Planning For The Perfect Shoot – Better Landscape Photography #1
You may have seem some of
posts here on Steemit, recently he’s just finished a series about exploring the American wilderness by plane. For someone who’s not particularly keen on flying it was fascinating seeing his incredible viewpoint from the sky, but what really sparked my interest was the planning that goes into each flight. Last year I did the course to get my Drone Pilots License here in the UK, I was stunned at just how much planning had to go into flying this small consumer grade drone. Ok, so the dudes who ran my course were a bit OTT with the precautions, it was like a little taster to the world of flying.
If the heights didn’t put me off the planning definitely would
Don’t get me wrong, I have massive respect for people that can organise themselves properly and plan out that kind of thing, but I’m not one for details. I suppose then it seems a little counter-intuitive to put out a post entitled ‘Planning For The Perfect Shoot’. The good news is – as you’ve probably already guessed – it’s not going to be the kind of planning you’d do to make a flight plan. Just the kind of planning everyone can do to improve their chances of coming away with that perfect shot!
Don’t Shoot Blind
In an ideal world we would live right next to all of the incredible sights we want to photograph, for some of you that may well be a reality! For most of us however epic landscapes are a little harder to come by, and the idea of revisiting our perfect spots is tricky at best. My favourite spot is a place
and I discovered on our honeymoon a little over 5 years ago. We were in the Lake District, 2 hours from home and somehow stumbled upon a spectacular location, another 2 hours into the Lakes. 4 hours by car makes the location a little tricky to get to as the best of times, even when we’re staying in the Lakes it’s an early start to catch Sunrise. Still, if you’re a real landscape enthusiast it’s worth making a note of the locations near you that you love.Patience is our friend in photography, sometimes we find a spot that looks incredible but it’s important to stand back and look at each shot, could it have been taken at a better time? If not, could the conditions have been better? If the answer is yes, then spend some time looking into exactly what conditions and time of day you’ll need to create that epic shot that your location has the potential to produce. Once you’ve identified when you need to shoot, try to check the weather regularly until you find a day where everything lines up – you are free to shoot, and the weather’s playing ball!
Start Simple
Ok, so I’ve already mentioned that most of us don’t live in an ideal world where our favourite spots are on our doorstep. Whenever we go away I try to plan in some Landscape photography to make the most of the trip (and stock up on some all important Steemit content!) by planning out my locations as best I can.
Don’t get me wrong, whenever we go on shoots we’ll drive around with our eyes peeled for any epic landscapes or incredible locations we might come across. No matter where we’re shooting, or how much driving around we plan on doing, we’ll always pre-plan one or two locations (Top Tip – One of them should ALWAYS involve a café stop for a full English or some cake!). As an example, our plan for last weeks day out in the lakes was as follows:
0645 - Leave apartment for Tarn Hows
0755 - Sunrise at Tarn Hows
UNKNOWN TIME – Breakfast at Coniston Water
Pretty basic right? It’s not a lot, but we knew we wanted sunrise at a great location and – as I was involved in the planning – food is always on my mind! As it happened we spent around 2 hours at Tarn Hows for sunrise, followed by a 45-60 minute drive to Coniston (a 10 minute journey delayed by constant stopping to get photos). We decided not to take photos at Coniston and instead meandered our way back to the apartment spending another hour or three stopping to take photos when we came across locations we liked. Oh, and some night time photos in the evening of course!
Location Scouting
If you’re not able to scout locations in person, never fear, we live in a pretty incredible time where the whole world is right at our fingertips. Hell, if the dude from Lion can find his village in India on Google Maps there’s a lot we can learn from satellite imagery!
When I’m planning a landscape shoot I usually like to include water, so that’s pretty easy to spot from Google maps. We can go even further, it’s easy to look at how far you’ll have to walk, how easy the terrain will be to cross and even what the shoreline looks like. Personally I always look out for rocky outcrops or something that provides a little foreground interest.
Sometimes it’s even easier than that, just search for your location and see what comes up. I’m not talking about looking for a shot to copy, the opposite in fact. If you go online and see a shot to copy and post online could I ask you do us all a favour and STOP! Seriously, someone probably worked hard for that shot once upon a time, and by reproducing your favourite landscape shots you are only diluting the photography talent pool! What you can do is look for what NOT to get, what angle HASN’T been done before and what elements of the landscape haven’t been explored yet?
Know Your Light Source
I’ve said this tip before but it really is crucial. Think about WHERE the sun should be in your images, is your location prime for sunRISE or sunSET? Obviously you could choose to shoot at another time of day but come on, can you really top golden hour? I’m kidding of course, there’s plenty of reasons neither sunrise nor sunset might be ideal, it may be the shadows they produce don’t work for your image, it might just be that you want that classic mid-day sky!
Personally I plan every shoot out around the movement of the sun and always consult http://suncalc.net/ for the best idea of where the sun will be and at what time. The only downside to Suncalc is that a lot of my landscapes involve hills or mountains, so trying to work out when the suns elevation will be high enough to clear the hills can be tricky! My advice would be that if Suncalc puts your ideal shooting time at 6PM, plan to shoot from 5PM-7PM! It’s amazing how many awesome shots you capture either side of sunrise/sunset!
