Travel Photos that Sell: Iconic Detail Shots

When you’re taking travel photos to sell to magazines, it helps to think “iconic.” So what’s iconic, exactly?
To illustrate, let’s play a game. What country comes to mind when I say:
Gelato
Vespa
Spaghetti
Red wine
Mozzarella
Or how about:
Kimono
Sushi
Green tea
Bamboo
Sword
Bonnie, here, coming to you on the last day of our Holland Photography Expedition with professional photographer Efraín Padró.
Efraín, who regularly sells his photos to magazines and guidebooks, told us that the number one thing we need to do when shooting travel photos for magazines is to think iconic… even go for cliché.
We tend to think clichés are cheesy, so we try to avoid them. But travel magazines love them. After all, you can’t run an article on Paris without the Eiffel Tower… or one on Holland without windmills… Rome without the Coliseum… you get the point.
This is great for us, since clichés are easy to find and easy to shoot.
Speaking of cheesy… today we visited the perfect place to complete our set of iconic Holland detail shots: the Alkmaar cheese market!
We photographed giant wheels of cheese lined up in the city square… small stacks of cheese in vendor booths… cheese with herbs… cheese with nuts… even cheese in boats. Here are a few shots from the day:

Bonnie Caton

Daphne Wright

Sue Stevenson

Connie Owens

Connie Owens

Daphne Wright
A cliché? Yes. But it was so perfectly Holland… truly iconic.
[Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.  Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]