Recording your travels

Lighting

The most atmospheric light of the day occurs at sunrise and sunset, so try to be out and about with your camera phone then. Once you’ve experienced the pictures you can take at this time of day, you’ll know what we mean. In the winter, sunrise is much later and the effects you can get when the lighting angle is low and the colour of the light is intense can lift your pictures way above the ordinary.

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Details

Look for the details in a scene that help you to tell the full story. For example, if you’re visiting a busy market, the temptation is to look at the bigger picture and try to fit everything in. While there is a place for pictures of this kind, you should also be moving in close to some of the individual market stalls so you can show what goods were on sale and the characters who were selling them. This makes for more comprehensive and accurate pictures.

Be candid

Try to work in a candid way, wherever possible. Camera phones are brilliantly discreet, so you should be able to use them to take pictures of what’s going on around you when you’re travelling without drawing too much attention to yourself. Even if people are comfortable about being photographed, almost everyone will change their posture and expression when a camera is produced and so you will immediately lose some of the spontaneity.

Colour

Capture the colour of a scene and make it the central point of your picture. Every place you go will have something unique about it and your job is to reveal this in your photos. Don’t be afraid to go in close, break a few rules and fill your frame. If your camera phone comes with a zoom, use it regularly so your compositions are tight.

Avoid clichés

Avoid the travel photography clichés by trying to make your pictures more original. It’s worth taking a look at the postcards on sale, so you know the kind of thing you should probably be trying to avoid. The art of great travel photography is to come up with a picture that says something about your own journey and your individual interpretation of a place. If, for example, the local postcards show a beauty spot in bright sunlight, think about visiting it at dawn or even when it’s raining. There’s no such thing as “bad” weather: the challenge is to come up with something different, and pictures of people scurrying through a storm may just be it.