Detail photos are often easy to overlook when you travel, but they often convey some important part of your story. Imagine a trip without thinking of the food, or a wedding without a photo of the rings and preparation before the ceremony. Your detail photos are essential story elements.

What Are Detail Photos?

I often talk about photography as a form of story telling. Stories come in all sizes. Some are tall tales. Others are short stories. Other stories are epic, filled with chapters as the hero moves from one place to another, collecting experiences along the way.

Your travel photography can be any of those types, but it takes a collection of photos to create an epic tale of your adventures.

Notice that epic tales don't feature action in every chapter. Some are thrilling and others draw upon different emotions. Your travel photos need to do the same thing. A travel epic tells the story in all of its elements, from big to small.

When we talk about detail photos, it doesn't mean you need a macro lens or you're photographing a tiny subject. While those can be detail photos, the concept of a detail photo in travel photography is taking a small element in context to a larger story.

Details fill in the blanks. The provide additional information to fill out your story.

How to Look for Detail Photos

When you think of travel to an exciting place, we often latch on to the major subjects or events. If you go to Paris, you want your photo of the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe.

If you go to Washington, D.C., you may want photos of the White House, the Washington Monument or the U.S. Capitol building. Those are the big parts of your story (if you're doing the typical first vacation to the city).

There's more to the story than just a shot of the building, though. Perhaps you want to show items inside the building, like this statue of astronaut Jack Swigert in the Capitol Visitor Center.

Perhaps you want to share what it's like to look up in the Capitol Rotunda.

There are other types of detail photos, also.

Brand Names

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are a big part of my life. My father used to race them at Daytona when it was still half on the beach and half on the road.

I've owned a few of them (including this FXDF model) and taken some long road trips. My friends and I spent a lot of time in Daytona for Bike Week and other events on these bikes.

This gas tank and badge are details that identify both a motorcycle and, to some degree, a lifestyle for me.

Hands and Tools

If you're photographing someone at work, get shots of their hands and tools at work. It could be a guitarist, a cowboy, a painter or someone rolling tobacco leaves into a cigar.

You can take a photo of the person at work and it tells part of the story.

In this photo, you see the emotion on the performer's face. It tells you something about his work and how it makes him feel. Of course, you can change the story when you get closer.

Now you have a much more intimate look at the performer's work. There are no expressions to color your view of the performance or the photo. Getting closer gives something of a “you are there” feel to the experience.

Detail photos show you stories within stories.