Travel Around The World With The Gentleman Wayfarer
No matter how, when, why or where you travel around the world you are sure to receive one of the best educations of your life. The lessons you learn may be small and unnoticeable or they may be huge and life changing.
A foreign culture may make you realise something you didn’t know about yourself and sometimes even move you to tears. My visit to Bhutan took me to a state of peacefulness I’ve not found anywhere in the Western world. I can’t begin to describe the effect the tiny kingdom had on me except to say when I viewed photos and video from the journey, tears rolled down my cheeks. It’s a mystery to me why the tears came even today. All I know is Bhutan touched me beyond measure.
The taste of new food, aromas, colors and even travel sounds can leave an impression on you well after you leave a destination. The sensory elements of travel may inspire you to add them to your own creative adventures in cooking or music or handicrafts.
You may be in awe of Big Ben or Mont Saint Michel glowing against the night sky. Istanbul’s Blue Mosque or the Old Medina in Marrakech send your senses into sensory overload. A sunset on a beach in the Caribbean or Bali may change the way you look at the world.
But most of all, it is the people you meet along the way who will touch you in ways you never though imaginable. Maybe you’ll understand that we are all just trying to make it in this world. We just happen to speak differently or pray a little different. Inherently, we’re all good people.
And so when I wanted to show the many places I’ve travelled throughout the world, I decided to do it in one go in one epic video presentation which I’ve titled “Travel Around The World With The Gentleman Wayfarer.” There are approximately 3000 photos in the fast-paced presentation that span all the way around the world. The places and people I’ve included have impacted my life in one way or another. This is my tribute to every one and every place that has made a difference in my life.
Travel with an iPhone or any mobile phone is very common today. If you are keen to improve your travel photography skills, a mobile device is a great way to do it. Phones are easily accessible, they fit in your pocket and you really don’t have to think too much.
Consider these iPhone Travel Photography Tips during your next journey.
1) Strengthen your travel photos with different focal lengths.
The iPhone is equipped with two lenses, a wide-angle 28mm and a portrait lens, 56mm. Different focal lengths tell different stories. A wider angle generally gives a better sense of place, while a telephoto brings the viewer into the details of the subject. Consider this while you’re shooting and experiment with both. And remember – one key element to great photo composition is filling your frame.
2) Keep Using Your iPhone in Low Light
Some of my favorite images have been shot well after the sun has gone down. I love the challenge of low light photography. In the past, I would have put my iPhone away thinking the images wouldn’t be usable, but now with a new sensor and faster aperture (f/1.8), the iPhone autofocuses and captures substantially better in low light.
3) Be In The Moment But Also Think Ahead
Travel photography is about capturing the unknowns and unexpected. Always be looking forward, and consider using the iPhone’s burst mode so you don’t miss a moment as it happens. To use burst mode, press and hold the shutter button until rapid fire begins.
4) Buy An Unlocked iPhone So You Can Switch to Local SIM Cards.
Communication is super important while traveling. If you’re roaming internationally, the cost can be astronomical. Buy a local SIM card as it allows you to make new plans, call someone, google something, and more, while you’re on the go. In photography, this means your GPS data will be recorded with your photo. The iPhone’s memories feature can organize your images together by location and create simple and fun video vignettes.
Later, you can also look on a map in Photos and see exactly where you captured different photographs. I use this feature as I don’t always remember the names of the places where I’ve taken photos.
5) Bring a Small Tripod
A small, compact tripod can be helpful and is a great way to capture time-lapses, low-light images, and more. While the iPhones now all have a stabilizer built in, the extra support from a tripod can be especially helpful with the iPhone optical zoom.
Keep in mind that shooting with a longer focal length, like the iPhone optical zoom, amplifies camera shake. You’ll find it will naturally be more difficult to get a sharp clear shot while shooting with 2x, especially in low-light environments or unstable foundations, like a moving vehicle. To compensate, use a mini-tripod or experiment with burst mode. Sometimes I’ll shoot a 20-shot burst just to ensure that I have the sharpest shot possible.
6) Upload Your Photos to the Cloud Daily
Thanks to a the iPhone’s water-resistant feature, you won’t be losing our pictures during accidental swims, but it could be left at a hotel, or worse, picked from your pocket, which happened to me in Ecuador. At the end of the day, the iPhone can be replaced, but your pictures can’t. Don’t get two weeks into a trip only to lose them all in a moment.
If you don’t have your laptop because you’re traveling light, consider a SanDisk iXpand. It’s essentially a USB flash drive with a Lightning connector, so you can quickly and easily off-load your images each day. I love mind and take it everywhere I travel.
Be sure to keep your backup and your iPhone in separate bags for extra safety.
7) Play it safe.
Don’t put your iPhone—or any valuable—in the tray when going through security. Instead, put it in a pocket of your bag before sending it through the x-ray. This way it’s protected from being accidentally—or intentionally—carried off before you get through the metal detector.
8) Play To The Strengths of the iPhone
One of the greatest strengths of the iPhone as a camera is its agility. You can focus on getting to the best shoot spots instead of worrying about lugging gear. Don’t weigh it down with a bunch of unnecessary DSLR lens adapters.
Try leaving your DSLR at home and travel super light. The iPhone doesn’t replace your DSLR, but it’s plenty powerful and a really fun way to experience and capture the environment around you. You’ll love leaving the extra chargers, batteries, lenses, and big tripod at home for a change.