What makes a great vacation photo?
What makes a photograph so great it will stand out of the crowd? If you’re looking for the answer here, I must disappoint you – I don’t know. No one knows. Best I can do is to lead into the right direction. Everyone is able to recognize a great photo when they see it, but it´s impossible to make a “recipe” from it. What one can do is to follow some guidelines and common denominators which are common for great photos, which in turn will raise the possibility to catch a great picture.
Great picture today means different things today what it did for 50 years ago, there’s many reasons for it. Most of the old “iconic” photos are iconic because they have a notable documentary value. Only few people – mostly press photographers had cameras back then and it was a stroke of luck to be in the right spot at the right time. The aesthetical value wasn’t crucial. Only thing that mattered was if you could document the ongoing situation and put a stamp in the history.
Nowadays everyone is carrying a camera and there’s no know way a “professional” photographer will be the first one on the spot to witness the soon to be historical event. This is the reason why photojournalism is dead, well not dead but it´s not an exclusivity for the real photographers anymore.
In the era of film photography everything was harder. The amount of film was limited, you didn’t see the result right away and if you wanted to be sure that your picture was good you were forced to shoot multiple pictures from the same scene, which in turn limited the film supply even more. Film was slow and colors were correct only in daylight. When the film was developed your changes to “photoshop” it further was very limited.
Nowadays everything is different. You can take as many pictures you like and the results will be visible instantly. If you don’t like the results you can make magical thing in the post processing.
The growth in the number of photos taken each year is exponential. 90% of all photos are taken with a smartphone. 99.99 % of all taken photos are crap. The ratio of crappy/good photos have also grown exponentially and that’s sensible – why bother if it´s free. Most of the snaps wasn’t meant to be good in the first place. With the exception of documentary photography, the same rule applies to great photography today what it did in the past and that’s the focus in this post.
For a good picture, you have to make the effort
"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain" - Dolly Parton
If all your pictures are taken in bright daylight from a well-known/photographed subject with your wife/husband/children/pets in the front, you will end up with crap. There’s already enough of bad photos of Eiffel tower taken in harsh daylight with sunburn tourist in the front of it. This is a zero-effort photo.
There’s nothing wrong shooting common tourist attractions – usually they are very photogenic, but try to find an angle where most people haven’t seen them before and never try to combine landscape and portrait photography into the same frame. Make the golden hour and twilight work for you. Get out the bed before anyone else and get out with your camera. Move, move and move around to find the right spot and light. Do a proper tactical intelligence from the area before. A dull object in daylight can be photogenic when the light is in your favor. This is what I mean with the effort.
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| Big Ben early Sunday morning. The light was great and the town was empty |
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| Colosseum early morning. No queues or tourists to interfere with. Perfect situation for photography. |
Know you gear
Frequently heard common phrase is that camera doesn´t matter, the one who operates the camera does. Well, that’s correct – and incorrect. It´s totally possible to take great photos with a smartphone, especially today when their technical quality is par excellence. But smartphones have their limitations, your bonded to a fixed lens which will take in your possibilities. A proper digital camera with interchangeable lenses will give you so many more opportunities to frame your shot, but only when you know your gear. A top notch professional DSLR won´t gain anything to a smartphone if you just shoot automatic.
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| This kind of picture is of course a cliche, but it demonstrates a photograph you can´t take with a smartphone. |
Learn the photographic basics: Aperture, focal length, field of view, DOF, shutter speed, ISO etc. and how they affect the picture. Then you will know which lens to choose, when to use flash or tripod etc. Understanding the basic science of photography doesn´t necessarily make you a great photographer, but the lack of understanding will definitely limit you. Then there are things like lens sharpness, dynamic range, noise floor and some other “pixel beeping” stuff you will bump into while reading camera forums – forget it. Every digital camera and lens sold today are good enough. I´m using mostly 30-40-year old manual lenses and their superb.
Post processing
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| Man and a woman, Roma Termini |
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| Road to Mount Teide, Tenerife |
When you press the shutter, your only on half way from your final photograph. Almost every photo needs at least some post processing. If you know your gear you shoot RAW. If you shoot JPEG, you’re bounded to camera manufacturers interpretation of the scene. Sometimes it´s perfect sometimes less so. There’s no reason to chain yourselves to that.
Post processing is skill to master and just like camera gear, it´s always good to know your tools. There’s no right or wrong in post processing. Some people like saturated colors and HDR, some more muted or B&W. There are some puritans who doesn´t accept if anything is removed or added. It´s totally up to you what to do. If you and even better your audience like the results, then you’re on right track. My opinion is that photography is an art, not necessarily a perception of reality. If you send your picture to a photography contest, they will provide the rules what is allowed and not in the post. With your own photos you’re the master.
