Summer or early fall is when many of us go on vacation, whether it’s a quick weekend jaunt to the beach, a flight across the country, or a carefully planned international destination. So buckle up and spend the next nine minutes learning how to commemorate your trip with beautiful photographs rather than mere snapshots that quickly fade from memory.

Instructor Leander Hoefler is an experienced traveler whose YouTube channel shares the secrets to his eye-catching images, and this quick episode reveals a trio of his favorite recommendations. As he says, “these three tips fundamentally changed how I approach travel photography and have helped me improve my images.”

Be sure to click the link in the description beneath the video to find the presets he used to edit the images in this episode. Hoefler’s says that his simple advice will help you return home with meaningful images that tell a story, create lasting memories, or even kickstart a travel photography portfolio.

Hoefler’s first tip involves a mindset that he refers to as “thinking in sets” which he says may be his most important point, and he explains the essential concept like this: “Most people just wander around and point the camera at everything that grab’s their attention.” The problem with this approach is that you’ll likely end up with a bunch of random images that don’t capture the essence of the place you visited—even if the individual photos look nice.

He demonstrates a strategy for shooting multiple images in the same locale that create a cohesive story that includes an establishing shot, the overall ambience of a scene, along with  close-up photos of interesting details. This way, “anyone looking at your shots will get a better understanding of what it feels like when visiting this place.”

Tip #2 is all about understanding prevailing light and using this knowledge to shoot at the best time of day, and from the most effective camera position, vantage point, and angle relative to the sun—especially when it comes to documenting iconic landmarks, street scenes, and environmental portraits of the locals. In other words, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time and using skillful composition techniques.

The lesson concludes with one more tip that’s sure to improve your results and provide beautiful, lasting memories for years to come. There are more helpful travel photography videos on Hoefler’s instructional YouTube channel.

And speaking of lighting, don’t miss our earlier tutorial featuring a professional boudoir photographer who demonstrates the difference between backlighting and direct sun for capturing portraits of alluring models on the beach.

People are spending more time on the beach to escape the sweltering heat and there’s no better way for photographers to enjoy these outings than by capturing beautiful portraits that tell a welcome story.

This tutorial featuring portrait artist Anita Sadowska explores two situations at your disposal—backlighting and direct sun—and takes a deep dive into the most effective techniques. She’s an experienced fashion and boudoir specialist based in Bali, Indonesia and she leverages these skills in the 11-minute video below.

The behind-the-scenes shoot takes place during a beautiful windy day at a spellbinding beach on the west side of Maui in the Hawaiian islands. Anita does more than illustrate her favorite methods for harnessing natural illumination, by providing gear recommendations, posing tips, recommended camera settings, and important advice on composition.

Anita and her model arrived early during soft morning light, but something didn’t quite add up at first: “it’s not that my photos were bad in any way, but I just wasn’t feeling it because my images were flat.” Then she simply flipped her model around, facing in the opposite direction, and good things quicky began to happen.

As she says, “I now loved how my photos looked with the model backlit. The shadows were still relatively soft, the sun was reflecting back on the subject nicely and there was no harsh contrast.” Of course there’s much more to composition than turning your model around, and Anita illustrates the creative possibilities that occur by experimenting with camera angles and shifting your vantage point (either higher or lower).

Along the way you’ll pick up valuable tips for effective posing that work equally well in other situations indoors or out. Anita demonstrates how you can capture a variety of pleasing looks with lenses of different focal lengths and by modifying camera settings accordingly.

In fact, there’s a list of the gear Anita prefers in the description beneath the video. Be sure to visit her instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find many more tips and techniques for capturing picture-perfect portraits.

And don’t miss the related tutorial we featured with another accomplished instructor who demonstrates how your camera’s RGB histogram may yield better photographs in difficult light than the more familiar Luminance histogram.