Travel Photography Tips

One of my favorite things about traveling is taking photographs of new places. No matter where I travel these are a few tips I use when taking photos.

View of Los Angeles during sunset [Film]

Seattle cityscape during sunset [Digital]

San Francisco Streets shortly after sunrise [iPhone]

1. Wake up early, Stay out late

Whenever I travel I like to wake up early to explore the city while it's still sleeping and I like to stay up late to experience the nightlife. In the morning most places aren't as crowded and at night big cities come alive. Natural light changes throughout the day and the short period after sunrise and after sunset, known as "golden hour", is my favorite time to take photographs. During golden hour the light is soft and warm, unlike the afternoon when the light is usually the most harsh. Lighting can make a huge difference in your photography!

Women in Kimono in Kyoto [Film]

Busy shopping streets in Osaka [Film]

People watching at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) [Film]

Downtown Seattle [iPhone]

2. Use People

Take a tip from street photography and don't be afraid of strangers in your photos. Use people, buildings, and objects in your photography to tell a story. While traveling you come across all sorts of new people and places. I'm not brave enough to go up to a stranger to ask if I can take their picture. But if possible, I like to capture small moments with strangers in the frame to help set up a mood and to add interest to an image.

Golden Gate Bridge [Digital]

Multnomah Falls  [Digital]

View of Lake Hollywood from Cahuenga Peak [Film]

3. Perspective

Places like Las Vegas, NV have beautiful desert landscapes surrounding the big city. Las Vegas is surrounded by the Mojave Desert, where you can see some amazing landscapes with different types of cacti, joshua trees, sand dunes, and animals. When taking photos of the desert or any landscape you want to make sure to consider composition and perspective. If possible, try to get a view from a different angle or height.  A photo of a cityscape or landscape can become more interesting with added depth. Consider the foreground, middle ground, and background of the image. Lowering your viewpoint and moving to the left or right to change your composition are easy ways to add depth to your image.

Long Exposure taken at El Matador State Beach [Digital]

4. Use a Tripod

Carrying a large tripod around isn't always practical. But if you mainly use your phone or compact camera to take photographs, there are a variety of small, compact tripods on the market. Tripods are especially great when taking photographs at night, when you might want to slow down your shutter speed. A tripod would work great if you are trying to capture city lights at night, like the Las Vegas Strip. A tripod allows you to set your camera position, so you can spend some time setting up your composition. And it also allows you to play with your camera settings.

5. The Best Camera is the one You Have

You don't need a fancy camera to take great photos while traveling. My DSLR is heavy and bulky, and I have gone on trips where the main camera I use is my iPhone. Lately, I've been shooting more film on a camera that is older than I am! Throughout this post I shared whether a photo was digital, iPhone, or film. What I typically use to take photos:

• For my iPhone I like to use a few apps to edit my photos including: VSCO and Snapseed
• For photos I take on my DSLR I use a Canon 6D with a 50mm f/1.4 and edit my photos on Lightroom. 
• For film I typically use my Canon AE-1 and 50mm f/1.8 lens and I prefer Kodak Portra 400 film.  

Whichever camera you use, take the time to learn how to use it correctly and take advantage of any features it may have. 

I hope these tips help you out on your next trip! With summer approaching, check out these great Las Vegas Deals for your next trip! Living in Los Angeles has allowed me to make multiple trips to Las Vegas and there's always something to see and do, from The Strip to the dessert! 

My Vantage Point

I recently learned about a new start up camera company called Light. I love photography as a way to capture memories and to share my perspective, but carrying around a DSLR isn't always possible or practical. Light's L16 Camera allows users to have the power and quality of a DSLR in their pocket.

Recently I was challenged to share my vantage point from a favorite image of mine. I chose a recent image I took while in San Francisco in the SOMA neighborhood. I took a short walk to a coffee shop by our hotel and had to stop to admire the way the morning light was hitting the buildings. 

I typically find myself stopping and admiring my surroundings and wanting to capture the scene. I didn't have my camera with me, but I did have my iPhone. With a tray full of coffee in one hand and my iPhone in the other I positioned myself to compose the shot to my liking. The compact size and ease of taking a photo on the iPhone allowed me to take this photo while on a quick coffee run. In this particular photo I wanted to capture a scene on the street - the diffused and refracted light from surrounding buildings and the juxtaposition of nature in an urban landscape. 

I've heard that the best camera is the one that's with you, and I think that's an important concept in photography. I think finding my own unique vantage point, while using different mediums and cameras, has been a small step toward learning more and improving my own photography. 

