There are many ways to make your blog one of the best blog sites, ranking among the best on various search engines, and simultaneously send a real message to your audience. Photos are a great place to start, especially if you like traveling.
Get the best gear
There are lots of things you can get in terms of equipment, like buying the best outdoor camera. The reason for that is you’ll need a rugged, yet a light camera that can withstand various terrain conditions. A resistant, waterproof case is one advantage to it, but an outdoor camera is also more appropriate for the light outside.
You’ll need proper lenses, maybe even a tripod for when you want to take photos of nature. Capturing that perfect sunrise light requires you to be at your photo spot with some time in advance, but you don’t want your hands getting too tired either.
And you definitely need the best portable power supply, that keeps your camera fully functional for hours at a time. You can recharge these power supplies when you get to your hotel room, but some of them can even recharge by using solar panels.
Tell a story like some of the best blog sites in your niche (but stay original)
If people are on your blog, they want to read more about your experiences. They want to find out what moves you, what your passions and memories relate to the most. So you need to build a story through your photos as well.
You can either accompany them with a bit of text, or you can create the storyline through the succession of photos. So you’ll have to pick the most memorable event or characters to stand out in your images, the ones that speak the most to your audience.
If you’re traveling in Greece, visiting the Acropolis, you can upload a picture of that in full daylight, and people will get nothing from it, other than the fact that you traveled to Acropolis. But upload a picture of it at sunset, with the sun shading it completely, and you capture the aura of mystery of the ancient temples.
Make yourself the main character
That doesn’t mean you have to be in literally every picture, but it would be a good idea to make the trip about you. Your experiences and the way you look at things are the reasons why people visit your blog.
Let’s say you’re traveling to a place where you’re trying out a new food for the first time, one that’s exotic in both looks and ingredients. You could take a picture of your meal the way it looks on the table, but that would be too plain and it would say nothing about your feelings.
The next best thing you could do is introduce another object in the picture, one that explains how exotic the food is. Include an impressive scenery, an extravagant waiter, or an outlandish restaurant decorum to render your surprise.
You can include people eating that food, or looking at it. Making them a part of your story helps because their mimic will express exactly what you want to convey through your photographs.
Bring your audience along
If you’re to tell a story like the best blog sites do, you need to know which characters speak the most to your audience. But great travel photos will include human subjects, the places they’re traveling to and the new things they experience here.
To visually satisfy the wanderlust of your public, you should make them feel like they’re traveling with you. Say you’re hiking through the wilderness of Tibet, and you’re watching an exquisite sunset on the massif of Chomolungma. Taking a picture of that would be great, even if the light isn’t awesome.
But including people in the picture, maybe yourself, along with your accompanying buddies is better. And if you want to emphasize how tired, yet how excited you are, there’s nothing like your backpack casually dropped near your feet. I follow some of the best blog sites on Instagram for inspiration and I love seeing shots that aren’t always the same. The backpack at the feet is a perfect example.
Candids versus planned photos
If you’re to target a more diverse audience and convince people to return to your blog, you have to reach this perfect balance between candids and directed photographs. I love the photo I took of my girls playing in the sand when we visited Grand Cayman (read more on that trip).
But even when you take candids, you still have to put in some work. Getting really close to a particular subject or view will render more details, so you can make that photo very interesting. Or you can zoom as much as you can, without blurring out your main character.
When taking photos of your friends, you might still capture some great smiles and genuine feelings. However, most of the times you need to ask them to sit or act in a certain way, for the sake of a better picture.
It’s not easy dealing with just the landscape, either. In order to create the tri-dimensional effect, you need to include a significant object in the foreground, midground, and background. So if you’re to emphasize the beauty of a far away peak, you might need to place an interesting rock in the foreground.
Follow the rules of composition
To make sure your photos look professional, you have to follow certain rules. Firstly, use complementary colors to attract the attention of your viewers to a certain spot. Taking a picture of a quaint cottage at sunrise is better because its orange color is emphasized by the blue morning sky.
You should also frame your subject, so people look at it first before scrolling down to the next picture. A rapid waterfall as seen between a couple of trees looks more interesting than its mere image.
And lastly, split the image in three not in half, either on a vertical or horizontal plane. Our need for symmetry would tell a beginner photographer that the sky needs to take the upper half of a photo, while the sea, for instance, the lower half instead of a 2/1 ratio.
Great photos equal great shared experiences
Remember that a picture is worth a thousand words. Conveying the beauty you see to your audience is the engine behind the creation of awesome pictures. What would you say is the most important advice here? Do you have other tips for us? What are some of the best blog sites you’ve seen lately? Leave us a comment below.
