5 Tips for Powerful Street & Travel Photos

In this post I’m going to share 5 things that have helped me completely change how I go about street and travel photography, to not only make better images that I’m really proud of, but to also have more fun taking photographs every time I go out. In fact I put these tips to use on my recent trip to Georgia and Armenia which resulted in making some of my favourite photographs to date. So let’s get right into it.

1. Mindset 

Mindset is one of the most powerful things to harness to improve your photography fast but if you don’t get it right it can completely derail a photo walk and might mean you miss your best photograph yet, so how do we use mindset to get the best out of our photography?

Regardless of where you are, weather that’s a small town in England, Tokyo or Tbilisi, the best way to approach street and travel photography is to be open minded and most importantly have no expectations. It took me a long time to realise this and often I’d go out and get upset that I wasn’t seeing anything worth photographing, even when I was in what should be a great location for amazing photos.

Having no expectations and being open-minded is easier said than done especially because we want to come away with great photos from any trip, so what things can we do to give us the best chance of cultivating a positive mindset and increase our chances of capturing moments and making amazing photographs? Well it’s simple, you just need to start taking photos of anything when you get out the door. Don’t worry about capturing something special, just focus on taking photos to warm up and you’ll then start to notice more and be ready for when something exciting does present itself.

So for example when I first arrived in Tbilisi recently after a long flight, I went into the city centre and was overwhelmed, I didn’t really know where to start, what to focus on and how to capture scenes. So I just started taking photos. Photos of light, textures, street scenes, random people and while these kinds of photos might not be that great by themselves they can be powerful as part of a series. You can always delete images, but you can’t take photos of somewhere once you’ve left.

I liked the shadows, shapes and colours here, so I captured the environment including a human silhouette. Not what I’m looking for exactly but an image to get my eye in and build confidence when I first arrived.

This approach of just taking photos as soon as possible helps me get right into the zone and start feeling positive to all the opportunities that might come along and that’s how I start every photo walk building up my confidence and getting in tune with the environment.

Something about this scene appealed to me, I’m not sure what but I took the image. Not an award winner by any stretch but it documents the environment which is what I wanted to do and really helped me get into the flow.

Perhaps the most underrated skill in street and travel photography is observation, if we focus on observing and photographing anything that is a bit interesting then it’s almost like an artist doing sketches before painting the final picture, we’re working our way up to being ready and locked in for a great photo and even if you don’t get anything great, you’ll still have some photos capturing the environment and mood of a place and you’ll have enhanced your observational skills which is what improving as a photographer is all about.

When you’re positive and open to anything exciting that might happen you increase your chances of serendipity. To have no expectations is really powerful, if you expect to get a banger each time you go out and then it doesn’t happen this this can make us unhappy and knock our confidence. If you expect nothing when you go out and look at it through the lens of seeing your photography process as a journey without a destination, it’s just the process that matters, then the results will come over time.

But what if you’re out and it’s really quiet or the location you find yourself in isn’t really delivering anything worth capturing and it’s difficult to keep up that positive mindset?

2. Shoot to the Conditions

I used to do a lot of landscape photography and one of the phrases I’d hear and use a lot almost like a mantra is shoot to the conditions. I’d want a moody sky with amazing light at sunrise or sunset, but would get up early, arrive and then it would be just flat and grey. If I’d just given up every time the light wasn’t good, or the weather was clear and boring then I’d miss so many chances to get photographs and I’d probably just give up. So the moral of the story is you need to make the most of what you’ve got. You can’t control the situation you’re in so you just need to shoot to the conditions. So how can we apply that to street and travel photography?

If you can’t find anything good for a while then practice instead and a great way to practice when you find yourself in a situation that isn’t giving you much to photograph and you can’t find a story or a moment is to find and practice a composition instead.

Have a look around where you find yourself and see if you can use creative framing to make a nice composition, look for some interesting textures or reflections or light, have a look from different perspectives. You’re probably not going to take award winning photos while you’re not seeing anything great, but you can practice compositional techniques which will make you a better photographer in the long run.

I was practicing composition and taking shots of the textures and shapes here when a man walked into frame making the image cohesive and adding the human element.

What if you’re in an amazing place with a lot going on but you just can’t seem to make anything work? Well you can only photograph what you can see, don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t get any good work, even when you travel. Just because you’re in an amazing place doesn’t guarantee amazing work. Just focus on being observant, and if you don’t see anything and can’t make a decent frame then you’ve done all you can.

I had days on this recent trip where I didn’t really see anything that I could capture that would make a good photo. Did I get despondent and give up? No I kept on looking and just enjoyed being in a new place. I kept trying different compositions when there wasn’t much going on and then revisited cool locations I’d found when it was a bit busier later on which really helped to capture better images as I’d already scoped some potential compositions already.

I’d scoped out this scene before when it was quiet, so when I came back and there were a few people around I was able to capture an instinctive composition including more subjects.

Another example is when I went to Morocco last year. I like photographs of people up close aiming to capture weird and wonderful moments, but in Morocco the locals generally really don’t want their photo being taken, so I shifted my ideas and process, I shot to the conditions and made a project on that trip focusing more on the colourful environments of Morocco anchored by the people that live there in a more abstract way.

One of my favourite images from the trip. I usually don’t like silhouettes in my photography anymore, but this figure anchors the image, gives a focal point and in my opinion brings all the elements together to make a great photo. See more Morocco images here.

The skill of shooting to the conditions, or making the most of what you’ve got, is just as valuable if you’re in a far flung place or you’ve just gone to your nearest city for the day, so it’s definitely something to have in your mind when you go out. It’s helped me so much to improve my work and tell better stories through my images.