Museum Days

Oh hello blog, it's been a long while. A lot has happened since my last post and trip to Seattle. You would think I'd have a post lined up about my travels since then: Chicago, Wisconsin (long story), and Washington, DC...but instead I have a post about a place I can't seem to get enough of: Downtown Los Angeles. This is my small step back into blogging and photography. I had a few rolls of film I finally got developed, with a few photos from a day I went to the Broad and explored the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The photos from the Natural History Museum were taken on my iPhone because I tried to shoot medium format at the museum, but I'm apparently terrible at manual focus. 

I've passed by the Walt Disney Concert Hall numerous times, but I never really took the time to explore it. There's a small garden a top the stairs, and there's some great views of Grand Ave. I'm itching to see the LA Philharmonic perform there, I eagerly check my emails every Tuesday for student rush tickets.


I visited the Natural History Museum in New York last winter, and the Natural History Museum in DC recently. I realized I hadn't visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles since I was in middle school, so I decided to take a visit. I really enjoyed the "Becoming Los Angeles" Exhibit and getting to learn a little bit more about the history, geography, and cultural phenomenons that helped shape the city. The Nature Lab was a cool little room too, it's geared more towards kids, but it has interesting facts about the microclimates surrounding L.A, and a neat little nature garden.

I have a few ideas lined up to help me get back into photography and blogging, but let's see if I actually get around to executing them. I've started using a planner again, and I've gotten into the habit of journaling regularly, so that's taken place of blogging. But I'm itching to be more creative, so let's take another go at this.

Seattle Love

One morning, a few weeks ago, my sister and I were feeling down about recent events in our lives. My sister started talking about taking a trip, and I remembered seeing an email from Alaska Airlines for a 24 hour airline sale that morning...and before you know it we booked our tickets for a weekend trip to Seattle. Later that night I told my brother, and he joined too - sibling trip to Seattle! I was in Portland, Oregon a few months ago in May and I loved it, so I was ecstatic to have the chance to visit the Pacific Northwest again. 

Our first day was spent doing typical tourist things. We took a ferry to Bainbridge Island to grab a late brunch. We took a walk around the famous Pike Place Market, visited the Central Library, and went to the top of the Space Needle to see the sunset. While waiting for our time to get up to the Space Needle we stumbled upon a free concert (with free snacks!). Not bad, Seattle.

The Getty Center & Double Exposures

Peter had to view an exhibit at the Getty Center for his Art Appreciation class, and it turned into a kind of family outing. 

Downtown Los Angeles: Historic and Arts District

It seems like I can't get away from Downtown LA lately. My sister came home for the weekend and my cousin, Camille, came over. We didn't know what to do and it was hot outside so we wanted to go somewhere air conditioned. I suggested The Last Bookstore, since neither of them had ever been to it. Decided to take this opportunity to bring around my camera and play around with some new post-processing tricks. 

Labor Day Roadtrip to NorCal: San Jose // Carmel

This is the second year in a row that a few of my friends and I decided to road trip up north to visit our friend Vanessa, who moved away from SoCal to do amazing things and became a teacher for Teach For America.

Los Angeles Explorations

Spent a day in Los Angeles with my good friend, Stephanie. We hadn't seen each other since June before our graduation! It was good to catch up and it was fun to finally do some exploring in a city I love. 

Solivagant

“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person—without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.” - Osho

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

"Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things—air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky—all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it." - Cesare Pavese

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors." -Terry Pratchett

"I miss so many places but I really don’t miss any places at all. Because missing a place is really a substitute for missing a group of people, a mindset, a time - an era of your life defined by your surroundings because they were different than anything else you’ve ever known. Going back to the place won’t satiate the longing or quell the nostalgia, because no matter what, things have changed, and people have moved on and the place won’t be how you’ve left it. Sometimes returning to the city or the country just adds to the emptiness of knowing that you can never return to those specific trips that shaped you; you’ll never recreate those memories fading ever-distant into your past. you can’t tug at the ever-flowing current of time to get just a few seconds back of that feeling of truly living that was inspired by the confluence of stars that brought you, those people, that place, those circumstances together all at once. 
So the only thing to do is keep chasing, chasing that wanderlust, collecting more and more experiences that you’ll then miss equally sharply, leaving a trail of goodbyes and adding to the ever-growing list of places you miss, experiences you ache to replay, moments that define who you are. those places are home, even if they will never exist again the way they did for you then." - I wrote a note on my phone at midnight, by Marit B.

Where to start? I backpacked through Western Europe...by myself! During the beginning of my trip my stomach was in knots, I was nervous. I contemplated what would happen if I cancelled my plans. Initially, I didn't want to go alone...but I had no one to go with me. I've dreamt of travelling for years, and I was finally making my dreams come true!