Those who love to travel dream of the open road and living away from home for weeks on end, exploring the destinations those roads bring them to. Photographers tend to be the type who love to travel and find new places, a possible natural feeling from always looking to generate new ideas and subjects to photograph.
The open roads to those wonderful destinations offer many opportunities to unpack your camera and take a few great shots. Here are a few ideas to help you take better open road pictures as well as a few great examples from talented photographers who love traveling.
Leading lines. Roads have great symmetry and can lead the eye to an interesting part of the scene. It might be an intense curve that leads to a spectacular background or a super long stretch of concrete that looks like it goes on forever, certain roads are pretty easy to work with in creating great photography compositions.
Black and white. Concrete roads, with their rough texture, can be great for B&W photos. Pair the road with a contrasting landscape and and nice composition and you’ve got a recipe for a stellar image. Or, like many solid end results, just keep taking and editing hundreds of pictures until one turns out to be a keeper.
Curvy roads are cool. When you get tired of shooting the same beautiful, never-ending road composition, look for roads that a driver might have to pay a little more attention to when driving. Unlike the straight road with a symmetrical view that many times is accomplished by standing in the middle of the road, you might have to find a different perspective to really capture the full curvy road composition. It could be a road through the mountains or forests that shows one or two interesting curves, or maybe an image would look best from a high point overlooking the many turns of a stretch of road.
No matter what, continue to push to be more creative both on and off the road. And most importantly, be safe and watch for traffic on the roads you’re creating amazing images with.
Steve Snodgrass – Curvy Road
Wayne Silver – Winding road
Valeria C★Preisler – Road
Mark Richards – Road to Surprise View
Jim Bauer – S
TheFriendlyFiend – Endless road
Scott.Keelin – Where are you going today?
Alan Levine – Vermont Roads
Xavi – carretera
Simon Thalmann – Fall in Michigan
Andrés Nieto Porras – Night Iceland Road
Nancy <I'm gonna SNAP! – by the light of the moon
Raúl A. – Road to Nowhere
Susanne Nilsson – Road at daybreak
Robert Couse-Baker – this is the end
Steve Corey – Road to Sinawava
Jim Kelly – Road
Marcelo Quinan – Road Trippin'
_Jonas_ – Road to Aspen
Alberto Garcia – Highway to heaven (Scottish highlands)
Marcela – The Road Ahead
Owen Byrne – Into The Valley Of Death
Ryan McGuire – Endless Road
paramita – Iceland
Daniel Weinand – The Road
Andrés Nieto Porras – Iceland Road
Andrew Petersen – On the Road
Iain Merchant – Road Trip!
Jonathan Kos-Read – Silk Road
Moyan Brenn – Road of Usa
Kainet – The road
Gerardo "Tito" Paez – Ruta 226
Łukasz Hejnak – Winter Road
Julio López Saguar – Wet road
Abel AP – Golden Hills
Julio López Saguar – Green valley
Vitor Junqueira – Magic Roads at Winter
