Travel photography tips from Malta

The Malta Travel Massive community got together to learn about travel photography, hosted by travel photography experts in the community.

The event recap was written by Steven Frigerio. He co-leads Malta Travel Massive, and runs the family hotel Locanda La Gelsomina.

Our fifth event brought together travel and photography enthusiasts with our special guests – the photographers Samuel Scicluna and Dragana Rankovic.

The event was held at City Lights Cinema – one the oldest and iconic cinemas in Malta, located in Valletta. This allowed us to project high quality travel images and have a cinematic experience that mesmerised our audience.

Photography talks — tips and tricks

We experienced the majestic landscapes of Iceland and Europe from Samuel Scicluna, sharing his photographic skills and talent. He showed us the milky way and his ability to capture the wonder of landscape elements timed to perfection.

Our second speaker, Dragana Rankovic, explored the nuances of portrait travel photography, faces that elicit stories, places and cultures far from our borders, brought together on her personal life-changing trip to China, India, and beyond.

Travel Photography Tips

Here’s a rundown of the top tips from Sam and Dragana.

Sam’s top 5 photography tips:

• Plan your shots in advance – you can use apps like PhotoPills to plan where the sun and moon will rise and set for a given location.
• If shooting landscapes, the best light is usually at sunrise and sunset – when the sun is low on the horizon giving depth to a photo.
• Ensure that it is clear what your subject is – use your composition and the light to emphasize this.
• Scout the location and look for anything you can use to strengthen your composition such as fore ground interest, leading lines, or reflections.
• Ensure you don’t over expose your image and burn the highlights. Use the histogram when you are on location to ensure you have the right exposure, you can also bracket if needed.

Dragana’s top travel photography tips:

• When traveling and shooting, I prefer to use fixed prime lenses. They force me to think of my framing and to get close to a subject. One of my favourite is a 35 mm. I put this on, go out and shoot all day, you wont regret it.
• Talk to people, get to know strangers, approach with a smile. That is my ultimate tip on getting to know local people, learn their customs and traditions, and get the best opportunity for a portrait.

Thanks to our community

Many thanks to everyone who joined us, especially to our regulars Shaun Azzopardi and Sarah Farrugia from Whereto360. We also had our newest member Luca Arrigo from Malta Pub Crawl.

And again, we thank our hosts The Cinema Bar by Citylights for having given us their whole cinema hall for our event, and free flow popcorn! 🍿 🙌

Connect with Steven on Travel Massive and join the community in Malta.