I have written before about how tourists are different from professional photographers who can visit a location for a week or a month or more just to get a specific image that they are after. Casual tourists don't have that luxury. They are in and out of a place quickly. So, how can the ordinary tourist come back with some spectacular images? One answer is to "look for the light." Since light is the most important element in almost every image, finding opportunities to capture unusual lighting conditions is the tourist photographer's main job.
So, what makes unusual lighting conditions? One of the main things is BACKLIGHT. Light from behind a subject creates interesting highlights and make it stand out from the background and give it some importance. On a recent trip to Denver, I found these rushes in a downtown park late in the afternoon. Using my hat as a lens shade, I captured this image:
The sunlight makes the rushes really stand out. When I travel, I am always looking for lighting situations where there is some kind of highlight on my subject. Here's another example:
Tourist Photography!