
Best Travel Photographers
As the world is filled with magnificence and beauty, many people are found who want to share such beauties with those who cannot see them for themselves. It has been like this since the creation of art, and therefore painters, carvers, and other various artists have made a good name and living this way throughout history.
It’s no different today. As a matter of fact, the need for photos of nature is ever-growing, with the widespread use of the Internet. Speaking of technology, the current technological peak greatly facilitates the process of capturing the natural majesty, with fantastic cameras present, and, of course, airplanes that allow transportation to different places.
Traveling to beautiful and exotic locations, meeting other people, seeing different cultures โ with all of this taken into consideration, itโs no wonder why so many people decide to do this as a profession. Consequently, we have thousands of travel photographers today who constantly produce stunning photos and share them with other less fortunate.
Which photographers to follow? Here is a list of some of the most famous and talented travel photographers that you can find on the Internet and social media.
Best Travel Photographers
1. Annapurna Mellor
Annapurna Mellor is a travel photographer and writer from Manchester, England. She has worked for a lot of popular brands and public portals such as Cannon, CNN Traveler, Lonely Planet, and she did many commercials too. Annapurna runs the โRoam” magazine as well, and spends most of her time on the road, traveling around the world.
Where did the idea to become a photographer come from? Well her parents are both travelers and they spent two years cycling around the world. Her name even came from the mountains where her parents were the first couple of months after they found out that her mother was pregnant. Her father was a photographer too, but the love of photography started when she was 21 and graduated from university. Before that, she never held a camera.
Even though she is from England, she has also lived in many other countries around the world. She spent every holiday traveling around the world to many different countries like Fiji, Sri Lanka, Thailand, New Zealand… Her journey begins at Annapurna mountains, a part of India at the time, it was her biggest motivation to start with travel photography. After that, she traveled to India, Asia, and Mongolia, and that was the time she decided that travel photography is her future career. At that time she started writing a blog, and there she was writing about her experiences, how you get the opportunity to meet a lot of new and different people, with different lifestyles all around the world. That is where the idea for her photography was born.
Her main gear when she travels is a Canon 5D Mark III with the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 lens. She also carries a Canon 50mm 1.2.on the road which gives that extra dramatic look for portraits and is also good in bad light settings. She usually uses Canon 70-200mm 4.0 for festivals or parades and sometimes for landscapes too. Her second camera is a Canon 5D Mark II, and she doesnโt use it very often, just for specific assignments when she wants to use something different. Besides that, she of course has a tripod and computer gear such as MacBook Pro and hard drives. Her absolute favorites are Canon 24-70mm 2.8 and 50mm lenses!
Pictures of people with their raw emotions caught at the right time and the right way are so amazing, and also a big part of her portfolio. Soon enough the portraits became the thing that she is known for. Her work is inspiring and you get to experience many emotions just by looking at them. In the first place, Annapurna was taking photos of things she thought were beautiful but then realized that those pictures should create something of a little story. Since then, the colors and the vibes in her pictures are so strong that you can feel like you were present at the moment when the photo was originally taken. Photos with souls just speak for themselves. So talented and enthusiastic, young Annapurna is at the top of her successful career. The secret of her success is her uniqueness, and distinctive style, and, of course, her hard work in the past six years.
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2. Chris Burkard
Chris Burkard is an American-born artist and photographer based in California. He hails from a small town near his childhood home and is one of the most successful young photographers and perhaps one of the most amazing ones as well. Chris is completely self-taught in both digital and film photography. He has traveled the world filming large commercial and editorial projects for clients such as Toyota, Patagonia, and Volkswagen. He has also worked in editorial positions for the major surf magazines. Apart from his willingness, or rather madness, to visit places that most people could not even find on a map, his love and passion for the job of a travel photographer are what makes him different from others as well.
He uses Sony Mirrorless systems when working. He usually uses the Sony A7R II for about 70 percent of his work. The A7R II is a camera that Chris uses for commercial purposes, it has a high resolution and covers the demanding desires of different clients.
The Sony A7s II camera is what he is using for his night and Astro images. This camera is designed to be in focus at high speeds.
For a relaxed variant, he uses the Sony a6500. He also uses it when shooting in the water, but this camera is perfect for sports photography, hiking, climbing – essentially when you need to be extra careful as well.
Chris photographs the landscape, lifestyle, outdoor, and travel subjects. He uses natural light to capture cultivating moments. He prefers photographing in cold places, such as Iceland, Norway, India, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, and many other places. Searching for untamed, far destinations and unusual landscapes, Burkard portrays the modest placement of the human in contrast to nature. His images are accentuated by enlivened landscapes and moments of well-being. His pictures are powered by adventure and urban lifestyle.
