Savour your travel memories with CEWE
They are both filled with the joy of memories. Take a look at this image, for example, and you are immediately transported into the world of the photograph. Take just one glimpse and you can almost hear the paddle in the water, feel the warmth of the sun as it filters through the trees, and smell the earthy scent that fills the emerald forest. The magic of travel photography is its ability to transport us back in time. Photographs have the power to jog memories of not just what we saw, but also what we heard, smelt and how we felt during that immortalised moment.
Where happy travel memories unfold, photos should be taken, and CEWE is dedicated to helping you relive those memories for decades to come with its premium photo printing service. That’s why we have teamed up with CEWE to create this travel photography guide. Our guide is filled with inspiring photos from the finalists of the CEWE Photo Award, top tips and tricks for taking the perfect travel photos, and our expert advice and ideas on how to make the most out of your travel memories by printing them.
Whether you decide to make a CEWE PHOTOBOOK, stick your favourite travel snap on a mug or decorate your home with wall art made from your past travels, you deserve to relive your favourite travel moments time and time again.
From creating striking shots of travel icons to highlighting the vibrancy and atmosphere of festivals…
The Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu all have something in common: they are all travel icons that have been photographed countless times, making it hard to take a photo that feels different. To capture a really striking image of a landmark, flip your camera or phone upside down, bring it to ground level and then tilt it up towards the subject. The result? Lots more foreground detail, dimension and a striking photo of the icon that will really stand out from the rest.
Whether you’re a solo traveller or part of a group, chances are you will meet people while you’re away that you will want to remember. But group pictures can look stiff and unnatural if you don’t get them right. Avoid this by getting people to stand or sit on different levels, or separating those of similar heights. This will add dimension and prevent your shot from looking too static. Most importantly, get close! Ask people to put their arms around each other and relax.
Much of our travels take place indoors, such as in restaurants and museums, but lighting can make it a challenge to capture on camera. Find a window as natural light will make photos of food or people look brighter and will be more flattering for your subject. Alternatively, find a light backdrop, such as a white wall to ensure the focus of your image doesn’t get lost in a complex background of decorations and other visitors.
To get a travel photo of yourself that seems natural rather than posed, ask someone to take a series of photos of you as you interact with the landscape rather than posing. Turn on burst mode to capture multiple images and choose the best from the bunch. If you’re travelling solo, put your camera on a tripod and set it to take continuous snaps as you move naturally around the environment.
One way to immerse yourself in a culture is to attend local festivals, and capturing that vibrancy and colour on camera will help keep those memories alive. But with crowds, dancing and constant movement to contend with, photographing events can be tricky. Turn off your flash as it doesn’t mix well with artificial lighting. Adjust your camera settings to manual focus and opt for a fast shutter speed to capture those shots in the moment. Don’t be disheartened by blurred images as these can add a dynamic edge to your photos and will help bring the atmosphere to life.
From bringing back past memories to sparking our creativity, we look at the effects that travel photos can have on our mood…
Past adventures are often filled with happy memories, so it’s not surprising that looking back at our travel photos provokes such a warm reaction. Indeed, in a recent survey, CEWE found 56% of people feel happy when looking at old photos.* Travel content creator and biologist Neel Wanders, created his own CEWE PHOTOBOOK, which gave him the chance to reflect on his first ever travel adventure. “Photographs are an amazing way for us to memorialise our adventures,” Neel told us. “They reignite positive emotions and remind us of the beauty of the world.”
*Research conducted by One Poll with a nationally representative sample of 2000 UK adults, on the 21st-24th February 2020.
Looking through photo albums can make us happy, but the actual process of creating the book can also be very rewarding. Making your very own CEWE PHOTOBOOK allows you to get stuck in and be creative. The user-friendly software means that it’s easy to move and resize your photographs without limiting your options.
CEWE offers so much variety – from different book sizes and shapes to countless design themes – that you could spend hours making your book look just right for you. Whether you want one image of a fiery sunset to fill an entire page or wish to create a collage of all the experiences you had during one day of your trip, CEWE allows you control over almost every creative detail. You can even add videos; simply insert the video file, which will create a scannable QR code so you can watch your travel memory come to life on your phone.
However you decide to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK, the process is bound to be good for your wellbeing and you will be left with an end product to be proud of and to frequently revisit.
After a stressful day at work, many of us turn to the TV or social media for entertainment. But have you ever thought of picking up a photo album to unwind? A recent study by CEWE found that 31% of people feel relaxed when looking back through old photos.* So make a cup of tea, put your feet up and spend some time poring over the pages of a past travel photo album.
The beauty of looking at printed images is that, unlike scrolling through social media, it gets you away from the screen – something you have likely sat in front of all day. Why not invite your travel partner to look through the album with you? You’d be surprised by how good a shared laugh over a past funny memory can make you both feel.
*Research conducted by One Poll with a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults, on 21-24 February 2020.