So we’ve covered mindset and shooting to the conditions you find yourself in, but what if you’re out and there’s a lot going on but you’re not really sure what to actually take photographs of? 

3. Triggers

Once I learned about photography triggers it completely changed my approach to street & travel photography and my observational skills skyrocketed. I stopped missing so many moments and I know exactly what to look out for when I go out on a photo walk. So what exactly are photography triggers and how can you use them to make amazing work?

I first heard about this term from the street photographer and author Matt Stuart, and Mike Chudely has covered this topic really well on his YouTube channel before, but this is how I see the term and how I use it in my photography. 

A trigger can essentially be anything that appeals to you and that’s what you actively look for when you’re out taking photographs. So for example a trigger could be a specific colour, let’s say blue, so when you go out you look for the colour blue and it gives you an aim of something to actively try to notice. Another trigger could be something as simple as ripped posters on the wall, so that’s something you look out for. It could be people with pets on the street, people hugging, people with umbrellas or balloons. There are limitless possibilities.

For example one of my triggers on my recent trip was people with flowers, or just flowers in general - it was the beginning of spring and people selling and carrying flowers were everywhere so it gave me something to look out for and capture. Having that approach meant I was likely to get photos with a similar theme that might work nicely together as a series or a project and also gave me a focus on the street for something to look out for and then capture creatively. Once I’d got an image of someone holding flowers, then I knew to keep looking for scenes with flowers but to then try and find a different view point or composition or moment to create variety in the flower photos I was making.

This approach can be really helpful in improving your photography and observational skills fast. How you want to use triggers is up to you, you could have a few specific things you keep your eye out for each time you go out while being open minded for other opportunities for photographs, or you could set yourself a specific trigger at the beginning of a photo walk to see how many photos you can get of that topic in one day.

This can be a really fun approach to photography and it turns it into a bit of a game. If you’re out with friends you could set a trigger or a topic as a challenge for the day and then compare photos in the pub.

4. Let go of Style

A unique style is so sought after in the art world. Take a band for example, they make an album with a unique sound, people like it and then they make another album that has the same kind of sound and the band get even bigger. Success right? Well yes but then the band get bored of making the same old music and decide to put out an album with a completely different sound, half their audience might not like it but they attract a new audience instead and the band have kept their ideas and creativity fresh making music that they truly love. 

I get it, you probably want to have a recognisable photography style to stand out from the crowd, but a great picture is a great picture regardless of style and I’d argue that if you’re not a commercial photographer and generally do it as a hobby, then style really isn’t that important and if you try to make all your photography fit into a chosen style it can really hold your growth back.

I used to get hung up trying to have a really strong sense of style in my photography and in the past I wouldn’t even take certain photos that might have been great because it didn’t fit my chosen style or the label I’d given myself as a photographer. Sometimes I didn’t even go to a location because it might not have the opportunities I wanted. But then I learnt to be a photographer not a genre. You don’t have to stick to one style all the time in subject matter and also in post-processing to be a great photographer.

Landscape photography?

Travel photography?

Street photography?

Experimentation is key to making amazing work and growing as an artist but if you try to fit all the photos you take into one stye or genre then it can stop you from discovering new things down the line. But what if for a while you take photos on one subject matter or style but then you get a bit bored of that and want to try a new approach, you might think your photos all look a bit disjointed and aren’t coherent with each other, that’s a problem right? Well not really, if you experiment and come away with images that look different to your older work, you can separate your work into different projects. You can have a series of photographs taken in a certain way to tell a story as one project and then another project of your new work that is totally different. You might have different genres you’re interested in too, so don’t be afraid to just take photos and not think too hard about genre or style, just make the photos you want and like I said earlier, be a photographer not a genre.

Once I’d learned to let go of style, or at least split my work into projects when I felt like my style had changed a bit, it made me so much more relaxed about my work and opened myself up to a load more possibilities, but sometimes I’d still take myself and my work a bit too seriously and that’s why the last thing on the list is so important too.

5. Have Fun

I take my photography really seriously, I want to make amazing work that I really enjoy but that others appreciate too. I think that’s a good thing as it pushes me to get better and consistently get out there and make work, but I can often find myself getting too serious, even though it’s meant to be a fun hobby. When I get too serious about my work it gets me frustrated, overwhelmed and stops me from getting the images I want. So if you feel the same way as me sometimes what can we do about it? Well you just need to remind yourself on occasion that it’s meant to be fun, so try not to take it too seriously.

If I find myself getting frustrated and stuck then I just remind myself this is supposed to be fun and one of the best ways to do that is by interacting with people on the street if you’re travelling or just out in town for the day. We often hear that street photography has to be candid to count as street photography but as we said earlier, you don’t have to box yourself in, you can be a photographer that doesn’t stick to a specific genre.

For example on my latest trip I was out photographing in a market and a bunch of guys were playing Backgammon, usually I’d snap a candid and go off on my way but I hung around for a minute, chatted with the guys in broken English and had such a lovely interaction. When they asked where I was from and I said England I even got serenaded by one of them where he sung a song about London in Armenian. That was such a fun experience and while we were chatting and having a laugh I got some really great photos. Is it technically street photography? Maybe not but I really don’t care, I like the photos and the moment was priceless.

So when you’re out on the street don’t forget to have a laugh, if you miss a great moment, allow yourself to be annoyed but then remember other moments will come along, you get some you miss some, that’s the nature of street and travel photography and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather spend my time doing.

Putting these things into action like I have will skyrocket your progress as a photographer but sometimes we can get hung-up on gear, specifically choosing what lens to use for our photography, so check out this video next which is all about finding the right focal length for you.