How can I make my travel pictures more interesting?

When it comes to landscape and travel photography, do you try to capture what thousands already have? Or do you look for something a little more unique? Perhaps you are asking, how can I make my travel pictures more interesting?

I love to travel, many people do. Sadly, for many of us, we currently can’t really travel far. But that shouldn’t stop us from looking a little outside the box, as it were.

I find when you go to a tourist spot, everyone seems to take the same pictures. Line up 10 photographers in the same location and see what happens. Instead, try looking for different options — there are ALWAYS different options. I recently visited a little hot spot on Victoria’s coastline, Phillip Island.

Pyramid Rock

This is Pyramid Rock, so named for its shape. There is a fairly short walk from the car park along some winding boardwalks to get to the lookout to see this. To be honest it’s actually pretty uninspiring as a photo. I have shot this several times in the past. Most tourists do. 

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So instead of walking all the way to the end, I looked around. I actually found taking a wide-angle shot of the whole area, gave me so much more scope. As a landscape image, you could see the whole vista, which gives a real sense of scale too, especially with the geese in the foreground.

Cape Woolamai

This is Cape Woolamai. I know how impressive those rock formations are — I have been there. People actually climb over those at low tide to capture The Pinnacles on the other side (not me).

So do you zoom in or as in the below image zoom out? One gives a real sense of our rugged it is, the other gives a sense of scale. Nobody really shoots on this side — they all shoot from the other side.

The Blowhole

Now the Blowhole at Phillip Island, most of the time is fairly boring, to be honest. It needs a particularly high tide and a southern swell to really blow. I also went with the wrong lens (I know, I know, I should have known better), but it did give me the opportunity to look at things a little differently. While I did take some images of the Blowhole — more of a cavern really — I looked for a different aspect. I ended up shooting some zoomed-in shots of the water on the rocks, which I really liked.

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When you visit somewhere, don’t just take the obvious shot and leave it there. Walk around and have a really good look, as there may be other vantage points offering something different. This really makes your travel pictures far more interesting.