13 Simple Tips for Taking Better Travel Photos with Your Phone

We all cherish the memories we create during our travels, and photography is an incredible way to capture those special moments. While we usually travel with our trusted mirrorless camera or DSLR camera, there are times when the convenience of our smartphones is unbeatable. After all, we always have our smartphones within arm’s reach. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or simply an adventurous traveller looking to document your journeys, mastering smartphone photography can enable you to capture stunning city shots that truly reflect the essence of your destination. In this article, we’ll share 13 easy and practical tips to help you take better travel photos with your phone. With these techniques in your pocket, you’ll be amazed at the remarkable images you can create.

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The Power of Smartphone Photography

Before we dive into the tips for better travel photos with your phone, let’s take a moment to appreciate the capabilities of today’s smartphone cameras. Gone are the days when you needed a bulky DSLR camera to capture stunning photos. Modern smartphones are equipped with advanced camera technologies that produce exceptional results. They offer convenience, portability, and ease of use, making them the perfect companions for your city explorations.

Personally, we like to use the incredible cameras of our smartphones – the iPhone 14 Pro (Sebastian) and Google Pixel 7 (Viola) – to capture stunning images during our city adventures. While DSLR and mirrorless cameras undoubtedly offer the highest quality and finer details, smartphone cameras have been rapidly advancing year after year. We love combining both phone photography and our high-end mirrorless camera to capture the essence of every moment.

In the following sections, we will provide you with simple and actionable tips to take better travel photos with your phone. Just by following these steps, you’ll notice a significant improvement in the quality of your travel photos.

Tips for Better Smartphone Travel Photography

Capture the Perfect Light

Lighting is the unsung hero of photography, and when it comes to capturing stunning city photos with your phone, understanding the power of light is essential.

Shooting During Golden Hour and Blue Hour

The golden and blue hours are your best friends when it comes to perfect light. The golden hour occurs during the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset. It bathes the city in soft, warm, and diffused light. It creates a magical glow that adds a captivating allure to your photos.

On the other hand, the blue hour takes place during the twilight period before sunrise and after sunset. It envelops the city in a deep blue sky, as shown in the picture of the Shard in London. It makes the colours in the cityscape pop and creates a mesmerising atmosphere. 

Shooting During Midday

It’s important to note that shooting during midday, when the sun is high in the sky, can create photos that appear flat and lack depth. The harsh and strong sunlight during this time creates a high contrast between light and shadow, which makes shadows appear very dark and tends to wash out colours. 

Solution: Around midday, opt for shooting indoors or utilising the shade. Alternatively, take advantage of overcast days. The cloud cover functions as a massive diffuser, effectively softening the harsh and strong light.

Shooting During Afternoon and Mid-Morning

Afternoon and mid-morning offer opportunities for beautiful photography with their slightly yellow and subtle light. It enhances skin tones, reduces blown-out highlights, and eliminates harsh shadows. While the lighting may appear flat during these times, paying attention to proper framing and composition can still result in stunning photos that highlight the features of your subject.

Use Elements to Frame the Subject

Framing is an important composition technique that adds depth and visual interest to your photos. To frame your subject, look for natural elements in the environment. These could include tree branches, windows, doorways, or archways (as showcased in the example captured in Singapore’s Kampong Glam district). By placing your subject within the frame, you draw attention to it and create a sense of depth in the image. 

Leading Lines

Use leading lines such as roads, fences, or pathways to guide the viewer’s eye towards your subject. These lines create a sense of movement and draw attention to the main focal point, which adds a dynamic element to your composition.

Use Gridlines and the Rule of Thirds

Most smartphones offer an option to display gridlines on the screen, which can help you compose well-balanced shots. The rule of thirds is a popular guideline for composition.

Visualise your screen divided into a 3×3 grid and position key elements along the lines or at the intersections. This simple technique adds visual interest and balance. Our eyes naturally look at one of these intersection points.

Let’s put this into perspective. Consider photographing a captivating cityscape. By placing the prominent architectural feature or the stunning skyline along the right or left vertical gridline, you instantly add depth and dynamism to your photo. It guides the viewer’s gaze and creates a more powerful and visually pleasing image.

Want to know how to enable gridlines? In the Google camera app, click Settings > More settings > Grid type > 3×3. And on the iPhone, click Settings > Camera > Enable Grid option.

These gridlines and the rule of thirds can be incredibly helpful tips for taking better travel photos, especially when using your phone.

Turn on HDR

When faced with challenging lighting conditions, HDR mode can be a game-changer. HDR mode stands for ‘High Dynamic Range’, which is increasingly common on many smartphones. 

By enabling HDR mode, your phone takes several shots at different exposure levels and combines them to create a well-exposed photograph. In other words, when you activate HDR mode, your smartphone intelligently combines multiple exposures. This ensures that the sky remains beautifully blue without being overly bright. At the same time, the cityscape retains its intricate details and shadows, just like the example below taken of the Big Ben in London.

Or imagine you are in a room with a really bright window and a dark lamp. When you try to take a picture of the room, either the window looks too bright and the lamp is dark, or the window looks good but you can’t see the details in the room. HDR helps solve this problem. It takes several pictures with different brightness levels and combines them together to make one picture that shows all the details in both the bright and dark parts. 

