7 photo tips that give your travel pictures character

Do you wish to revisit them repeatedly, evoking the travel emotions you experienced while you were away? If so, this post is probably for you.

I have many thousand pictures. Yep. Some of them are really good too. And some of them I wish I would take out, develop, and maybe even hang up. I want the pictures to remind me of fantastic moments and experiences, which I sometimes long for in my everyday life.

The problem is just that (if you can call it a problem at all) the pictures lack character. Not the ones of my son, obviously (there’s always room for him on my wall) – but the other pictures, which I have taken of exciting places around the world.

A world of pictures

I believe we have the universe’s most thoroughly photographed planet. We’ve been photographing our world for centuries, and especially in the last 10 years, it has gone completely wild. With our mobile phones, we have the opportunity to document all our travels in a plethora of pictures, which we share on the internet and social media. Not just with our friends and family, but with the whole world.

And we’re inundated with pictures of the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and all sorts of famous (and unknown) places on earth. Not to mention food pictures, coffee cups with beautiful milk patterns, and everyday pictures in all conceivable contexts.

So what do we want with our travel pictures?

What do I want with mine?

What do you want with yours?

We’ve documented most things, so why pretend we’re the first to take a fantastic picture of “whatever” there is to find on earth?

Perhaps it’s no longer the point?

The important story

It seems to be deeply ingrained in us. The urge to tell a story. Share our knowledge and tell others what we have experienced, seen, and learned. That’s what we humans do. We tell stories. And that’s where I feel the urge to create something with a picture. I love stories. And I love telling them. Most of all, writing about them and telling them visually.

And I think that’s where photographs come into their own. Especially if we manage to express the stories we need to tell. And we do that when we dare to give our travel pictures character.

Character is edge, personality, courage, aesthetics combined in a visual composition that creates a thought, feeling, or idea of a story.

I’ve thought a lot about that, especially since I got my new camera, and therefore I’ve collected 7 pictures to remind myself of what I want with my pictures in the future, among other things. I hope you can use it to create character and a good story with your travel pictures as well.