In recent years many photographers discovered the exciting field of street and travel portraits. Street and travel portraits are associated with the genre of portrait photography and not street photography, as one might expect. For that reason, the rules for street and travel portraits are more connected to general portrait photography. As opposed to street photography, the people are aware that they are being photographed and have given their consent for the portrait. The ambition is to work out the character and the expression of the person. Street photography, on the other hand, always focuses on images at a decisive or poignant moment. Both genres combine the possibility to create a study of a particular milieu or environment. For this particular purpose the surrounding should be a major part of the composition of a street or travel portrait.

Best practices

In order to create expressive and fascinating street portraits it is always helpful to know a few basic best practices. However, it is less about the composition which always depends on the creativity of the photographer. It is more about common tips and tricks to achieve natural and authentic portraits.

Search for interesting faces

The first step to get successful street and travel portraits is always the search for expressive and interesting faces. But also the selection of introverted or reserved persons can lead to extraordinary and authentic portraits. Another important step is to obtain the consent for the portrait. This strongly depends on the cultural milieu. Often a smile and showing the camera is enough. However, sometimes it is required to explicitly ask for the permission and briefly explain why you want to photograph the particular person.

Travel photography is sometimes a topic of controversy. On the one hand there is a growing interest in travel and street photography. However, images of people from poor developing countries are from time to time being discredited. Sometimes people even use the term "voyeurism" in this context. There is also a debate whether families of western industrialized countries would like being photographed in their own front yards by African or Asian people.

Typically, travel photography is a mixture of landscape photography, cultural photography, street photography and travel portraits. The group of tourists who capture cultural events or famous buildings mostly via the smartphone while shooting countless photos will certainly not count to the group of ambitious travel photographers. Travel photographers are usually more amateurs than professionals. The professionals in this field are often specialized as landscape photographers, wildlife photographers or photojournalists. Of course it might be a good idea that travel photographers sell their images via Getty Images or comparable online stock platforms. But nevertheless travel photographers who live exclusively from their photographic work are rather more the exception.

Street photography and travel portraits

The most sensitive areas of travel photography are street photography and travel portraits, especially when children are involved. But the question mentioned at the beginning, who likes to be photographed in his own front yard, is actually not correct. The better question would be why do travel photographers prefer to take pictures of people in foreign developing countries rather than in cities or villages of their own industrialized countries. There are basically two reasons for this. In many densely populated countries, such as India, Bangladesh, or in countries of South-East Asia, privacy is perceived completely differently compared to highly developed countries. In addition, it is much easier to photograph people in developing countries because the “right in one’s own image” has almost no relevance. In these countries, it is quite normal when locals publish “selfies” with tourists on Facebook without permission. Of course there are also more conservative countries, especially in Africa, who deal with travel portraits less openly. But this has either religious reasons (Arabic states) or they are afraid that the tourists might make a lot of money with the pictures of local children by selling them to glossy magazines.