With the ocean as his main theme, he uses natural lightning and surf equipment as his “hidden weapons”, to catch beautiful moments in nature in perfect timing. First, he started with that, but now people too became his “photo-targets”. He says being patient for the right moment is so important nowadays. Due to the nature of some of his shoots, he always runs around trying to shoot as much as he can in a short amount of time. Having the patience and willingness to take his time to line up a shot and become a part of the photograph are the two most important things that are behind his great work.
These days, he finds inspiration in a lot of different places, art, music, and even architecture, but most of his inspiration still comes from nature. He loves to head out and spend days off and away from civilization just to feel more relaxed and see things from a different angle. In most of his photos, he has a pulled-back composition, because he wants to highlight the environment. The photos contain a well thought out foreground, a subject in the middle ground, and a background to tie the whole image together.
3. Sam Deuchrass
Sam Deuchrass is a New Zealand-based travel and landscape photographer. It has been five years since Sam Deuhrass took the camera for the first time, but after only two years of his work, he became famous in the world of photography.
He is self-taught and filming in the backyard of his house was the very beginning of his passion. The professional career started by taking pictures of his native South and surrounding areas, beautiful pictures taken with family and friends, and sharing them on his Instagram account. His work attracted a lot of attention, and it made him want photography to become his main occupation.
Samโs career started as a hobby but he still took one big step forward, when Samsung allowed him to capture a series of landscape images using a Galaxy Note8 smartphone camera by telling the story of a trip and photographing the deep south of New Zealand. As he was born and raised in Southland, this adventure was both easy and pleasant. His love for different places and traveling to amazing landscapes, have prompted Deuchrass to take a camera first, and then make travel photography his career.
He likes to travel and explore the world and the variety of cultures it has, but his specialty is landscapes. Breathtaking pictures that look like they are even photoshopped are the result of his great work. As a travel photographer, he has to be always in the right place at the right time. One of his most beautiful pictures is a picture of Aurora Astralis – just the perfect timing.
Sam is brave and loves to search for his inspiration. As was mentioned previously, he is a big traveler, and he spends days and nights in different places just to capture the moment. In many of the pictures can be noticed one small detail – a person. Through his pictures he tries to show a connection between people and nature, and as he says “It puts the audience into the shot and creates a sense of wanderlust and aspiration.โ
In the past year, Sam has gone from picking up a DSLR camera for the first time, to being featured by National Geographic Travel, winning the National Geographic Daily Dozen. He enjoys showing the beauty of nature to other people through his photos.
Social media continues to play a significant role in the development of Sam’s work, as he has many followers who love and support his work through many different platforms. The number of fans increases every day as his work is better and better. He has many supporters and with his skills and perspective, the future is bright for him.
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4. Jacob Sjรถman
Jacob Sjรถman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and is 37 years old. And he loves golf! He started doing photography in 2005. He started photographing golf courses in 2010, so ten years have passed since the birth of this segment of his career. During that time, he traveled a lot around the world.
Jacob is highly regarded among his clients for his phenomenal way of connecting art to each of his works. It doesn’t matter if he photographs portraits in Paris or landscapes in Alaska, he always manages to capture the most beautiful magical moments and scenes that nature gives us.
Jacob has won several world awards and in just a few years he has become one of the best photographers in the world of “Golf” photography. His work certainly does not go unnoticed, so Swedish Television regularly publishes his work in magazines around the world. He works with many agencies such as Folio Bildbira, Getty Images, and several global partners who sell his paintings.
Jacob uses a Canon 5DS camera along with several EF lenses. These lenses are Canon EF 14MM III 2.8L, Canon EF 24-70mm III 2.8, Canon EF 70-200 2.8L IS. The Canon 5DS is a camera that allows it to take photos larger than 50 megapixels in full-frame. It also uses a Canon 5D Mark IV camera for great 4K video quality. Jacob is a photographer who likes to experiment with new technology, so he uses drone photography as part of his photographic routine. He also uses a DJI Inspire 2 with a mounted X7 camera, along with 4 interchangeable lenses that provide high-quality aerial photos and videos.
He carefully plans his photo shootings, therefore he must always be ready to be at the right time and in the right place. Weather conditions are a key factor and the golf course must be well maintained. Perhaps the most challenging and most difficult is to take great photos even when the weather is bad and the golf course doesnโt look very great. His best paintings are usually taken as the sun rises or sets, but he does not turn his back on other alternatives.