Keep An Eye On The Weather [Then Ignore It]
Weather plays a pretty crucial part in what we do as landscape photographers. It can make or break a shot, so finding an accurate weather forecast that you trust can save you hours of wasted travel and chilly fingers. Here in the UK I tend to use Met Office and it’s fairly reliable, being on an island isn’t great for weather forecasts!
The way I approach weather depends on where I am and why I’m shooting. If I’m at home, just on a week to week basis we’ll make a real effort to hear out if the weather looks like it’s going to be awesome, but not bother if the forecast looks bad. If we’re on holiday, we look to see when’s likely to be best, but usually head out regardless! I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been at home having read a pessimistic forecast, only to look out of the window and see an epic break in the clouds. Trust me, if you’re in an epic location, it’s worth the risk! The worst that could happen is you head out there, wait around for half an hour and head back!
Aurora Watch
I guess this one’s more Astrophotography than Landscape, but hey, if you’re taking Landscape shots I’d hazard a guess that an Aurora sighting wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing! Here in the UK we have ‘https://aurora-alerts.uk/’ that will actually notify you of any aurora activity in your area. I’m not sure what services are available for the rest of the world but I’d hazard a guess that for most of you in the Northern Hemisphere there will be something similar available!
When it comes to Aurora alerts they don’t happen to often for us here in Yorkshire, but every so often we do see activity near us. This is really a case of being ready to go at a moments notice! Obviously it’s always a case of the weather playing ball and the photography gods smiling on you and we’ve yet to capture them close by. That said
Kit List
Most of the time I like to keep my kit bag pretty organised (about the only thing in life that I do keep organised) and ready to go at a moments notice. Obviously what you bring for your shoots will vary but it’s worth thinking about what you ‘need’ and what the travel requirements of your shoot are. If you’re driving straight to your location then why not stock up the car with everything you could need? If you’re hiking up a mountain for an epic viewpoint then maybe a cut down approach to kit would be a sensible way to go!
In terms of camera gear I’ll always pack something along the lines of:
Canon 6D + 17-40mm and/or 14mm 2.8 along with my ND filters and adapters
An Olympus E-M10 II + 14-40 and 40-150mm lenses.
Tripod
And that’s the basics! I like to carry my Olympus so I can capture anything that catches my eye while the Canon is getting longer exposures, or just to save me taking my ND filters on and off every time something catches my eye. I used to just head out with a 6D and a wide angle, but I’d miss so many shots I wanted to get. Then I started packing my 24-70 or something similar but that involved changing lenses and removing ND filter adapters etc. Two 6Ds with two pro lenses just gets a bit heavy!
The Important Stuff
So many times I’ve headed out of the door with the setup I’ve described above, and so many times I’ve had a less than enjoyable shoot! Now we actually stock up our car so we’re always that little bit more prepared! In the car we always keep:
Wellies (I’m actually ordering some Waders this week to really up my game!)
A hardwearing outdoor picnic blanket for something to sit on
Bottles of water
Warm Blankets
A first aid kit
Ok, so the first aid kit is useful just in case, but the rest just make a shoot more enjoyable! We also always try to pack gloves, thermos flasks with tea/hot chocolate, mobile phones (and power packs in case we run out of battery!), snacks/food and of course some money for the all important café/cake stop!
Easy As 1,2,3
1 – WHERE - Scout your location either in person or online. Try to plan out at least one key location, even if you like to be free and easy!
2 – WHEN - Have you picked the best time of day? Do you know where the sun is going to be?
3 – WHAT - I’m only really using ‘What’ for snappy alliteration reasons. I just mean ‘what’ are you bringing? Everyone hate’s that feeling of knowing you’ve left the right lens at home. Almost as much as we hate that feeling of a rumbling tummy and chilly hands as you’re witnessing an epic sunrise 45 minutes from the car!
Don’t Worry About Others!
Ok, so as much as I’d hate to think that the hours I put into posts like this goes to waste it’s important to point out that nobody should be dictating how or why you shoot. If you’re lucky you’ll find people who’s advice you trust and who’s mistakes you can learn from, but the truth is there’s some mistakes we all need to make for ourselves! 99% of my life is incredibly disorganised, I’m extremely lucky to have a friggin amazing wife who not only puts up with that, but helps me do just about anything involving prior preparation! I totally understand that organising and planning a shoot isn’t for everyone and that’s absolutely ok!
I’ve taken plenty of [what I think are] awesome shots, without any prior planning! However, most of my successful shoots have been the ones where I’ve actually put in the effort and planned them out. I’m talking about shoots where I come back with lots of shots I like instead of just the one!
Whether you follow this guide to the letter, take out a few key points, or ignore it completely, just make sure you enjoy what you’re doing and don’t worry too much about what anyone else says! The photography industry can be an amazing, nurturing place. It can also be an awful place where people tear down others work to try and elevate their own. Most of the time, if someone’s saying something you’re not too keen on, you’re best to just ignore it and carry on working in your own way!
Just Shoot!
If you can take just a few useful points from this post then I’ll be happy, personally these are all things I’ve done that have improved my chance of success when it comes to landscape photography. One thing I would say is that HOPEFULLY these tips will help you come away with multiple photos you love. But every single time you go out to shoot just remember that if you can come away with just one solitary image that you’re proud of, then you’re winning! Enjoy it, take the win! Good or bad use every shoot to improve the next!
Thanks for reading, and good luck with your next shoot!
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