How To Make The Most of Your Travel Photos

I love reviewing and editing my photographs when I get home from my travels almost as much as I love taking the photos. That's why I always feel so guilty about letting them sit on my hard drive and only posting a handful to social media. One of my goals this year is not just to share more, but to do more with my photos. That's why when I noticed a recent Artifact Uprising promotion for a free softcover photo book, I jumped on the opportunity to create one. Here are 4 easy ways to make something more of your photographs.

Store Them Securely

via Andrew Neel

The most important step after capturing your images is making several backup copies of the original files. This is an obvious one, but how many times do you get back from a trip and get so caught up in real life again you forget to do this? I'm guilty. If you really want to err on the side of caution, three is the magic number (laptop or desktop, external hard drive, and cloud storage). Whatever cloud storage option you choose, make sure it will store the full size original file so that pixels remain untouched.

Show Them Off

Looking to build a portfolio website? Use this PetaPixel article as your guide. It reviews the top options for subscription-based and free platforms. For blog-like visual storytelling platforms, check out Exposure and Steller. Mobile apps like Instagram and VSCO serve as an extension of your portfolio. Snapchat and Instagram Stories can be a great way to showcase your behind the scenes moments. Join networks like Blink where brands often seek content creators and visual storytellers.

Print Them

For photo books and calendars, Pinhole Press, Artifact Uprising, the Wonder Photo Shop here in NYC (sponsored by Fujifilm) are my favorite places to make my creative projects come to life. For art quality prints, I now order online directly from a print lab (White House Custom Color).

Make Money

Subscribe to Image Brief's newsletter to receive alerts regarding the images popular brands are looking to purchase in order to produce their print and digital assets. You never know when you might have the exact image an editor is looking for! There are also some apps that help make your Instagram feed ready-to-shop (like LikeToKnow.IT). Instagram itself is looking at integrating shopping and e-commerce options into the app for its business users.