Great Escape Publishing

Posted October 17th, 2014 by Lori Allen & filed under Travel Photography.

If you want to:

Sell simple pictures for extra money…
Not have to worry about lugging around a bunch of expensive photo equipment…
Have fun…

… and do it all without years of practice (or having to go to the trouble of reading your camera manual), this week’s free report series is just for you. I just got back from Paris where I spent 10 days with my 5-year-old daughter, Charlie, an old friend from high school, Donielle, and her daughter, Hannah. Hannah wanted to learn how to use my camera. And, since I rarely get pictures of myself when I’m traveling, I took this opportunity to teach her a few things about how to take vacation photos. The same kind of things that make your images more saleable. Now, I’ve never claimed to be a professional photographer. But I do know a thing or two about taking saleable pictures, so I used this week as a test. Before coming to Paris, Hannah, just 10 years old, had never had an interest in photography nor a desire to take better pictures. Yet the things I showed her were so easy, you’ll see in the photos below that she quickly improved with very little effort. These things aren’t hard to learn, and yet the results are dramatic. So, free for the next four days, I’ll send you the same tricks I showed Hannah. Put these tips to good use either at home or on your next vacation and you’ll have photos you can sell. I promise. Let’s get started… Super-easy tip #1: In crowds, shoot up and get the tourists out of your photos. The weather was beautiful this week in Paris, and the streets were as crowded as I’ve ever seen them. We could have forced the kids to wake up early and beat the crowds. But who wants two sleep-deprived little ones to drag around the city? Instead, we made the best of what we had. It’s not always the best angle to photograph people from below (you’re basically looking up their nose)… but it’s a quick fix in a sticky situation. And a lot of magazines and websites will take photos like these… They’re much better than crowded tourist photos like this… Super-easy tip #2: Get in close. Amateur snappers tend to shoot from really far away, so they can get everything possible into the shot. But most could take at least one step forward. Some could take a good two steps or 10. Take the photograph you want if you think you need to be that far away and then ask yourself if you can get in closer. You might be surprised at how close you actually need to stand in order to get a good photo. Super-easy tip #3: Give your photo a sense of place. I just said most photographers could stand to get a good two or 10 steps closer to their subject. But sometimes people get in too close and you don’t know where they are. This is fine for headshots or portraits. But vacation photos will be a lot more saleable if you can actually place them in a distinct location – Paris or a well-known street in your town. Take these two photos, for example. One is more saleable than the other. Can you guess which one? Find my next tip from my Paris trip here. Share on Facebook