Maximizing Landscape and Travel Photography Opportunity

Over the years a huge percentage of the writing about photography has focused on the craft of it. Increasing knowledge and skill: getting the right exposure, having sharp focus where you want it, how to compose a scene to have a subject and emphasize it, how to post-process the results in a darkroom, or its digital equivalent. To that extent that photographers need that information, that's all well and good.

Just about everyone knows the saying that value in real estate is about "location, location, location". In landscape and travel photography there's value in location too, and many popular views have become iconic and instantly recognizable. However, too many similar photos of the same location can become a little repetitive. Fortunately, even in iconic locations there can still be many images that stand out, by virtue of ephemeral conditions like weather, sunrise or sunset lighting, seasonal conditions like wildflowers or fall colors, or astronomical events like a moon rise.

If you spend enough time outdoors, you're going to occasionally get lucky and encounter some amazing conditions. As Ansel Adams put it, “Sometimes I arrive just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter.” But resigning yourself to fate or divine intervention can be haphazard. Time is valuable, travel can be expensive, can you maximize your opportunities, or do you simply have to resign yourself to waiting for your turn at luck, like a stopped watch that tells the right time twice a day out of sheer coincidence?

Once you consider the many factors that can improve your odds of capturing better photos, you can "stack the deck", line up multiple overlapping opportunities, and give yourself much greater odds of coming away with a unique experience, and the images to convey what you experienced.

That's the approach that I apply when I schedule my yearly calendar: Where do I want to go? What are the best seasons, spring, fall, winter? What astronomical events will occur within that season: moon rises or sets, eclipses, dark night skies with Milky Way viewing?

Once you select a destination, you can break down the days of your trip to catch the moon at certain angles and elevations, and place it next to a particular landmark on the horizon. And if you're there when Milky Way shooting will be good, when will it be in the right position to be captured in "Milky Way arch" panoramas? Or when will the bright galactic center be in the right direction to capture in a good composition with a particular subject? Are there rainbows that I've caught there before in waterfall mist, that I can predict and return to catch again when the sun is back in the same position, or lunar rainbow "moonbows" at night, created by the sun's light reflected off of the moon?

Even with regards to weather, which may not be predictable on a daily basis, what do past weather patterns and rainfall records tell you about your likely shooting conditions if you'll be in the area for several days or a week? In California there is a long dry season and a much wetter season that can be much wetter, but the shoulder seasons, especially spring, can get lighter storms and breaks between them. In addition to great sunrises and sunsets, breaking storms in cold air can bring swirling mist, ground fog, "pogonip" ice fog, and so many other great opportunities for photography!

I'll be describing a lot of these separately in later posts, but if you're in Northern California this coming week I'll also be presenting in Woodland on Tuesday night at 7 pm on “Locations and Planning for Unique Results”:
https://www.davisenterprise.com/arts/jeff-sullivan-presents-work-at-photography-group/