How to Become a Travel Photographer

Most travel photographers love their work but they will all admit that the competition is very tough. The advice they give to aspiring travel photographers are divided, some would suggest offering free work at first just to get started while others discourage this strategy since this would cheapen their profession.

Being a travel photographer is considered as a dream job for most wanderlust. They get to travel around the world, take pictures and get paid for it too! However, because of the awesome perks that go with being a travel photographer, there are many interested in a line of work with few people lining up to pay. If you are among the thousands who aspire to be in this field, here are some tips on how to become a travel photographer.

• Get yourself a camera (for starters maybe a small digital camera will do) and study photography. You can do some research online and download instructional videos and materials on photography and apply them by taking lots of pictures. Start in your own home and neighborhood. Practice taking pictures and start building your portfolio. If you have the budget, you can enroll in professional photography lessons for advanced photography techniques.
• Don’t leave home without your camera. Somewhere along the way you might get a good photo opportunity that you could use to build your portfolio. Learn to play with light and determine good angles and focal points. Take photos of your hometown’s landmarks, tourist spots and local quirks like festivals, fairs or even a famous local cuisine. Your hometown might be a tourist destination for a person living in another continent.
• Now that you have built your own portfolio, then it’s time to make your own website and post your portfolio online. Make use of internet marketing like search engine optimization, video marketing and social media marketing to drive traffic to your site. You may physically hand in your portfolio at tourism offices, travel magazine publishers or hotels and promote your work.
• Once you get your first break as a travel photographer, make a good first impression by being professional and do quality work. Remember just how tight the competition in your dream job is so you must prove yourself worthy of the job. Word gets around fast in the industry you have chosen so one mistake can mark you for life. Strive for quality of your work but most importantly build yourself a reputation of professionalism and excellence.

You may want to consider other lucrative gigs that you can do in addition to your travel photography work; many travel photographers also freelance in event and wedding photography, for example, to ensure their income is more consistent.

Some travel photographers also write, and use the combination to sell travel photos and articles to publications. Other photographers create a well-trafficked photo blog and derive revenue from selling ads on the site, etc.

For more tips, I suggest you visit Matador’s award winning travel photography school for their awesome online curriculum.

What does a Travel Photographer do?

It is not only important to know how to become a travel photographer but also just what exactly a travel photographer does before diving head on to this field. Travel photographers are mostly freelance photographers who sell their photographs to publishers of travel books, postcards, magazines, Chambers of Commerce, government agencies, conventions and visitor bureaus, businesses that deal with tourism, amusement parks, hotels, postcard companies, newspapers, schools, and even websites. These photos are used by buyers to market the local place to attract tourists in and boost the tourism industry. Travel photographers spend most of their time marketing and selling their pictures at their own expense since they are considered as independent contractors – e.g. freelance. Most spend more of their time trying to sell their pictures than actually taking them.
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How much money does a Travel Photographer make?

Aspiring travel photographers also needs to know the earning potentials aside from knowing the steps of how to become a travel photographer. According to statistics, the earning potential of a salaried photographer ranges to 28,000 USD per year. However for freelance travel photographers, their earning potential is unpredictable and usually far lower than the salaried ones with steady job.

As mentioned, many travel photographers use their photography skills to reach other gigs and opportunities to cover more of their expenses.
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Why become a Travel Photographer?

Now that you know the steps on how to become a travel photographer and their earning potentials, it is also important to discern on why you want to become a travel photographer. If you are tired of your nine-to-five work, always dreams of traveling the world and love taking pictures, then this could be a career for you. However as said earlier, this field is too competitive so you must prepare yourself by taking photographer lessons and building your own portfolio. You can do travel photography as a part-time work at first then go full time if your customers and work have become stable.

For more reasons, advice and tips from travel photographers themselves, visit Matador’s online photography school information center.
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Pros and Cons of being a Travel Photographer

The prerequisites on how to become travel photographer is easy but you also need to know the pros and cons of being a travel photographer.

Pros

• You can satisfy your wanderlust and earn a living at the same time.
• You can work at your own pace and time giving you a sense of freedom from the bondage of working around four corners of an office.
• You can travel and meet different kinds of people and culture and you will become a world class traveler.
• You can express your artistic ability and creativity with the photographs that you will be taking.

Cons

• The difficulties and the hardships associated with being a travel photographer and actually paying the bills.
• Ideal as it may seem, but there are few full time jobs for travel photography and the competition is very tough.
• Most of the travel photographers are independent contractors and they are paid on a project based basis, and projects don’t come that often. You can’t predict when the next project will come and if you are financially unprepared, then this could cause disruption in your finances.
• Professional cameras are very expensive and you have to invest in them to ensure quality photographs. You will also spend on marketing yourself, especially if you have your own website. You must do some internet marketing and if you don’t know how to do that yourself, then you can hire a consultant you can help increase traffic to your site and convert visits to sales. This could entail additional cost but a much needed one if you are really set on breaking the travel photography niche.
• Good photographers also have expenses related to software and film processing, which even though isn’t necessary to purchase often, can add up as this type of software is quite expensive.

The cons may outweigh the pros but the most rewarding part for being a travel photographer is more personal, you can satisfy your desire to travel, get to exotic places and explore the world, broaden your horizon and meet different kinds of people and, at the same time getting paid for it.
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Travel Photographer Quotes

There are many travel photographers who stumbled upon this profession by accident. They started taking photography as a hobby and started playing with their camera by taking pictures on all their travels. They make excursions to the mountains, forests and seaside looking out for good shots. For the love of the art of photography, they try to perfect this craft and show off their achievement by posting them in their networking sites. Friends and contacts discover the beauty of their photos and some would buy them for publishing. These hobbyists discover that they could turn their hobby into a business so many of them start building up their portfolio and send them online or even carry hardcopies of the photos and show to prospect clients whenever the opportunity arises.

Travel photographers who take on this path are the lucky ones. They were able to do what they love and earn from it at the same time. Here are some amusing and inspirational quotes on how to become a travel photographer.

There’s a photographer on board who takes photos and displays them the next day… the question asked…If the pictures aren’t marked, how will I know which ones are mine? – Anonymous

The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.  – W. Eugene Smith

When I use the camera, I often feel like I know part of the people or places I come in contact with. – Christophe Agou

At forty-two, I decided to become a photographer because it offered a means of creative thought and action. I didn’t rationalize this, I just felt it intuitively and followed my intuition, which I have never regretted. - Wynn Bullock

I enjoy traveling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer. - Alfred Eisenstaedt

Basically, I love photography – and travel. You could say I travel to take photographs and take photographs to travel. - Rick Sammon

My camera is my best friend when I travel. It opens doors for me, and helps me to see things that I would not have noticed. I keep memories forever on film, like the sunrise on Mt. Fuji, or a Greenlandic sledge dog staring at me in Uummannaq, northwest Greenland. Yes, a camera really is a man’s best friend. - Páll Stefánsson

Why does one become a photographer?

Initially, I think everyone has the same motivation: the desire to travel, to escape from everyday routine. Man, like most animals, has a restlessness in him, a need to set off. And then with time, you realize that you learn just as much by looking around you….

- Yann Arthus Bertrand
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Want to Learn More?

For more travel photography skill and advice with new media, then check out the award-winning travel photography school from Matador: