Travel Tales Through Travel Shots

Have you ever wished that your travel photography pulled at the heart strings of people and transported them into the scene with you? Where they too can share in you experience – see with their own eyes the majesty snow-capped mountains looming ahead of you, the painted bodies of exotic folks and the food that makes you salivate. In this day and age, where your Instagram feed is flooded with beautiful travel pictures from a million accounts, how do you click travel shots that are not just phenomenal pictures, but also an exciting story the masses are anticipating to hear?

- Nityapriya Kaliyath

The Flow of Your Travel Photo Series

To tell a story through your travel pictures, it is crucial you arrange them in a series. You can create a theme for your series before you begin clicking the pictures.

Like any good story, travel photo series should start with a hook. This should be a very powerful image; something that grabs the attention of the audience and compels them to turn to the next page of the photography book or press the next button on the web page. The discretion of choosing this cover image lies solely with you; you can use the picture of a dreamy landscape or a portrait of a person, it’s entirely up to you. As long as the images ‘hooks’ the attention of the viewer, you are good to go!

The images in the series should all be linked to each other. Like a good story, each subsequent picture should unravel the plot. For example, if you started off the cover image with a picture of a village in the valley, your next image could be of the important places in the village – may be a monastery. Followed by which, you can show a portrait shot of young monks praying.

And like a good story, a travel photo series should close on a high note too! For the closing shot, think about what you want your audience to take away from the story. Is it about the culture of the place? The magnificent landscape? The humility of the people? While choosing the closing shot, remember that it should tie up the story like great endings do.