5 Travel Photography Tips I Use on Every Trip 📸✈️

Caption This! 🫏

Grand Turk, Bonaire & Aruba: My 14-Day Adventure 🌍 🚢

Looking back to 2011, it’s hard to believe that it has already been 15 years since those photos were captured. Time has flown by, and perhaps it’s time to consider planning a trip back to California.

And just like that, the bonus day: goodbye. Day 31 closes the challenge with a photograph that symbolizes a farewell or a new beginning — because every ending in photography is really both. Thirty-one days of showing up with a camera taught me more than any single tip ever could: creativity isn't a mood, it's a habit. Thank you for following along all month. The challenge may be over, but the camera and I? We're just getting started.

Thirty days, thirty photographs — Day 30 is a celebration, and honestly, finishing this challenge is worth celebrating all by itself. But celebration as a subject is bigger than parties and confetti: it's any moment that represents joy. A laugh, a milestone, a small win on an ordinary Tuesday. Photographing joy is a skill like any other in this challenge, and maybe the most important one. Here's to everyone who followed along, and to finding reasons to celebrate long after July ends.

Day 29 finds the photo in the most familiar place of all: the daily route. The road to work, school, or the store — the one you could travel with your eyes closed — is full of scenes you've stopped seeing. A commute photographed with fresh attention proves this whole challenge's point: you don't need to go somewhere new to find something new. You just need to look at the everyday like a visitor would.

With the finish line in sight, Day 28 dares us to photograph something we've never photographed before. New subjects are where growth hides: the first attempt might be awkward, but it breaks the habit of shooting the same comfortable things the same comfortable way. Twenty-eight days in, that's exactly the nudge this challenge was built for. Whatever your "never tried it" subject is — today's the day it gets its portrait.

Every window is a frame that's already hanging on the wall — Day 27 asks what yours looks out on. A home window, a car window, a plane window at 30,000 feet: the glass gives you a border, the view gives you a scene, and together they make a photograph with a built-in sense of place. As a travel photographer, some of my favorite shots have started exactly like this — just looking out, camera in hand, nowhere else to be.