Whether it’s a photo of your travel companion or a local person you have met along the way, capturing the perfect portrait can make a great addition to your travel photo album…
The best time to take outdoor portrait photos is during Golden Hour, when skin tones and the overall lighting is elevated by the glow of the sun. Golden Hour begins about an hour before sunset. In order to make good use of this time, start your photoshoot around 30 minutes earlier to capture images in different levels of natural light as the sun goes down.
Planning ahead is crucial. Take into consideration the location of the sun at your chosen setting. If you have time, visiting it before the shoot takes place is a great way to see what happens to the sunlight and spot things like whether the sun disappears behind trees or a mountain.
During the summer, with longer days and lighter evenings, there is plenty of natural light to make use of for your outdoor portraits. But when it comes to photography, sometimes the sun can be too much. Depending on the position of the sun, hard shadows can appear in your photos that can cause unwanted darkness, particularly on people’s faces.
Clouds can be a welcome addition to your shot and will quickly change the lighting in ways you would not expect. A light cloud covering is ideal for your outdoor portrait photos as it helps to diffuse the strong light and create striking images. Similarly, you can create a fine portrait shot while using the shade of a tree.
Many people opt for natural settings when taking travel portraits such as in front of mountains, on a beach or in a flower-filled field. Instead, why not have some fun and experiment taking pictures in different locations? You could capture your subject standing in front of historical architecture or a modern building. Perhaps you can make use of colourful street graffiti, monochrome walls or unusual doors, too, to create a striking background.
Once you’ve found your location, consider how to get your subject to stand out, such as by wearing an outfit that complements the settings. Wearing neutral colours against a bright wall, for example, will add eye-catching contrast.
Sometimes your travel photos are too good to just flick through on a phone screen. Here, we give you some tips on how you can savour your travel snaps forever...
Gone are the days of having to print out each photo and stick them in an album by hand. Now, with sites such as CEWE, you can create your own book of personal travel memories in a few clicks. You will have control over the layout and size of the photos as well as the overall theme running through the book. These look great on bookshelves and on your coffee table.
If you’re travelling over a long time period and visiting multiple places, it can be hard to remember all of the details of your trip. Keep the memory of the entire journey alive by writing postcards to yourself. Transform your photos into a postcard, write your favourite things about that day on the back and send it to your address. When you get home, you will be welcomed by all of your favourite travel memories and images waiting for you on the doorstep.
Keep your travel memories fresh in your mind all year long by creating a calendar. With CEWE, you can even choose which month your calendar starts from, so you can create and use it as soon as you return from your travels. An A4, A3 or square design can work perfectly in the kitchen to organise the whole family, while a year planner can be useful for keeping everything in order in a workspace.
Yes, you read that right! With CEWE, not only are you able to savour your most treasured travel images, but you can also print out your favourite travel videos alongside them in your CEWE PHOTOBOOK. Their clever and easy-to-use software allows you to transform your videos into QR codes and insert them on the pages of your album. Once printed, simply scan the code on your phone and watch your video burst into life.
Your travel photos don’t have to just be displayed in your home. Transform the shots that most make you smile into key rings, phone cases and even have them printed onto your debit card. That way, you can be reminded of your trip when you’re out of the house, too.
Similarly, you can brighten up work with personal photographs. Have a travel photo put on a mouse mat or a picture pasted on a mug.
Challenge yourself by using your most beautiful travel photos to illustrate an online blog. Have a look through some pictures of a certain experience you went on, such as trekking the Great Wall of China or going on a safari in Kenya and create a narrative around them, using the images to help jog your memory.
Don’t focus your writing too heavily on yourself. Instead, write specific details about what you could see, what you could smell, the sounds and the tastes. The same goes for photos. Don’t litter you blog with selfies. Instead display photos of the scenery, wildlife or buildings you saw during your travels. Ask yourself: will your photos inspire other people to go there?
Instead of printing your photos yourself and putting them in photo frames, have your favourite travel snaps made into beautiful pieces of Wall Art. CEWE offers a variety of printing options. Their classic canvas prints are good if you want something that suits any room in your house and fits in with changing styles. The canvases are always printed in rich, vivid colours and are of high quality, so you can treasure it for the rest of your life.
Another option is to have your travel photo printed on acrylic glass. What makes these prints so special is the way light is able to pass through the back and sides, brightening the colour and detail of your photo and lighting up the room where you choose to hang it.
We catch up with travel content creator Wanderlust Chloe about her favourite travel memories, her top photography tips and her experience creating a CEWE PHOTOBOOK…
Top UK travel blogger and content creator Wanderlust Chloe recently turned her photos from a memorable trip to Indonesia into a CEWE PHOTOBOOK. As an avid traveller who spent the last five years before COVID-19 travelling the globe, creating inspiring content for her travel blog, Chloe is rarely seen without her camera in her hand. We caught up with her about photography, travelling and her experience creating a CEWE PHOTOBOOK...
