Outdoor Photography How To

This breathtaking photo by Jackie Tran may look like it was captured on another planet but it was actually taken from the northern shore of Iceland’s Snæfellsnes peninsula. “It’s about two miles from Grundarfjörður town,” Tran told Shutterbug. “And the main mountain in the background of the photo is called Kirkjufell.”

Namibia, located in Southwest Africa along the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the least populated countries in the world, second only to Mongolia. Its diversified, arid, and stark landscapes of desert, sand dunes, rugged coastline, mountains, and salt pans provide a home for some of the last nomadic tribes in Africa, and offer a unique blend of desert flora and fauna. For photographers, Namibia is the ideal destination in Africa to travel overland on a self-drive excursion to find the many photographic possibilities this desert country has to offer.

While Shutterbug reader Robert Dunham dreams of shooting the vast landscapes in Montana, he has found “great wonder and satisfaction in shooting macro” at his North Carolina home. He combines his two favorite pastimes, gardening and photography, by “taking a bunch of gear to the garden and splitting time between the spade and the camera.”

Photographing fireflies is a “thing” in Japan, where every summer photographers venture out in the early evening to capture these winged insects painting the landscape fantastic. These “lightnin’ bugs” also do their illuminating dance in the Southern United States, so you may want to try photographing their bioluminescence yourself.

Whether you’re traveling the world, going on a family vacation, or just taking a quick weekend trip, you want to come home with images that are just as amazing as your memories. Our friends at Macphun teamed up with four top pros who, in their own words, provide the following advice for capturing the travel images of a lifetime.

Douglas Croft captured this incredible snowy vista from the top of the Aiguille du Midi, high above Chamonix, France. “We had been in the Alps for two weeks, but this is one of the highest vertical ascent cable cars in the world, taking us up to 12,602 feet, and now we were above the Alps,” Croft says about the location.

On Monday evening, February 8th, I got an e-mail okaying my request for press credentials to cover the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl victory parade. It was triple good news: I’m a Broncos fan, I’d get images for stock, and I wouldn’t have to travel far (I live about 10 miles from Denver).