HDR is especially effective when you’re faced with a scene that has a wide range of brightness levels. The HDR mode will help you capture more balanced, vibrant, and detailed shots.

Embrace Negative Space

Negative space refers to the empty or unoccupied areas in your photo. It’s a powerful technique that can evoke a sense of simplicity, elegance, and focus in your photos. It allows the subject to stand out and adds a sense of balance to the composition. When capturing city scenes, look for open spaces, clear skies, or empty streets to incorporate negative space in your photos.

By embracing negative space, you draw attention to the main subject and give it room to breathe and shine. Remember, the key is to let the negative space take up a significant portion of the image. It allows the subject to command attention within its surroundings. 

Take Multiple Shots of the Same Subject

Don’t be afraid to experiment and take multiple shots of the same subject from different angles and perspectives. It’s always better to take more pictures than necessary – you can easily delete some later. Explore different viewpoints, vantage points, and compositions. Move around, crouch down, or even shoot from above to find unique angles that make your city shots stand out.

The best shots usually require some thought and intention rather than just quickly taking a picture without much consideration. Sometimes, the best picture is waiting for you just a few steps away.

Play with Reflections

Cities are full of reflective surfaces, from glass windows to puddles after rain. Take advantage of these reflections to add a unique perspective to your photos. Capture the cityscape mirrored in a glass building or the colourful lights reflecting in a river.

Reflections can add depth and symmetry to your city shots. They introduce a new dimension to your composition, transforming ordinary scenes into extraordinary moments.

Incorporate a Human Element

One challenge in city photography is capturing a great shot without any people, while in other cases, it may be difficult to find any signs of human presence. However, when approached creatively, incorporating a human element can actually work to your advantage. By capturing the interactions and stories of people in the urban environment, you can infuse your city shots with energy and scale. 

So, don’t shy away from including the human element in your photos. Capture the interactions between people and the urban environment. It could be a street performer, a local vendor, or people going about their daily lives. 

Seek Symmetry

Symmetry is aesthetically pleasing and can create a sense of harmony in your photos. Look for architectural elements, bridges, or patterns in the city that exhibit symmetrical elements. Position yourself and your smartphone in a way that captures these elements evenly in the frame. 

Cityscapes, with their architectural and geometric structures, are particularly suited for this technique. The balanced alignment of symmetrical elements adds a touch of elegance and visual impact to your photographs.

Avoid Zooming, Get Closer Instead

Zooming digitally on a smartphone can compromise the image quality, resulting in blurry or pixelated photos. Instead, physically move closer to your subject. By getting closer, you can capture the intricate details, expressions, and textures that bring city photography to life. 

You might be lucky and have a mid-range or flagship smartphone with optical zoom lenses, e.g. Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, iPhone 14 Pro Max, or Google Pixel 7 Pro. But there are still a lot of smartphones out there that don’t have optical zoom. That’s why it’s best to walk up to your subject to maintain the image quality and clarity.

Plan Shots and Research Locations

When it comes to city photography, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and research interesting locations to photograph. You can find inspiration from travel blogs, stock photo sites (like Shutterstock or iStock), Google Image Search, or social media (such as Instagram or Pinterest). Look for landmarks, street art, unique architecture, or hidden alleys that offer great photo opportunities. Planning your shots in advance helps you make the most of your time and ensures you don’t miss out on amazing spots

Edit Your Photos

Enhancing your travel photos through editing can take them from good to exceptional. Consider using photo editing apps to refine the details of your images. While popular apps like Instagram offer standard filters, there are many impressive photo editing apps that provide precise editing tools to enhance your images further. These apps allow you to adjust elements like colour, brightness, and contrast to enhance the overall tone of your photos. Avoid excessive editing and rely on subtle tweaks to bring out the best in your shots.

Our favourites are Adobe’s Lightroom mobile app and Google’s Snapseed (find Snapseed on Google Play and Snapseed on the App Store), both of which are free. These popular apps allow you to make precise adjustments and save your edited photos back to your phone’s camera roll. Explore different editing apps to find the one that suits your style.

Additionally, your phone’s built-in camera app may also have great editing features. For example, iPhone users can open their photos in the Photos app and tap Edit to access built-in editing tools.

When it comes to editing your photos, it’s important to remember that there are no right or wrong ways to do it. Editing is an opportunity to express your artistic freedom and enhance your photos according to your vision. Don’t be afraid to try different techniques and experiment with different editing styles. Ultimately, it’s your personal touch that will make your photos unique and captivating.

In Summary

Mastering smartphone photography is a journey of exploration, experimentation, and creativity. By following the simple tips for better travel photos with a phone outlined in this article, you can elevate your city photography and capture stunning images of the places you visit. Remember, it’s not about the equipment you have; it’s about the eye behind the lens. You’ll be amazed at the beautiful city shots you can capture with practice and a keen eye. 

We hope you found these tips helpful in improving your travel photos with a phone. If you have any additional tricks or techniques for better smartphone photography that we haven’t covered in this guide, feel free to share them in the comments below. Happy photographing!