5 tips for beautiful photos of tourist attractions
It is summer and then it is much more attractive to go out and discover other places. Whether you go to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or just to Appingedam: every spot has a tourist attraction to photograph. A nice challenge, because you don’t want to take that snapshot that everyone already has. With these five photography tips you can get more out of your tourist snaps.
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Shoot well around it
Many people do the same when they see a tourist attraction: stand at a distance and make sure the object is positioned in the middle and that’s it. The Euromast just fits into the picture and that is dangerous. Did you just find out that you have the horizon almost as vertical as the mast itself! By going a little wider in your photo, you can better post-process to tighten things up a bit. But there’s even more reason to shoot around it. Just look at the photo below. The photo itself is not entirely successful in terms of light, but the castle from Disneyland Paris looks a lot livelier with the trees around it than if you only pontifically put that building in the middle of your photo.
Be creative
In line with what I just wrote, it is also smart -and fun- to be creative. Everyone knows the photo of the Zaanse Schans on which you see the water with the windmills behind it. Do it differently. As shown below, for example, the famous bridge from San Francisco is not photographed from the side, but straight from the bottom. Sometimes they are crazy shots and sometimes total failures, but it is nice to look at something literally and figuratively from a different angle. Also think carefully about what you think of a certain statue and what you want to highlight yourself: perhaps the material it is made of, or a hand that you find a bit unhappily dressed: it’s your party.
Be careful with the wide-angle lens
The wide-angle lens is friend and foe when it comes to tourist attractions. The high needle of Dublin is almost impossible to photograph without a wide-angle lens, but as you can see, the equally famous Dublin attraction Temple Bar is again a bit strange in proportion due to the wide-angle lens. This is especially noticeable when you look at people’s legs: some look like stilt walkers. The wide-angle lens can be useful for getting the whole thing up close, but can also result in a completely unusable photo that is not easy to edit.
Accept it again
If you go to the Hollywood sign in the Los Angeles hills and it’s foggy, it sucks, but often even a little bit of cloud can make a photo that clearly shows what’s in it look very faded. Try not to worry about that too much. Firstly, due to the weather, you probably cannot see the potential of the photo on your phone screen, and secondly, you can always lighten it up a bit with a photo editing program: nothing wrong with that.
Use the Magic Eraser
The nice thing about tourist attractions is that everyone likes them, but that is also the disadvantage: it is always busy. If you want to erase some people from your photo to make that proposal near the Taj Mahal a little more special, you can get started with Google Photos’ Magic Eraser. You just have to select what you want gone and the magic of the smart eraser will do the rest. That can also just remove a foot that is in the picture: it does not have to be a whole person. Useful!
More photography tips
Want more photography tips? Maybe from the beach, or else iris photos, photos of food, mountains on winter sports, the northern lights, a concert or flowers. Do you prefer a selfie or a photo of movement? That is also possible.
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Do you have any smart tips for taking cool holiday snaps of tourist attractions? Leave them now in the comments.