Despite not being interested in taking photos until she started travelling, Chloe’s passion for travel photography is clearly visible in the beautiful shots she captures.
“Not only did I want to capture photos of special places and moments so that I could look back in years to come, I also wanted to be able to show them to friends and family when I told them about my adventures. Once I launched my travel blog, I also realised how important it was to have great photos. They were a key element in inspiring others to follow in my footsteps. I learned the basics and have been improving my photography and editing skills ever since. It’s definitely an ongoing process!”
Chloe can’t pick just one favourite photo that she’s captured while on her travels, but some of her favourites are from Indonesia and Costa Rica; two countries with diverse landscapes, culture and wildlife. Her visit to the Raja Ampat archipelago in Indonesia particularly stands out to her. “It was so beautiful. It’s the kind of place where it’s hard to take a bad photo.”
One of Chloe’s top photography tips is to remember to keep the horizon straight. “It sounds so basic, but I see so many snaps of the sea going off at an angle.” She also says you don’t need the most expensive gear to take great photos – some of her favourite shots were taken from her phone as it was all she was carrying at the time.
Chloe also advises to not worry if you’re unhappy with the photos you’ve taken or if you’ve spotted some issues with them. “There are some amazing photo editing apps around these days. I love using Snapseed, a phone app that is totally free. You can straighten images, change the saturation and contrast and all sorts of other things.”
“I love documenting my trips through photography. I sometimes look back at photos from when I started my travel blog and cannot believe how many special moments I’ve forgotten. The way that an image can transport you right back to where you were, how you were feeling, the sights, the smells, the emotions – it’s incredible.”
Discover more by checking out Chloe’s blog
Our top tips on creating a CEWE PHOTOBOOK to bring your travel adventures to life…
When it comes to designing your CEWE PHOTOBOOK, preparing and choosing your photos can be the trickiest part. Start by selecting your favourite photos from your travels, organising them into individual folders. These can be filed by destination or they can be organised by date, activities or particular sites. One great way to help you sort and manage your photos, even while on your trip, is to use CEWE myPhotos, which gives you access to 10GB of free storage and allows you to upload from any device, so the whole family can upload their pictures to your shared albums, too.
Make sure the travel snaps in your CEWE PHOTOBOOK really stand out with the help of added creative elements, choosing from a wide range of Clipart, Masks and Frames. Browse through the many outdoor-themed illustrations, from mini campervans to hiking boots and mountains. Choose an icon of your choice that matches your holiday, such as a camping tent or a bicycle, for a fun theme that runs across every page. You could even move the little icon along an arrowed line as you progress through your photo book, following your trip like a visual timeline.
Create a harmonious theme throughout your CEWE PHOTOBOOK by maintaining a consistent colour scheme. You can edit the colour of each individual design element that you add, including backgrounds and Clipart. Try matching your background to the colours in your photos, the typography, Clipart and framing. To do this, simply select the Clipart inserted in your photo book and use the ‘edit’ pane on the right when in the CEWE Creator Software. You can even choose colours from your own photos so that your Clipart matches your images perfectly.
Remember the route of your journey in more detail by adding integrated maps to your CEWE PHOTOBOOK. Easily search for your destination using the map tool, zooming as far in or out as you wish, and choose from one of three map styles. You can also add pinpoint markers to your map, with some even including a space to add your favourite photos taken at that specific location – perfect for reliving your road trip in vivid detail. As well as this, you can also map out your entire route on the pages of your book by uploading a GPX file and selecting ‘add track file’ when editing your map.
If you’re looking to add a frame to your page but can’t find a suitable option from the Clipart, you can create your own. Insert a solid colour from Clipart, then edit and select ‘no colour’. Switch to the ‘decorate’ mode in the top right of the CEWE Creator Software and add a border with your own choice of colour, width and position – then decorate your frame with matching coloured Clipart. You can prevent the line of the frame from running through the graphic by placing a white box in the foreground above the frame, adding your Clipart on top. Next, right click and use the ‘arrange’ function to layer your elements in the right order.
Add a truly personal touch to your CEWE PHOTOBOOK by adding your own quotes and captions, written in a creative lettering style. Discover all the stylish handwriting designs in the typography category found within the travel section of Clipart. Here, you’ll find plenty of words and sayings to perfectly match with your travel experiences, with options such as “Wanderlust”, “Wild & Free”, “Salt, Sand, Sea” and many more. You can also download more designs for free by clicking the blue arrow at the bottom left of the CEWE Creator Software.
Keep the holiday blues at bay and indulge in your recent travel memories. Whether you visited one destination or completed a road trip with a few stops along the way, a CEWE PHOTOBOOK is a handsome, creative way to remember your trip and relive that “on the road” feeling time and time again.
Start savouring your travel memories now by heading over to the CEWE website.
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