10+ Tips to Work with Natural Light for Travel Photography

1. Golden Hour: Embrace the Magic Light

Golden hour occurs during the hour before sunset and an hour after sunrise, casting a warm, golden light that improves the beauty of photos. During this time, the Earth’s atmosphere filters out blue light, resulting in warmer and more colorful images. This special lighting is perfect for portrait and street photography as it flatters subjects with its soft glow.

Photographers often find golden hour beneficial because more people are out and about, particularly around sunset when locals finish work and engage in evening activities. To maximize this magical light, explore unique elements in your surroundings to enrich your compositions alongside the setting sun. By doing so, you can capture vibrant colors and deep shadows, creating captivating images.

Golden Hour is a favorite among professional photographers because it enhances the natural beauty of scenes without harsh shadows. Make sure to adjust your camera settings to embrace this soft light, and experiment with different angles to take full advantage of this time. Check out my full guide to sunset photography for an in depth look at this time.

2. Blue Hour: Capture a Soft, Mystical Feel

The blue hour is a magical time in photography that occurs just before sunrise and after sunset. It’s similar, but different, than the golden hours. During this period, the ambient light is reduced, offering a unique opportunity to capture soft, mystical images. Landscapes and seascapes particularly benefit from the vibrant colors and the glow that characterize this time.

Photographers aiming to shoot during the blue hour often face low light conditions, making a tripod essential for stability. High ISO settings might also be necessary to bring out more detail and vibrancy. Longer exposure times can help create deep, rich colors while still capturing the ambiance of this transitional time.

This time of day blends elements of both daytime and nighttime photography. It’s a perfect moment to photograph scenes featuring stars, the moon, and vivid colors against the twilight sky. Utilizing these features can result in atmospheric images that transport the viewer into a dreamlike world.

3. Golden/Blue Hour Shadows: Add Texture and Depth

Understanding how to use shadows during the golden hour can greatly improve your travel photography. During this time, light is warm and glows with rich colors like orange and magenta. This sideways direction of light creates gentle, deep shadows that add texture and depth to your images.

When capturing portraits or landscapes, these shadows give your photos a more dynamic and three-dimensional look. This is because the golden hour’s interplay between light and shadow highlights the natural contours and features of your subjects. This effect makes surfaces and objects appear more vibrant and interesting.

To make the most of this, observe how shadows fall on your subject matter. Position yourself and your camera to best capture these shadows without them overwhelming the main features. By focusing on this balance between light and shadows, your photos will have a more professional and aesthetically pleasing quality. Using the natural landscape to add texture can help add depth to your image so the viewer can actually feel like they are there instead of looking at a photo. Doesn’t this photo of the sunset in Lugano transport you to Switzerland?

4. Use Backlighting for a Dramatic Silhouette

Backlighting can transform an ordinary photo into an artistic masterpiece by surrounding your subject with a glowing halo. This technique is especially effective in creating dramatic silhouettes, adding depth to your travel photography. For the best results, shoot just before sunrise or after sunset when warm colors and soft light enhance the subject.

When capturing silhouettes, it’s crucial to expose the bright background. This ensures that the subject appears as a striking dark figure against the illuminated backdrop, creating a powerful contrast. Be aware that poorly composed backlit photos might turn into nondescript silhouettes, so mastering your camera settings is key.

To add detail to your silhouette shots, consider using reflectors. They can provide just enough light on your subject’s face to maintain recognition while keeping the ethereal glow intact. With practice, backlighting can significantly elevate your travel photos, giving them a unique, dramatic appeal.

5. Look for Natural Reflectors in Midday Light

In midday travel photography, the sun can create harsh overhead light and deep shadows. To tackle this, use natural reflectors like sand, water, or bright walls to redirect light onto your subject. These reflectors soften harsh shadows and enhance color saturation, making images more vibrant.

6. Overcast Skies: Capture Soft, Even Lighting

Overcast skies offer soft, even lighting that enhances delicate details and creates a tranquil mood in photographs. While some might dismiss this light as dull, it provides opportunities for capturing vibrant colors against a subdued background. Embracing the softness of overcast lighting can refine your shots, making them feel more gentle and sophisticated.

Adjusting the white balance is crucial in these conditions to prevent unwanted color casts and ensure accurate color representation. By doing so, you can maintain the natural hues of your subject, making your images look more authentic and appealing.

Overcast days should not be feared but rather embraced by photographers to unlock subtle and gentle compositions.

7. Find Shade in Harsh Midday Sun

Midday sun can be harsh, creating deep shadows and reducing color saturation in your travel photography. Instead of shooting directly in this light, find shaded areas to capture more balanced and flattering images, especially for portrait photography. Shaded spots help diffuse the light, resulting in even distribution and better image quality.

When photographing people, ask your subjects to step into the shade. This simple move avoids the harsh shadows that overhead sunlight often causes on faces. Shooting in the shade helps maintain more natural, vibrant colors and improves the overall aesthetic of your photos.

Look for trees, buildings, or any structure that can provide cover from direct sunlight. d Shade doesn’t have to just be for the sun, adding in background to the photo makes it more interesting.

8. Know Your Landscape

In a perfect world, a photographer would visit the location before the shoot. However, with travel that is not always possible (and a lot of time we only have one opportunity to visit the place). So knowing our landscape looks a bit different – it’s researching destinations ahead of time.

Whether that is through a search engine or Instagram, getting photography inspiration for your trip is important. You’ll find out where people go to get the best shots – and when! I knew I wanted to see a sunrise in Hawaii, but I wasn’t sure where. After researching a number of great spots, I found Laupāhoehoe Point. I loved the contrast of the dark lava rocks with the sunrise in the background. Of course, the weather didn’t cooperate until after sunrise, but we still got some amazing shots!

9. Use Directional Light to Add Drama

This is related to knowing your landscape – knowing how the light comes across the landscape is important. Side lighting is excellent for adding depth and texture, helping your subject to appear more dynamic and engaging. This type of lighting is perfect for capturing the intricate details of architecture or the rugged textures of landscapes.

Backlighting can create striking silhouettes or highlighted edges, adding drama to your shots. It is particularly effective during the golden hours, just after sunrise or before sunset, when the light’s angle is lower. However, be cautious as backlighting can often lead to a blown-out background, which may require adjustments in post-processing.

Front light is ideal for portrait photography as it evenly illuminates the subject’s face, minimizing imperfections and creating a flattering effect. While top light can cast unflattering shadows, it is useful in scenarios where you want to capture expansive views, like fields or beaches. Mastering these lighting techniques will enable you to manipulate mood and depth in your photos, making them stand out. Remember, the direction of light can transform a simple shot into something extraordinary.

10. Adapt to Natural Light Changes for Dynamic Shots

Adapting to natural light changes is key for dynamic shots in travel photography. Natural light varies with the time of day, season, and direction, offering different moods and tones. As a travel photographer, adjusting your approach to these shifting light conditions can enrich your images.

Spencer likes to tease me that my camera is always attached to me, but this is why. The light that I see going into a restaurant for a meal can be very different than the light that I see when I come out. Being prepared for natural light to change (and sometimes change quickly) is a key part of travel photography.

11. Don’t be afraid to drone

It’s no secret I love my drone shots. It provides new perspective on landscapes that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. When it comes to using natural light though, it’s a great way to capture the light on buildings. On this castle in San Marino, not only did we get a nice perspective, but we got to see how the light shines off of it. I will tell you that it looked VERY different than where I was standing!

Many photography drones (like our Dji 4) have collision detection, so even in lower light, I feel comfortable flying it.