Photo Tip – Go beyond switching angles

Most travel photographers talk about switching up your angles and vantage points to create more interesting photos of the same scenes we’ve seen over and over again.

Get higher. Get lower. Switch to vertical. Try panoramic settings. And other tips for how to take good photo angles.

That’s the advice we give especially when photographing monuments and iconic sights that a particular destination is known for.

Think about the Eiffel Tower and any similar monument.

You’ve probably seen it shot from all angles including from below and upwards at an angle.  Both at night and during the day.

So what next? What’s the next step beyond switching your angles?

I’ve already talked about the importance of relegating landmarks to the background to create more interesting photos and to capture a more complete sense of place. I’ve also talked about how using leading lines can create more vibrant angles and visually lead your viewers to a specific spot.

So for me, the next natural step beyond switching up vantage points is to actually stack your angles.

I’m not talking about playing with scales which is quite popular in photographs from deserts and large expanses of land where you can set up a shot to pretend you’re picking up or swallowing a miniature travel partner, for example.

Even me looking like I’m jumping while pulling a stroller below (which was a total fluke shot by the way from my husband but I digress…)

I’m talking about framing your shot in such a way that it feels like you’ve merged two separate photos into one.

Yet another play on angles besides the obvious ones we see every day.

These are very common with those very cool split underwater-overland photos taken with wide fisheye lenses we see a lot. But since most people aren’t on water or swimming underwater daily, we can still adopt those same principles and apply them to every day scenes to make them more interesting.

Even without a fisheye lens.

Here are three (3) quick examples to illustrate what I mean. The photos feel like they have been stacked or are composites of two images but they’re not.

I have a ton more of these types of split-scene angles because they add that other dimension to my photos while traveling.

Check out more quick photo composition tips in my library.