Travel Photography How To

One of the many joys of photography is travelling to unfamiliar locations and capturing images of unique scenes you can’t find at home. But what if you arrive at a location amidst poor weather conditions, or at the wrong time of day with nothing but “bad light”?

The tutorial below will help you shoot great travel photos when Mother Nature disappoints, and provides a free PDF Guide to Natural Light Photography. Mitchell Kanashkevich is a successful adventure/travel photographer, and in the video below he provides numerous tips for using light creatively wherever you travels may take you.

According to Kanashkevich, “Natural light is the most powerful tool that travel and documentary photographers have,” and he illustrates just about any type of light you may encounter when shooting outdoors. The idea with this detailed tutorial is to not limit yourself with conventional notions like avoiding the midday sun, or that golden hour is always the best time to shoot.

Kanashkevich is an expert visual storyteller, and his tips reveal how you can use different types of light to tell stories and convey mood, and capture “the feel of what it was like to be present at the moment you pressed the shutter button.” In other words, there’s a question you should ask yourself before deciding that one type of light is better than another; namely, “better for what?”

You’ll also learn that photos don’t have to be beautiful to be powerful, especially when travelling to places where heat, hardship, and other harsh conditions are the world in which your subjects live. Under these circumstances, the warmth of a sunset or the glow of golden hour can be the wrong light for capturing the appropriate mood. There’s so much more to this eye-opening, 17-minute tutorial, that you may even want to watch it twice.

You can find more great tips from Kanashkevich on his YouTube channel, and in an earlier tutorial of his we shared, explaining how to make great travel portraits of unsuspecting subjects. After watching the video, be sure to download the free guide to natural light photography.