Improve Your Skills With Photography And Video Courses: Here’s How
Aside from the business and actual traveling aspects of travel blogging, the occupation involves two core things: blogging, and photography.
I know. Makes sense, right?
But here’s the thing. While you may be the savviest of travelers, saved up years worth of income to support your exploits and adventures, know multiple languages, and whatever else, if you can’t write well and utilize blogging best practices, you’re going to fail.
The same goes for the photograph and video part. If you can’t capture great images that tell your story and contain a sense of allure, nobody is going to care about your blog. That’s just the truth. You need the right images to compliment your writing, and accurately portray your journeys.
Photo and blogging skills go hand in hand if you’re going to be a travel blogger. And although there are some natural born writers and trained photographers out there that take up the world of travel blogging, not everyone is so naturally gifted, or has been properly educated in those things.
If you’re falling short in these areas, don’t despair. There are a ton of resources available online for you to take in, including some from those who are well-established, popular travel bloggers who definitely know what they are doing.
Nomadic Matt
There are plenty of great resources out there from established travel bloggers, but none quite like what Nomadic Matt offers. If you know anything about travel blogging, you probably already know about this guy, but did you know that he’s put together a series of course for people just like you?
He has, and the courses are fantastic. And best of all, they are tailored precisely for aspiring and current travel bloggers who are wanting to better themselves in these crucial areas. Matt wants others to succeed as much as he has, which is why he’s put these together. You’d be wise to take advantage, and reap the benefits.
Below, I’ll give a brief overview of two of his courses, both available through his Super Star Blogging “school.”.
How To Become A Travel Photographer
I’m starting here because this is where many travel bloggers seem to struggle. For this course, Mat partnered with a well-known and experienced traveling photographer named Laurence Norah.
Laurence has over two decades of photography experience. He’s spoken at travel conferences such as TBEX, and personally led workshops on photography in locations from Dublin to Sri Lanka.
Laurence is a photography ambassador for both Panasonic Lumix and Vanguard Photography and has been named a top 10 travel photographer by USA Today.
If you’ve seen his work, you know why.
Laurence is the one that teaches this course, and he teaches you everything you need to know from the ground up. This includes basics such as how to operate a camera, choose lenses, and work with light, all the way up and through subjects like time lapse, editing, promotion, and more.
Everything is broken down into an 8-week course, giving you plenty of time to work with what you learn. There’s even private Facebook groups or discussions, direct feedback from instructors, quarterly webinars, and more.
You even get access to exclusive interviews from other professional photographers, and even a director of tourism that shares what he looks for when choosing photos for his brands.
So yeah, literally everything you need to know, whether you’re shooting with a DSLR, a film camera, or even your phone.
The course is under $100 total, which is a steal. You can pay upfront for a discount, or make 3 payments, all up to you.
The Art Of Vlogging
YouTube has been a game-changer in terms of blog content. Video blogging, or vlogging, is now an equally viable form of blogging that is crucial for you to grasp if you want to engage your audience and create content that demands views.
Think of it all as a three-pronged attack: Blogging provides the words, photography provides the pictures, and video brings it all to life. If you can do all three effectively, you have all the skills needed to be a successful travel blogger.
The need for good video content is obvious. While your words and pictures can vividly tell a story, videos take it to a higher level. Sometimes, that doesn’t just mean recording video as you pass through streets, forests, and mountains.
Turning the camera on yourself gives your audience a better connection with your personality, and a better way to interact with you, your brand, and your travels.
For Nomadic Matt’s “The Art of Vlogging” course, he’s enlisted two of the most popular travel vloggers in the world for help. Nadine Sykora and Kristen Sarah have a combined 400,000 subscribers, and over 53 million total views.
These two have been at this for awhile, and have garnered accolades from the MTV, USA Today, the White House, and more.
Together, the pair takes you through a 4 unit course that goes over everything you need to know for proper vlogging. They’ll teach you camera gear basics, lighting, how to film outside, how to earn money from YouTube views, and ever single other thing you need to know to improve your camera and content skills, along with how to market it all.
As with the photography course, this one includes expert interviews from a variety of professionals in the video area, including Netflix director Abby Fuller, and Canadian Youtube star Matthew Santoro.
The course is available for under $300, which also includes an upfront discount and a 3-payment plan.
Conclusion
I cannot stress this enough. You need these courses if you want to be successful with your travel blog. There’s really no other way to put it. As I said in another blog, you need to be willing to invest money to make money, and this is one of the best investments you’ll make.
Even if you consider yourself skilled in these areas, these courses will still take you to another level. Do yourself a favor and sign up — you won’t be disappointed.
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