Christina Goggi zooms in on how to take the best travel photos this summer.

With July round the corner, it is time for photography enthusiasts to start gearing up to make the best out of the year’s most colourful months.

While a vacation to get away from the daily routine and recharge your batteries is probably on your agenda, taking your photo kit with you will also give your photography a creative boost.

The new sights, the locals, the food, the landscapes, the architecture – a whole collage of different visual opportunities makes travel photography a great excuse to capture the pulse of another life, another world.

Finding and expressing your own artistic voice through the experimentation of different perspectives and lighting is essential, yet it is also very important to know certain techniques and what measures to take to achieve the best results.

The first step is to do some research. You can browse a few websites or even go through some good guidebooks.

Look out for special events, striking locations, and anything that could make an interesting subject.

If you have friends who have first-hand experience of the place you are visiting, ask for tips and recommendations.

Although this will help you form an idea of what you should be after, it does not mean you shouldn’t be flexible once there.

As professional photographer Allen Venables explains, when he’s on a personal trip it is good to “have a couple of images in mind but nothing should be set in stone” and you should be able “to react to the situation or location as it arises”.

This is backed up by local professional photographer Tonio Lombardi, who says he normally does some research before travelling so he knows what to expect and look out for.

However, he says, he always finds the element of surprise most intriguing.

The next step is to see what photography gear you need to carry with you. As Lombardi notes, there is “always the compromise between travelling light and having the best equipment you own at hand”.

The bare necessities that should be on your photo kit checklist include a DSLR body, lenses ranging from 17mm to 200mm, together with a UV filter per lens, a polarising filter to improve colours and sky detail when capturing landscapes, a lens hood to avoid flare, a couple of memory cards, and a suitable photo backpack.

If you plan to capture some portraits, you might want to carry a small reflector and, if possible, a flash-gun.

As Venables puts it: “The best piece of equipment you can have is the light – you can have the latest equipment and the most expensive kit in the world, but if the lighting is bad, so is your portrait.”

For lenses, Lombardi recommends the 50mm for portraits taken at close range because of the wide aperture and sharpness it offers, while he would opt for a long lens wide open for candid street portraits, as these allow you to shoot unobtrusively, at a distance from the subject.

To make the best of those breathtaking sunsets and night shots, you might consider carrying a tripod – there are tripods, such as the Gorilla Pod, which are designed to give you the control the traditional tripod offers together with the flexibility and lightness needed for travel photography.

Besides the tripod, Venables also recommends a cable release. However, as Lombardi points out, sometimes you might not have the luxury of a tripod when travelling – in such cases you can always find a flat surface on which you can stabilise your camera.

Here Lombardi recommends shooting a long exposure, with the lens stopped down to at least F8 and the camera set to low sensitivity (ISO100). He would then push the shutter to a two second timer in order to minimise the shake when pressing the shutter button.

Once you decide on what photo kit to carry, you’re all ready and set for another amazing journey that will help you enrich your photographic abilities and perspectives.

Always be cautious, especially when sporting that expensive DSLR around your neck, as “people overseas may not be as friendly and welcoming as they are in Malta”, says Venables.

Don’t just stick to the popular touristic scenes, but take a look around and discover new landscapes and settings. Keep an eye out for detail and capture the characteristics that distinguish the place.

Lombardi hits the nail on the head when he says that travel photography “is not only about landscapes; it is also about the little details which you normally walk past without noticing – these encompass the essence of the place you are visiting”.

Apps that keep you focused – top five apps for your photos

Adobe Photoshop Express: This software allows you to edit and share photos directly from your mobile device. You can also have your photo and video library in hand without using your device’s storage space.

Camera Bag: Specifically for iPhone or iPod Touch users, Camera Bag offers a vast range of image effects, emulating styles from some cameras of the past to create a certain mood in your pictures.

Lightbox: Designed for Android, this app lets you sync your photos with all your Android devices, and allows you to download photos shared by friends on social media.

Instagram: This app allows you to share the photos on your iPhone to sites like Flickr, Facebook and Twitter for free.

Flickr: If you’re an iPhone user, Flickr is offering an app which enables you to share your photos directly from your phone with the rest of the world.

Keeping those memories alive – top five online photo services

My Photopipe: From canvas prints, to greeting cards, to photo gifts, to photo books, and more.

Snap Fish: You can make use of a plethora of features to order prints, upload and share, view, and edit images.

Shutterfly: Easy-to-use features and a variety of options make this another online photo service to consider.

Blurb: Here you’ll find all you need to create your own photo book, with bookstore-quality printing and binding, an array of trim sizes, and a range of choices for both hardcover and soft cover photo books.

Photobox: You can have your images printed on canvas, converted into posters, as part of your wall decor, on cards, on mugs, collected into a colourful photo book, or simply as prints – this site has it all!

Christina Goggi is a content marketing and SEO professional by day and a photography enthusiast by night. For more of her work visit www.christinagoggiphotography.com.