Photographs

You do not need to kill off those memories that you have worked so hard to acquire.

Keep some cloud storage (Google Photos, iCloud) or, back them up yourself on a hard drive or laptop several days a week throughout the trip.

You should not lose your whole traveling story because you have lost your phone.

14. Rehearsal is the key to success.

It is not a coincidence to have great travel photos. Practice makes perfect. Look through your photos frequently and study what is good.

With time you will come up with your own style and story perception.

In conclusion, Travis meant that we should take pictures of the moment and not the scene.

Travel photography is not that of exclusive perfect locations to the postcards. It is of feeling, experience and recollection.

Your phone is a really powerful instrument but what use is that when your eyes are your biggest asset.

A little practice and these easy pointers and you too will be able to make the magic of the trip yours before no time — regardless of whether it is your first or tenth tour.