Don’t be lazy when you have a chance to be in nature to create a photograph. Some new to landscape photography seldom venture much further than their cars to take a shot. Landscape photography is all about interacting with nature.
If you’re not comfortable opening your eyes before dawn or hiking to explore new possibilities, the odds of you capturing that epic photograph is not in your future.
Stepping out of your comfort zone is what it’s all about in this game. This will take you much further than that new piece of gear or software plug-in. Certainly, gear is important and is as simple as a point and click away. But it takes much more.
On any photography expedition, getting out and scouting around a location will take you a long way in creating something unique and perhaps never seen. Go down to the lakeside, or base of the mountain. Hike up that mountain for a different viewpoint. Get intimate with the scenery and don’t be a passive quick shot photographer. This is key to constructing something interesting. Landscape photography is all about observation.
This goes even more so for epic and frequently visited locations. So many participate in landscape photography expeditions these days. In many iconic locations, you’ll most likely come home with the same old repeated photographs unless you know these areas well or your working with a landscape photography guide with knowledge of this location.
Sometimes it’s hard to get you’re footing near these spots to create a shot. When you run across large groups in these locations, move around as much as possible and find your own unique or unseen position. Look beyond the obvious. See what’s on the right, see what’s on the left. Look below and look high.
Try to resist that straight on shot that all the other photographers are keyed in on.
I recall one of my inspirational spirits from the landscape arts in the early years, Galen Rowell. I heard on many occasions he would run into his neighboring Sierra Nevada Mountains in the predawn darkness to capture the morning light, armed with nothing more than a 35mm film camera and single prime 20mm lens and maybe a graduated ND filter. This simple act of venturing on foot in its simplicity and connection to nature’s elements no doubt helped him reveal magic moments of light and space!
If you would like to know where to go, when the light is right and most importantly how to see and connect with nature, join one of our upcoming private or group workshops with Jansen Photo Expeditions!
All the best,
Mark Jansen
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