In addition to golf, as the main theme of his photography, Jacob also deals with photography of nature, art, and various social gatherings. He always tries to take the best photos from every adventure. The most popular photos he has taken so far are pictures of Lofoten Links and Thracian Cliffs, Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen course.
Sjรถman Art was founded on one fine sunny day in 2006 by this photographer and digital artist. Today, it meets all types of requirements related to photography and creative work. With his attentive and sharp eye, he always manages to achieve creative solutions and bring likable stories to his work.
5. Scott Pass
Scott Pass (better known as Scottipass on social media) is an Australian travel and adventure photographer, blogger, and YouTuber from Sunshine Coast, Australia. Starting from the beaches of Sunny Beach, Scott has traveled many times, showing his pictures from journeys that arouse desire, curiosity, and the human need to explore far and wide. Scott loves to travel because it gives him a complete feeling of freedom, things that a man knows how to enjoy the most! You can travel anywhere in the world and detach yourself from everyday life, enjoying not knowing what tomorrow brings. These travels enabled Scott to perfect his photographic skills and meet amazing creative people along the way. His travel inspiration especially includes destinations that are mostly neglected as places to visit, namely islands and remote locations, as these travel regions are the most exciting, challenging, and relatively unknown.
He is a travel and lifestyle photographer, marketing director, and travel influencer. Scott enjoys challenging travels, various outdoor activities, and adventures on the island. He picks up his belongings, grabs his passport, and captures every moment of his incredible journey with a photograph. The very first beginnings were in Sunny Beach, KLD, AUSTRALIA. After that, he began his journey around the world as a travel influencer and blogger in early 2015, with an organized trip to the Cook Islands.
As a consequence of his traveling to many islands and states of the South Pacific, his travel blog has become a place to share all the adventurous pictures he has taken, but also a place for travel tips, destination guides, and inspiration for both photography and everything else along the way. Since 2015, Scott has been working in the tourism and destination marketing industry and has traveled to many distant and beautiful places around the world. By collaborating with a large number of tourist boards and organizations, the goal of this young influencer is to expand awareness of the beauty of travel and the love of photography and to create the insatiable need of a man to explore and travel the world.
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6. Alex Strohl
Alex Strohl was born in Madrid but is a French photographer, whose work involves many phenomenal trips. His trademark style is that he does not create pre-conceived scenes, but the authenticity of his images is that everything is painted as it happens in front of him, and so he constantly erases the boundaries between work and real life.
Strohl’s photographs can be found in publications such as Forbes, Vanity Fair, Gentleman’s Journal, and many more. He is based in Whitefish, Montana – but spends the vast majority of his time traveling around the world with his life partner Andrea Dabene. Alex’s desire to travel arose because of his father – listening to his stories about traveling the world as a boy, about the pronounced differences in the culture of one nation, the journey became a part of his daily dreaming. The passion for photography contributed to Alex recording every part of his travels and sharing them with the rest of the world, and that is a passion that had sprouted from his way of growing up and has shaped the current way of life he lives.
The cameras Alex works with are the Canon 5DS as its main camera. As for the lens, Alex uses a Canon 24mm 1.4 II L, a Canon 50mm 1.2 II L, and a Canon 70-200mm 2.8 II L.
His favorite thing about traveling is going to a new place, meeting some other environment, and some other people. He has a very realistic and visceral sense of the life of the people around the landscape he captures in his photographs.
As he says: โIt is a cultural understanding of a nation and it simply encompasses adventure for them. Itโs important to get along with your photos, not just take pictures of them. I believe that authenticity radiates special energy.โ
For him, it had a lot to do with the circumstances in which he found himself. As a teenager, he lived in a very isolated part of southern France. Such a distance often forced him to be alone, so he would often go on an adventure by his bike through the woods. He would put the camera in his bag, take pictures along the way with everything he liked. It might not be called the beginning of his career, but it was then that the desire and passion for photography were born.
At the time, he did not have the financial means to travel around the world or a platform such as Instagram to confirm the goodness of his work. Besides, discipline and perseverance have brought the greatest transformation in terms of love for travel photography. As Alex himself would say: “My passion has never been turned into a career, my career has grown out of my passion; it sounds minor, but I believe there is an important difference.”
His greatest desire is to motivate viewers to look at life differently, to want to go and see the world around them, to start respecting the environment and everything that nature gives us by becoming a part of it.

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