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So you’re going on holiday, or you are going for a day out and you want to get great travel photos for Instagram, right?
Every year me and Nathan go to beautiful countries filled with bright and bold colours, like Italy or Greece, but this year we went to the Lake District. Now I’m not saying the Lake District isn’t beautiful because it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve been, but there are no bold tile prints, bright pink buildings, and no guarantee of clear blue skies. I wanted to be able to post my Lake District travels on Instagram, but I didn’t want to ruin my theme and feel of my Instagram. So I created a few rules…
Plan your locations
When I go away, I’m a planner anyway, I love to know where we are going as to not waste any of our precious time exploring! Often when we go somewhere to get a photo, it’s somewhere beautiful and stunning, so not only do we get a great shot for our memories and Instagram theme, but we have an amazing time too. I had said to Nathan I wanted to get a shot on a jetty (that’s me, the girl scared of water). However I wanted to goto one that wasn’t located in a really busy tourist area, so I used Instagram and Pinterest to do my research. I find Pinterest is great for a general idea but often locations can be wrong, but it can give great ideas for the style of image. Instagram is great because you can search by location. We were staying near Lake Coniston, so I had a search of the location and hashtag and found there was a jetty there, which meant we could go straight to it and not have to drive around guessing if we were going to find one or not!
Think ahead about colour
I knew the lakes was going to be a lot of green and blue, and my Instagram theme doesn’t quite fit that. Now don’t get me wrong, your theme will often grow, change and develop, it doesn’t have to stay the same forever but if you’re going to be creating a sudden change you need to be able to connect the new images to your old ones- it needs to naturally change. A lot of my existing theme included a lot of pink, peach, orange (ginger perks) and a dash of blue. So I decided to pack a lot of orange and blue (I’m totally lacking in pink for summer- I’m so ashamed!) This meant not only did it link back to my existing images but it also gave me a great contrast against the backdrop of the lakes, making my images stand out in users feeds. It’s a great way to keep colour into your images if the locations colour palette is going to be a little repetitive, or there’s a chance of grey rainy skies. If you are going somewhere with a lot of colour, try to pull out one of the colours from your surroundings and co-ordinate your outfit or accessories
I have really awkward hands, I never know what to do with them! 9/10 I will have them near my face because I just don’t know what to do. I’ve found having a prop is a great way to get over this and also make the photo look a little more natural. I’ve been using my instax camera as a great way to disguise my “what do I do with my hands?!” and also to add a pop of pink. However bringing a prop can also add a little more charm to your image. I chose to take a set of fairy lights with me on this trip, something really easy to carry around with me and something that will really add some magic to our Instagram feed. I got this idea by searching through Pinterest- I have a board that I pin any great ideas for photos onto, even if it’s something I don’t think I would ever be able to do, just pin it! It doesn’t even need to be something you have brought, you could always grab an ice cream ( any excuse) or a bunch of flowers, It just adds that little extra bit of detail to make your image stand out!
Consistency
My last rule would to be to keep your images consistent, if you edit your photos, make sure they are all edited in similar way. If you use filters, keep to one or small family of similar filters. You want your images from your trip to feel like a series, so when someone is scrolling and they see your post on Instagram, they recognise that you have posted your next image from your trip!
I hope these little tips will help you on your next trip, do you have any tips when creating travel photos for your Instagram? Also, would any of you lovely people like to see a really easy step by step tutorial on how to edit your images to make them Instagram worthy? If you do, let me know below!
Have a fabulous week and much Love
Natasha x
