Travel Photography: Capturing ‘the Essence of Place’

We’ve just arrived home from 10 days in Paris, so I thought it would be helpful to illustrate what I mean by ‘the essence of place’. To me, this is the epitome of Travel Photography, when a single photo or series of photos reveal the true character of a place. Back in the 70s, Joni Mitchell captured the essence of Paris with:

I was a free man in Paris,
I felt unfettered and alive.
Nobody was calling me up for favours,
No one’s future to decide.

Travel photography is exhilarating. You are discovering new places or re-discovering old favourites. Either way, the places are different from home, making them more exotic. While creating memories is one of the driving forces for Travel Photography, the novelty of different places has a way of stimulating the creative juices, compelling us to see things differently, then photograph them.

Making the most of limited time

Like London, Berlin, Prague, Rome and other great European cities, Paris is dynamic and diverse, touristy, but also a working city. Capturing the experience of being there is difficult at best. It’s taken me a few visits to really get to know the city, so what do you do when you’re only there once and for only a few days? I have a some suggestions that apply to really anywhere you travel:

Don’t book a tour—book a flat. Use Booking.com or AirBnB to find a place near one of the main Metro stations. This gets you away from the higher cost, touristy areas and into the real city. It also allows you the flexibility of making your own plans and meals. Getting out into grocery stores, bakeries and green grocers, connects you with the neighbourhood around your flat. You get to know the street, the shops, the cafés, the terraces—the places people live in.

If I had my way, I’d just walk through those doors
And wander down the Champs-Élysées
Going café to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
—Joni Mitchell, ‘A Free Man in Paris’

If it’s your first time in a city, get a ticket to one of the Hop-On-Hop-Off tourist buses and spend a day getting to know the layout. This gets the touristy places checked off and helps you develop a feel for the city. Then, you can return to and spend more time in places you found most engaging. But beware, you still need to be in the streets around your flat to really get to know the city.

Save the museum visits for the 10am to 4pm time slots so you can get out onto the streets in the morning and evening. (Aside: Also, book your tickets ahead of time to save time in the queues.) For outdoor street photography and views of iconic places, you want to be there when the low-angle, warmer light is on your side. And, consider staying out after sunset to capture night scenes.

Spend time wandering the streets. Look for different views of the standard places and, more importantly, be open to seeing the unexpected. Getting out to buy groceries or patisseries or to enjoy a coffee or glass of wine at a terrace allows you to see the city and the changing light.

Whimsical Works. Keep an eye out for patterns, designs, shadows, street art, and street performers.

Try something different. Museums are museums, and can be inspiring. They display the masters of art and craft, grounding us in what the giants of before have done, and perhaps providing inspiration for the next generation. Taking a lesson from the Impressionists, I used a slow shutter speed to transform scenes, making them fluid, dynamic, even ethereal, as you saw in the Sacré Coeur and Carousel photos above.

The camera with you

You’ll notice that some of the shots in this article are made with an iPhone. Why? ‘Cause that’s what I had with me at the time. How many times has it been said, the best camera is the one that’s with you.

Am I distraught that these photos were ‘only’ made with an iPhone. Not really. The quality is good, plenty good enough for a small print, a calendar photo, even a page in a photo book. Could I make 16x20s from them? It would be a stretch and I would need to use an up-scaling app such as Topaz PhotoAI, but, yes, 16x20s are possible. What more do you need?

Could I win a photo competition with phone photos? Possibly. The images are unique, to a degree, but they are not earth-shattering. But what’s the goal with Travel Photography? Some of the photos you take will be competition-level shots, but not all of them, nor do they need to be. Now, if you’re a working pro, you will have a more-capable camera with you everywhere, all the time. But if you’re not, don’t sweat it, as you’ll always have your phone.

So what do you take with you? For city trips, my suggestion is yo go light and go versatile. I always have my trusted M.Zuiko 12-100mm ƒ4 Pro lens (24-200mm efov). It is sharp from end to end and, most importantly, wide open. With it on my OM-1, attached to an over the shoulder harness, I can walk around all day with it under my arm, but always at the ready. And, with the excellent weather sealing (IP-53), I’m never worried about rain damage.

When I’m out for a day touring around, I sometimes bring my M.Zuiko 8-25mm ƒ4 Pro (16-50mm efov), but I rarely use it. Yes, there’s some overlap and I could reduce the weight and bulk by choosing my Panasonic-Leica 10mm ƒ1.7, but I like the versatility of a zoom when I may not have the time to create tight compositions with a prime lens.

For details, such as gargoyles on cathedrals and when there might be birds or wildlife, I have my M.Zuiko 100-400 ƒ5-6.3 lens with me—but it’s not a lens I’ll lug around a city too often unless there is significant chance of a payoff.

One question I am often asked is, “Are ƒ4 lenses fast enough for dark interiors?” Ƒ4 has never slowed me down, probably because at ƒ4, the M.Zuiko lenses are still sharp. The two alternatives are (1) faster primes, which lack the versatility of zoom lenses; and (2) ƒ2.8 zooms. To me, the extra size and weight of them is not worth the gain of only 1 EV, which is the equivalent of choosing ISO 800 instead of ISO 1600. Any ISO now cleans up beautifully with the noise reduction modules in Lightroom, DxO or Topaz.

The Essence of Place

When travelling, crowds and queues are difficult to avoid. Too often, it’s a matter of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em’. I know it’s trite to say, but what else can you do? Try making the most of the time you have. Get the ‘tourist’ shots, but also spend time walking the streets, looking for the different, the unique—a new way of looking at places millions have visited and made photos of, or a different view of a place people think they know. Try capturing the essence of place where ever you go, taking time to enjoy the flavours and experiences that come with travel.

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Terry McDonald is fine art landscape, nature and travel photographer based in southern Ontario. View his work at luxBorealis.com; select Workshops to enquire about Field & Screen learning and PhotoTalks for you and your camera club.

This work is copyright ©2025 Terry A. McDonald and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the author.