Are These 3 Things Holding You Back From A Travel-Writing Career?
Before I became a travel writer, I remember wistfully looking at the international departure screens at the airport wondering what it was like to fly to those places. At the time, I was working 40+ hours a week with limited vacation time. Between traveling to visit family and beach trips with my kids, there weren’t…
5 Unexpected Travel Writing Benefits
There are plenty of reasons to be a travel writer. Obviously it brings more travel to your life. The satisfaction of seeing your byline online and in print and the wealth of experiences that come your way as a writer rank pretty high up on the list, too. But over the past 11 years, as…
How My Life As A Travel Writer Plays Out
It’s a question I get often, “What’s a typical day like for you as a travel writer?” And it’s a question that really doesn’t have an answer. While most jobs have a routine, travel writing doesn’t. Sure there are days when I’m not traveling when I’ll spend hours at my computer writing about my latest…
Want To Become A Travel Writer? Celebrate Every Step…
For most of my life, I’ve felt like I’m either climbing up a mountain… or heading down the other side, wondering what my next climb will be. There’s something very special about this. And I can’t tell which part I like more—the climb up, or the relaxing, reflecting walk down. The climb up gives you…
The Number One Rule Of Selling Photographs To Magazines
Sometimes we get so caught up with making the perfect picture—tack-sharp focus, vibrant color, fantastic moment—that we forget the cardinal rule of selling photographs to magazines. Let me share a secret I’ve learned from more than 30 years of selling photographs to magazines from National Geographic Adventure to Modern Bride: Editors don’t buy photos they…
How To Get Better Photos By Using A Tripod
Have you made friends with your tripod? If not, here are a few reasons why you should… ● Creative possibilities. A tripod opens up opportunities to play with longer exposures. For example, I wouldn’t have been able to take either of these blurred water shots without a tripod: The photos above were taken at shutter…
3 Tips For Creating Starbursts On A Twilight Photo Shoot
Twilight, when the skies are cobalt blue, is one of my favorite times to photograph. Images taken at twilight acquire a richness of color not present during the day, and the surrounding darkness can often hide ugly elements like garbage cans or power lines. To add an extra twinkly element to my pictures I like…
3 Keys To Better Street Photography
When I first started photography, I was inspired by the street shots of masters like Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith. I wanted to tell stories of places and capture fleeting moments. But like many beginners, I stuck to shooting easy subjects: Nature, landscapes, and buildings. Landscapes and buildings don’t judge you. You don’t need their…
Instantly Improve Your Photo By Applying The Rule Of Thirds
Have you “given someone the cold shoulder” lately? These days, Millennials call it “ghosting.” But the original “cold shoulder” expression comes from a social custom in medieval England whereby hosts would literally give an overstaying guest a cold cut of meat to let them know it was time to leave. Or how about “burying the…
How One Woman Went From Teacher to Travel Writer in a Matter of Weeks
As a language arts teacher, I loved helping my students craft their writing. During one mini-lesson, I was teaching using a journal entry from a trip I had taken the previous year. The lesson was meant to show my students how to write using sensory language. Teachers can use their writing as model texts, and…