Travel Photography How To

Nitish Kumar Meena’s day gig is designing software solutions for Microsoft, but in his off time he’s an adventurous travel photographer intent on capturing our world’s natural wonders.

The Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) competition showcases the finest travel images from across the globe, and the winning photos from this year’s contest are absolutely stunning as always. Photographers from 123 countries submitted images in a wide range of categories,

Indigenous peoples in remote parts of the word tend to be rather wary of outsiders—especially when they have a camera pointed in their face. But Turkish photographer Mehmet Genc uses a simple method to put his subjects at ease: He just tells them “You are so beautiful.”

Maybe Cuba attracted me most because it was forbidden. If I’m not allowed to go, I want to go. There was also the lure of a place stuck in time, where people were cut off from technology, a place very different from the world I knew. Which is exactly the kind of place I love to explore and photograph.

Photographing the ice caves underneath the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, can be a challenge. First of all, the caves, while beautiful, are a treacherous place to shoot. “There is danger involved in going inside, particularly at the entrance, as ice falls regularly and the caves are sometimes closed and some become impassible,” photographer Blaine Harrington explains.

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.

The first thing I do in a new country is get a prepaid SIM card for my phone. Sure, this means that I’m still connected, but the ability to address Google Maps, TripAdvisor, or Foursquare at any point far outweighs the negatives of being sucked back into the infinite void that is Facebook. Pre-paid SIM cards are available everywhere, and let you use your phone to research photo opportunities and share your next masterpiece in every corner of the globe.