Diana Rothery is a commercial, portrait, wedding, and documentary photographer. She has worked with clients such as HBO, Boston Red Sox, and Blue Cross. She loves to travel, and her website includes a beautiful portfolio of travel photography. I just had to ask her for some tips that we can use.

Where have been some of your favorite places to shoot?

I tend to enjoy places that are off the beaten path.  Cities are wonderful, but I really feel most at peace and creative when I'm in nature.  I recently went to New Zealand, and was just floored by the range of landscapes I saw.  Deserts can also be really inspiring, such as Arches National Park in Utah or Monument Valley.  Next on my list is Yosemite and Iceland!

Let's talk gear. For serious photographers, what high end gear is travel worthy, and if you could bring one lens with you, which would it be?

An SLR, whether film or digital, is really ideal for serious photography in general due to the flexibility that interchangeable lenses gives you.  When traveling, however, remaining compact is usually a priority, so I'll typically try and pack a zoom lens that has a decent range on it.  My favorite versatile lens is a 24-70mm f/2.8 for my digital SLR, but for my film bodies I usually just stick with a wide angle like a 28mm.  I've found that the less equipment I bring with me, the more focused my work gets because I'm not struggling with decisions all the time!

What basic settings does an amateur with a DSLR need to know? 

If you're ready to make the jump to a DSLR from a point and shoot, it's important to learn the three basics of photography: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.  These three components work together to make a perfect exposure, and the more you learn about them, the more you'll like what you're shooting.  Until you've got those mastered, set the camera on "auto" for a while, and then take note of what settings your camera is using to take images.  The camera can act as sort of a teacher in that way.  But most importantly, choose a good lens.  A great DSLR with a bad lens won't get you anywhere.  I recommend investing in lenses that have an aperture of f/2.8 or lower!

Storage can be a challenge when traveling. How much storage do you travel with, and do you have a good place online to upload photos as you go? 

Depending on the length of the trip, I'll usually carry at least 32GB of storage in Compact Flash cards, and about ten rolls of film minimum.  If you plan to only shoot in JPG versus RAW format, you can definitely get away with a 16GB card and have plenty of space!  There are also several gallery systems online, like SmugMug for instance, that allow you to keep a safe place on the internet where all of your images are kept.  When I get home from a trip, I'll usually offload my images on to an external hard drive until they're edited and ready to go up in an online gallery.

Do you have some general tips for those of us who just use our cameraphones? 

There are some great apps out there for post-processing cameraphone images!  It's really incredible how far they've come.  Some of my favorites are Cross Process, VSCO Cam, and Afterlight.  When doing landscape photography, it's always helpful to set the phone camera (if on an iPhone) to HDR, for "high dynamic range," and use the grid for leveling.  Camera phones also have a leg-up on point and shoots, because you can use your finger to tap the screenwhere you'd like the camera to focus or meter for light.  

How do you get good shots in places with tough lighting, like cathedrals?

With SLRs this is easier, because you can either set your DSLR to a higher ISO (controls how much light the sensor lets in), or for an old-fashioned SLR just use faster film.  But for all formats in low light, the most important tip is to hold as still as possible, or use something like a bench or railing for stability to avoid shake in the image.  There are also some fantastic pocket-sized tripods you can buy for cameras or phones.  You'd be amazed what stabilizing a camera can do for low-light situations.  Our hands shake much more than we realize!

Can you give us one more tip that can help us get awesome travel photos?

I always recommend that people take along a simple point and shoot 35mm film camera.  There's magic in not knowing what you're shooting until it comes back from the photo lab a week later!  Also, these cameras are full automatic, light weight, and very cheap to buy.  Take some Kodak 400 speed along with you and go for it!  Nothing can replace film grain.

Let's end on a story. Can you share with us a favorite photograph that you have and the the story behind it?

About five years ago, I was following a traveling photographer's work online pretty regularly that was based out of New York.  I've always had a bit of wanderlust, but at that point I still hadn't traveled much as an adult.  This photographer made a blog post at that time about New Zealand, and in it were roughly 20-30 images.  One image in particular just absolutely made my heart stop, and I wanted to see New Zealand from that moment forward.  Any time I dreamt of traveling there, this image would pop into my head.  I wanted to go there and experience it in person.  See it, smell it, feel the air.

 This year I finally booked a trip to visit family in Australia and planned to go alone.  A friend mentioned she'd love to come with me if we could also visit New Zealand, so I of course said yes, extended the trip, and we planned it out.  A few months later, my partner tragically lost his dad to an unexpected heart attack, and all travel plans were put on hold so that we could go support his mom in the UK for a month.  It was devastating all around. 

 My friend was able to go ahead with someone else, and I re-planned my trip for the following month, solo.  While in Australia, I asked my cousin to take a look at these photos I'd seen of New Zealand, thinking maybe he'd know where they were located, having lived there himself in the past.  He recognized a few, but not the one.  Bummer

 I then flew to Auckland, rented a car, and spent 6 incredible days driving 1400 km alone all over the North Island of New Zealand.  I saw everything I could see from sun up, to sun down each day.  On my last and final day, I made plans to have dinner with a friend who lived in Auckland before flying out that night at 10pm.  At the last minute, something came up and he had to cancel, so I now had three hours to kill.  I figured I may as well take one last little drive instead of spending that three hours at the airport, so I pulled up Google maps, picked one waterfall out of about 20 in my area, packed a sandwich and drove there.

 I hiked in, and walked up to the viewing platform at the top of the waterfall.  And as I looked down, over this waterfall that I'd chosen at random off of a map in the last three hours of my 16-day journey, I found myself staring at this photograph I saw five years ago.  I was all alone, with not a soul around, and I spent about 30 minutes there in the quiet, with the trees and the wet air, and just let it sink in.  I'd found it!  Seemingly at random, but also not.  And if I hadn't had to move my trip, do it alone, and my Auckland friend hadn't canceled dinner that night, I probably would have never found it.

 Sometimes you feel in your gut that things happen the way they're supposed to.  And that day, they did.

You can find more of Diana's amazing work at

dianarothery.com and dianarotheryweddings.com