P#3 Q#4a: Setting Up A Landscape Shot In Unfamiliar Territory
Researching your landscape shots
I asked Lewis Kemper how he prepared ahead of time if he was going to be taking landscape photographs in unfamiliar territory. With the Internet, and all the photography books that have been published, I wondered what resources he used to prepare himself for a unique shot.
More specifically, I asked: When you're traveling through a new scenic area that you are unfamiliar with, what thought process do you use to get the best possible perspective to set up and capture a landscape shot?
Do your research before taking landscape (or any) nature photographs
Lewis Kemper: I usually do a lot of research on the Internet and then if it's a location that I know other photographers have gone to and people have produced books about, I'll try to find those books ahead of time and try to find out what the locations are.
I think about those pictures and think "is there a better time of day?" If I was standing, here what would I do differently? How would I try to make this a little bit more unique or more my own vision?
I'll study those pictures and get a rough idea of where it is and you can try to position yourself and figure out okay, where did they go from here to get that kind of perspective? Did they go up high or did they go down low -- or did they climb the hillside?
For example, we saw a picture of a waterfall in a book in Iceland and we wanted to find its location. In the guidebooks, there were two different waterfalls with that name. We were trying to figure out where it was and there were no good directions.
We had a GPS and that got us in the neighborhood but the roads around there had been redone for a housing development area and there were no roads to this location.
So we were looking in the book and then looking at the features in the landscape, and trying to hike to a position to find the waterfall. Once we lined up I could see -- there's that hill and there's this hill. And we were able to find the location doing that.
In conclusion
Being forearmed can make all the difference in your landscape photography. It's wise to do your research ahead of time.
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