There is something special about creating travel photos and videos. One should possess an exceptional artistic vision to capture special, extraordinary, and eye-catching in the mundane life. Taking the role of a travel videographer has never been easier. All you need is your imagination, a burning desire to tell your unique story, and the right equipment, of course.
You also need to know what kind of video you want to shoot before you embark on a fascinating travel quest and start scouring for ideal locations for your future photographic masterpieces. There’s much, much more to travel video making than meets the eye. From today’s article, you’ll learn 10 great tips for taking pictures and making videos on your trips. Let’s dive straight into it.
#1 Travel Light
If you read Tim O’Brien’s short story named The Things They Carried, you probably can recall the loads of stuff young American soldiers had to carry with them in Vietnam. If you don’t want to resemble and most importantly feel like a private soldier, don’t take too many things when preparing for your journey.
There are some bare essentials like identity documents, visas, tickets, couple days’ worth of clothes and supplies. Opt for compact, lightweight camera gear, and a mini tripod. You’ll be better off without those huge backpacks and overweight baggage (if you’re not an avid backpacker or professional mountaineer.) If you happen to forget your favorite camera, memory card, or Gorillapod at home, don’t make a drama out of it. You can always rent video production equipment at your destination.
#2 Tweak Your Camera Settings Beforehand
It’s a rare videographer who doesn’t apply color filters, use video effects and audio enhancements when creating their footage. Take care of that before your trip. Once you reach your destination, you’ll find yourself eager to explore local attractions that will appear in your photos or videos. And you definitely don’t want to tinker with changing a picture profile of your camera or other settings somewhere along the line. You will be well-advised to experiment with the setting before your trip. Decide on the settings you think can work best in your shooting conditions. If you’re new to all this shooting stuff, you want to set keep settings intact for the unfamiliar modes.
#3 Enjoy the Country
There is no point in capturing the beauty of new locations if you fail to enjoy and experience this beauty firsthand. Resist the temptation to grab your camera every time you notice something peculiar and worth attention.
Take the time to “stand and stare,” take in the sights, and let yourself experience those authentic emotions you’ll want to subsequently convey with your videos or pictures. It’s also a good idea to avail yourself of a professional guide’s services. By doing so, not only will you see the most popular attractions but also discover the nooks that are off the beaten track. Exactly what you need for your photos!
#4 Shoot Wisely
Shooting wisely doesn’t necessarily mean that you should contemplate every object for hours before pushing the shutter button. Also, there’s no point speculating about whether this landscape or mundane scene is worth filming. With the advent of digital photography, millions of people acquired professional tools wherewith they could create conspicuous photos in the blink of an eye. No need to buy expensive film and skimp on it. So, during your[ trip, make sure to shoot as much as you can so that you don’t miss anything really important. Thus, you’ll get enough material to edit when you’re back home.
#5 Tell Your Own Story
Every artist creates their own story using this or that medium. Just like a painter uses a canvas and brush, you may use your camera to tell a unique story that can resonate with the millions. Of course, it takes much time to come up with an enticing story, but it’s definitely worth it. If you fail to do some research on the location you plan to visit and make some photos or videos on the spur of the moment, don’t get upset. You can later go through your footages and find a common thread that can tie them into an engaging story.
#6 Use Video Editors
Video editors are those fascinating tools that can lend a particular artistic flavor and individualism to your videos and photos. With modern online software, you don’t even need to install cumbersome apps on your device and spend countless hours figuring out how to use their features. Below are some of the most lightweight, handy, and easy-to-use photo and Video editing software solutions that can help you spruce up your footages and images in the shortest possible time.
The best video editors:
- Fastreel. This tool can be used by amateurs and professional videographers. Reversing, crop, loop, and make stop-motion videos right in your browser. What’s more, Fastreel is ideal for making slideshows, and collages.
- Kizoa. Add engaging captions, stickers, with Kizoa. This tool enables you to combine several videos into collages, make professional-looking slideshows, and use default templates to create custom video projects.
- WeVideo. It’s an online video editor that runs in the cloud. Can be used for creating and editing video in the browser. Its noteworthy features include multi-track editing, slow motion, storyboards tools, built-in graphics, advanced text editing, file and media manager.
The best tools for photo editing:
- PaintNet You can use PaintNet completely free on any device running the Windows OS. Enables you to create nice-looking photo projects in several clicks.
- PhotoScape This tool is ideal for quickly fixing and enhancing your images.
- inPixio Add a wide range of impressive effects with inPixio. Resize, change colours, size, and focus, and fix perspectives in your photo projects.
- Check here for the best free photo editing apps.
#7 Shoot Portraits
The art of portrait photography is immortal. Faces can tell different stories to the beholders if captured properly. When traveling, you’ll encounter lots of locals. And some of them will be eager to pose for you or just let you take a quick photo of their faces.
Make sure to connect with your subject and stay aware of the lightning and environment. Pick the right lens and focal length to compliment on your subject’s features, but at the same time don’t aim to embellish the reality excessively. It’s the authenticity you should be striving for.
#8 Create Motion
There is one exceptionally magical property of photos. They can convey the mood or atmosphere of a certain place in the most meticulous manner. Surprisingly, this sense of authenticity and peculiarity often evaporates from videos capturing the same place. Still, if you take advantage of such a simple camera movement as panning, time-lapse, or hyperlapse, you may instantly enliven your footage.
It’s also a good idea to shoot already moving objects and people alongside static architecture and landscapes. There are also lots of other video editing trends you may want to tap into when creating your video projects.
#9 Share Your Creations
What’s the point of creating tons of breath-taking images and footages if you cannot share the fruits of your inspiration with anybody? Let your friends and fans be the first to know about your adventures and impressions!
With the advent of social media websites, any artist can share their impressions with millions of people from different corners of the planet. Make sure to share your video and photos on Facebook and Twitter. Pamper your Instagram followers with the portion of new footages from your trip to Cuba or Argentina. If you still haven’t harnessed the power of TikTok, one of the fastest-growing video-sharing platforms, it’s about time you did that.
There are other platforms that can help promote your photos. Unsplash and Pexels are the best places to find stock photos and share your own images with the large community.
#10 Export Properly
Last but not least, take care to use proper settings when exporting your footage. Ideally, you should export your footage in the highest quality possible. Yep, 4k is quite popular these days. Be that as it may, make sure to check the supported file formats, resolution, codes, and other settings and keep them consistent with the source.
Traveling isn’t only about exploring new destinations. It’s a great chance to share genuine emotions and countless authentic impressions with your family, close friends, and even strangers. Unleash your creative potential. Start creating breathtaking photos and videos during your trips. Hoe, our tips will come in handy!
