Articles in Category: The Better Travel Photos Blog

Our blog is a source of photography advice and news about events. We focus of course on Paris and London, but much of our advice can be practiced anywhere.


Low Season Travel Photography: In Search of Winter Seascapes

Low Season Travel Photography: In Search of Winter Seascapes

Warm and welcoming in summer months, seaside in low season is a perfect place for travel and landscape photographers. Subdued colours, fantastic views and barely anyone around - isn't it a true paradise for thoughtful landscape hunters? Armed not only with their trusty camera, but also with good walking shoes and jackets, they head out in search of wintry beauty of nature...

Adventure on Lake Iseo in Search of Spectacular Landscapes

Adventure on Lake Iseo in Search of Spectacular Landscapes

In sunny September, a photographic assignment brought me to Northern Italy, or more precisely, to Monte Isola, an island situated in the middle of the beautiful lake Iseo. Once all the work was done, I took a couple of days to explore the island on my own. Equipped with a camera, my trusty 24-70 mm lens, and a map of the island, I headed out in search of magnificent Italian landscapes.

Half a Day on Mediterranean Coast: Nice the Beautiful

Half a Day on Mediterranean Coast: Nice the Beautiful

In early September I happened to stop for a few days in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast, with an important photographic mission, which I will soon tell you in a future post. September is truly the best time to visit Côte d'Azur: the crowds are gone, while the weather is still warm and pleasant, with the sea water temperature being close to air temperature, making the entire seaside experience even more enjoyable. Having only half a day to discover the city, I grabbed my camera and headed out in search of photo opportunities...

5 Types of Contrast to Enhance Your Travel Photos

5 Types of Contrast to Enhance Your Travel Photos

Contrast is a powerful photographic tool that helps to draw viewer's attention to the subject. In black-and-white photography, tonal contrast refers to the different in tones of the image: from white to grey to black. In colour photography, contrasting colours are used to make the subject stand out. And in the larger sense, contrast is any striking difference that gives added emphasis to the subject. Let's have a look at some examples of how contrast can be effectively used in photography in a variety of ways.

Exhibit: The Intimate World of Josef Sudek

Exhibit: The Intimate World of Josef Sudek

This summer, Prague comes to Paris, as seen through the eyes of the most important Czech photographer of the XX century, Josef Sudek. This is the first exhibition of Sudek in France. It is composed of a selection of a personal donation of some 3,000 original prints, previously unseen by public, and is exhibited in Jeu de Paume gallery in Jardin des Tuileries. "The Intimate World of Josef Sudek" is a chronicle of Sudek's life-long commitment to photography, of his incredible sensitivity to light and shadow, to everyday objects and to poetry of daily life, and a tribute to his work as an exceptional printmaker.

Lightroom Tutorial: Discovering Haze/Dehaze Feature

Lightroom Tutorial: Discovering Haze/Dehaze Feature

Compared to previous versions, Lightroom 6 (or Lightroom CC) has several new features that can make wonders with your travel photos. One of them is Haze/Dehaze. As the name suggests, it removes or adds haze to an image, and it can be used both for its direct purpose or creatively. So let's explore the possibilities of Haze/Dehaze, discover how it works and what is the difference between Dehaze and other editing options.

Lightroom CC Tutorial: How to Create HDR Images (Part II)

Lightroom CC Tutorial: How to Create HDR Images (Part II)

In part I, we looked closely at the exposure bracketing function and how it can help in photographing high contrast scenes. Once you have three or more photos of the same view with different exposures, the next step is to merge them into one High Dynamic Range (HDR) image with details in both shadows and highlights. While bracketing is easy to do in camera, until recently creating HDR images in Photoshop was quite a challenge. Luckily, the newest Lightroom CC offers a new feature of merging HDR images that is surprisingly easy to use even for a beginner photographer. Let's have a look at the workflow.

How to Use Exposure Bracketing for Creating HDR Images (Part I)

How to Use Exposure Bracketing for Creating HDR Images (Part I)

There are several ways of dealing with high contrast scenes and get all parts of the image correctly exposed: come back at a different time of day, shoot from a different angle, or use bracketing + HDR (High Dynamic Range) technique. Bracketing is available in virtually every camera (not necessarily DSLR), and the HDR process has now become surprisingly easy with the help of Lightroom CC. It may all sound a little too fancy in the beginning, so let's go through these two techniques step by step. In part I we will start with bracketing and its options, and we will dedicate part II to creating HDR images in Lightroom CC.

6 Points to Consider Before Buying a New Lens

6 Points to Consider Before Buying a New Lens

As soon as you get your first DLSR camera, you start looking at various lenses to go with it. At Better Travel Photos, we often get questions as to what lens to buy before a trip or which ones to bring on a photo tour. A zoom or a prime, wide-angle or telephoto, standard or macro? There are lenses for all purposes, tastes and wallets. Which one to choose? How not to get lost in the variety of lenses the market has to offer? Let's have a look at some key points to consider when buying a new lens.

Mastering Centered Composition: Say Yes to 'Dead Center'

Mastering Centered Composition: Say Yes to 'Dead Center'

One of the most common composition tips that any beginner photographer receives is to get the subject out of the "dead center". Indeed, placing your subject right in the middle of the frame is probably the easiest and most obvious thing to do, which often results in boring and uninteresting photographs. Does that, however, mean that one should never center the subject? Of course not! Centered composition is something very easy to do, however, it is hard to do it really well. Let's see how to create an exciting centered composition.

Capturing Time Travel: Provins Medieval Festival

Capturing Time Travel: Provins Medieval Festival

The Medieval Festival in Provins is one of the most colourful and entertaining outdoor events to be visited in France in mid-June. Located only and hour and a half drive from Paris, the medieval city of Provins with its fortifications and well-preserved city walls is recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site and makes a perfect setting for a large costumed two-day festival. This year, the theme of the 33rd festival edition was "Travel and discovery", and, as you may guess, this was a journey both in space and in time, an event that no travel photographer can miss!

Storytelling Through Photography: Historic Flood in Paris

Storytelling Through Photography: Historic Flood in Paris

You may have heard of historic floods that happened in Paris and over the bigger part of Europe in late May and early June this year. After several days of torrential rains, the Seine and Loire rivers brought their swollen waters towards the French capital, causing much surprise and trouble to the city dwellers, boat owners and museum keepers. While city services were continuously working on minimising the havoc the flooding caused, some Parisians headed out towards the embankments and the bridges, camera in hand, to capture the exceptional views it produced.

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