How To Take the Best Travel Snaps With an Award-winning Photographer Ignacio Palacios

Award-winning travel photographer Ignacio Palacios has been shooting landscapes, wildlife and people in remote corners of the globe for more than 25 years. 

“I’ve taken about 200 trips in more than 100 countries, and each of them has taught me something about photography, whether I was trekking across the Himalaya or game-driving across Africa,” he says. 

The Spanish-born photographer, who now calls Sydney home, began taking pictures professionally in 1998 following a trip to North America that resulted in hundreds of rolls of film. Leaving behind his day job as an engineer, he traded office days for globe-trotting adventures, forming Ignacio Palacios Travel Photography shortly after, which now offers one-on-one tuition and specialised tours.  

Since then, his images have appeared in countless magazines, books, and exhibitions around the world. Palacios has also received notable awards, including the NSW AIPP Professional Photographer of the Year award and the Australian Photographic Prize. 

With the right teacher, a little bit of passion and a lot of patience, Palacios believes anyone can take incredible travel snaps. “Together with strong subject matter, good light and engaging narrative, you are well on the way to the ingredients for an award-winning image,” he says. 

Here are his five top tips to up your travel photography skills. 

Think about composition before you start shooting 

“If I had to choose between storytelling, composition or light, for me, composition will always come first,” says Palacios. “The way all the elements of an image tie together and relate to each other spatially and dimensionally is key.”

Great composition often comes down to contrast, as seen in his image, Ice Hole: Black Sand Beach near Jökulsárlón, Iceland. The photographer says he conceived the final product before arriving in the country. 

“Well before even flying to Iceland, I had been exploring a range of ideas in my mind,” he says. “Iceland has been so heavily photographed in recent years and I really wanted to create something original and unique, beyond what I had seen before.

“One of my ideas was to photograph some of the most recognised and iconic locations, but present them framed inside ice, and this image was created from that idea.”

Select the best time of day to optimise the light

A photographer’s golden hours are shortly after sunrise and just before sunset. These are the times of day when the light is soft and warm and can enhance the textures and colours in photographs. 

“Understanding how light interacts with the landscape can highlight dramatic elements, create mood and emphasise features such as shadows or contours,” says Palacios. 

Palacios’s Salar de Uyuni, Bolivian Altiplano is a composite image – a technique where multiple images are digitally merged together in post-production. The top section of the artwork – which features a 4WD and Fisher Island – was taken at sunrise, while the dramatic hexagons of the salt plains were captured at sunset.

“Sunrise and sunset generally offer the greatest potential to achieve a light pastel colour palette. The softer hues of these transitional times of day often imbue a sense of visual ease and harmony,” he explains.

“The beautiful side light, highlighted by the low angle of the sun at that time of day, accentuates and emphasises the edging of the encrusted salt lines, giving them more presence and adding to their effectiveness in directing the viewer’s attention.”

Understand the Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a visual guideline for the placement of key features in a picture. “If you imagine an image overlaid with intersecting lines into nine sections, then placing the subject of your image on one of the intersecting lines infers a very natural and appealing visual harmony,” explains Palacios. 

Using the rule, he evocatively captured the infamous frozen trees in Riisitunturi National Park, Finland. “It had been a great year with lots of snow, and the landscape and conditions were absolutely pristine,” he says. 

The resulting image, Heartbroken Lapland, Finland, is visually balanced both vertically and horizontally.

“There is a deliberate gap between the two trees, which helps maintain a found believability, but the gap is close enough that you can almost feel the yearning for the two to join,” he says.

Change your viewpoint

“It is great practice to experiment with how moving your viewpoint can emphasise or transform different aspects and characteristics of your image,” says Palacios. “We can give the viewer a child’s-eye view of a scene, a bird’s-eye perspective or even a viewpoint that is unique to the camera, where the human eye cannot physically reach the position.”

The photographer has two high-end tours on the horizon with a fresh cohort of students journeying to Zambia and South Africa’s Sabi Sands Game Reserve. Both offer opportunities to get up close and personal with incredible wildlife. 

Adjusting the camera’s perspective can give you different outcomes. “Try changing the height you are shooting from,” suggests Palacios. “It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of constantly shooting from eye level. Kneel down, hold the camera above your head. Move right. Move left. Go to the side of your subject or behind it. Get closer. Get further away. Roll diagonally right or left. 

“Notice how the background shifts. Notice how things change spatially and are added to or taken away from the foreground or background with your change in position."

Learn post-production techniques

Post-production is crucial for any photographer wanting to refine their vision. Techniques such as dodging and burning – used to manipulate the exposure of specific areas of a photograph – and enhancing colours can elevate the impact of an image. 

Palacios used selective dodging and burning on Spa Pool, Hamersley Gorge, Karijini National Park, Australia to bring the overall brightness of the image down and add mood and atmosphere. 

“Our eyes naturally move from dark to light and the lighter part of the image usually holds the viewer the longest,” he explains. “In this image, you might start looking at the high contrast areas and dark rocks in the foreground, and yet you naturally follow the diagonal waterway all the way up to the highlighted main subject and real anchor point of the image.” 

Post-production tips are included in Palacios’ tours. “I teach guests how to crop images and use the latest software, so they can self-edit the beautiful images they have captured,” he says. 

“So, do some homework, factor in some time to scout, work with the weather, refine your vision and get out there and make some awesome pictures!”

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