If you’re about to head out on an epic travel photography adventure, or even a short little vacation, no matter where you go there are amazing pictures just waiting to be taken. And you don’t need a bunch of fancy equipment to capture incredible, memorable shots. Photographer Ray Demski takes us on a little trip to Venice and offers some seriously useful travel photography tips:
Preparation
- Make your camera look old and beat up so nobody wants to steal it (don’t actually beat it up, you just need to put some worn out tape on it!).
- If you have a business card, take a picture of it so if you lose your camera and someone finds it, they can contact you.
- Pack light. Just bring the bare essentials so you aren’t lugging equipment around everywhere and draw less attention to yourself.
- Take a climbing sling to use as a DIY hand strap or a tripod strap.
Remove Tourists from Photos
How often do you stand there, prepped to take the shot, waiting for people to get out of the frame? This is a pretty awesome little trick that many people don’t know about.
- Set up your camera on a tripod and take 10–15 shots of the same location.
- In Photoshop, go to File > Scripts > Statistics, select Median and upload your photos.
- This will automatically remove all the people in the pictures.
Find a Unique Angle
- Get some cool aerial shots by throwing a GoPro in the air.
- Tape a GoPro to stuff around you to get a different perspective.
Back Up Your Photos
- Invest in a good, strong hard drive.
- Use the 3-2-1 Method: Make three copies of your photos on two media types and keep one in a separate location.
- You might even want to mail a copy home.
Other Tips
- If you find a cool frame, wait for the right moment.
- Get up early. Sure, you’re on vacation, but don’t miss the amazing light by sleeping in every morning!
Gear Used
- Climbing Sling
- G-Technology hard drive
- Nikon D800
- Nikon 16–35 f/4
- Nikon 24–70 f 2.8
- Fujifilm Polaroid
- Impossible Polaroid Film
- GoPro Hero 3
- Manfrotto Tripod
What are your best travel photography tips?
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File >Scripts > Statistics. In “Choose Stacks Mode” dialogue, select “Median.”
Do these questions get answered???
Or do as I did for my 33 day 900km walk across the north of Spain and go really light. I took over a thousand photos documenting my journey unobtrusively and with comparative ease. I used a good quality smartphone (Sony Xperia 3), the remarkably sophisticated and straightforward Snapseed 2.0 for in-phone editing, a good size and fast SDcard for local storage and Google Photos for my permanent searchable archive. I chronicled via Blogger.
No, I did not get magazine quality but I was able to quickly articulate my journey for those who cared with only 120 grams of pocketable equipment.
Think about it.
Thank you for the tips, is a pitty I received it 2 weeks to late, we just returned from Venice
With the removal of tourists I am working with PS 6, and the menu is not the same – can you please help
Thanks and regards from South Africa
Love the remove tourists from the photo. However, I have PS Elements and LR6, any way to do this in one or the other?
I opened my copy of Photoshop CS6 and tried to follow the instruction above for removing tourists. Note I didn’t have any image files waiting to be uploaded. Notwithstanding, File > Scripts > ????. There was no link identified as Statistics to get to Median.
Is this a link in Photoshop CC?