The third and final speaker at #blogatthebeach ran by icelolly.com a couple of weeks ago was Kaye Ford from Fordtography.

I’m sure many of you have heard of Kaye, she has worked with many bloggers, is active on social media and even has her own blog.

All of the talks were great, but I probably took most away from this talk as it’s what I know the least about. I don’t know much about photography and generally, wing it.

So here is what I took away from Kaye’s talk:

You don’t have to focus on your travel buddy.

It might be tempting to make your buddy the focus of the shoot, but you can focus on details in the background rather than your friend to give a sense of exploration.

Snow is hard and looks blue on cameras.

When photographing snow, it will appear blue on camera. You can either adjust your cameras white balance if you know how or edit it later in editing software.

Don’t just take a snap of the whole scene..

.. think about how you can capture the essence of the place in a more memorable way.

While it might be tempting to take a straight-on photo of a skyline, see if there is something else you can focus on to make it stand out and more unique.

Include tourists in the shot.

Man, most of my photos are ruined by humans. Paris. Disney World. Melbourne. Even in my home city of York I can never get the photos I want thanks to people being in the way.

Kaye really shocked me when she said something I had never thought of before – keep the tourists in the shot!

There are always going to be people in tourist areas, so don’t worry about cutting them out. Just avoid focusing on them so they are blurred out.

Use your camera in raw..

capturing the true essence of sunrises and sunsets can’t be done in auto. Don’t be scared to learn about ISO, shutter speed, or even changing the color space of your photographs.

Learning how to use the basic settings on your camera can open up a whole new world. Using in auto isn’t going to get the same colours as using in raw and you’ll be more limited when it comes to editing.

iPhone shots look different.

Taking shots on your phone look different, you are likely to put less thought into the photo and while phone cameras are better than they used to be, they are still no match for a camera. So make sure you take one on your travels with you to get the best content.