- One of the biggest struggles or challenges
with landscape photography is actually getting enough time
to shoot, especially if you're going to a location
for the first time, or locations on your bucket list,
or perhaps even just the family vacation.
In this video, I wanna share with you my top five tips
on how you can plan and scout a new location
to ensure you maximize the opportunities
to cover as many keepers as you can,
and have a great time when your out there.
Let's get into it.
Okay. So, number one tip is to plan price leaving.
And so, I'm a bit old school in terms of my plans.
I do one of two ways.
So, let's do online and offline.
As we're going on family vacations,
we go up into the high country.
I've been to this location before,
but, really important, I still have the opportunity
to have a think about the sort of place I'd like to shoot.
I've jumped online.
I've downloaded the local visitor guide
for the national park that we're heading to.
I've got a map from last time,
which plots out the locations to shoot as well.
I've got a couple of great, little books here
and one for walks in nature in Australia.
That helps me have a look at different opportunities
in the locale as to what I might like to check out.
And, of course, the most obvious thing is to jump online,
have a look around.
So, usually I do one or two things.
I like to have a look at jumping onto Google
and thinking about sort of typing in the location
I might like to check out.
In this case, I've typed in Mount Buffalo,
I've typed in North East Victoria.
Have a look at some of the walks that are available
that may be not covered in this map.
Potentially, because I'm looking to photograph
not just the national park and other parts
of the Alpine country up there,
I'm having a bit of a greater look around that.
I like to jump across on to, say, things like Instagram
and just have a bit of a quick look.
I don't like to have my images,
I don't like to have a preconceived idea
of my images necessarily, but I do like
to think about the locations I'd like to shoot.
What I like to do is then think about
how and when I'm gonna plan those visits.
I then jump on to things like Google Earth,
and sort of have a look at the locations
if I haven't been there before.
Now, I've been in to a couple of these places previously.
But, if it's a new location,
I like to have a look at the landscape,
and I start to understand where the lights are gonna fall.
And to do that, I use an app called PhotoPills.
Whilst PhotoPills is not a free app,
and there's not really a video about apps related
to photography,
it is an app that I use quite regularly
to understand how the light is gonna fall
at sunrise, sunset, blue hour, those types of conditions.
So, I understand where the light is in relation
to the landscape.
The important thing
with these kinds of tips is finding us a process,
or a workflow, for yourself.
For me, I like to pin my locations in PhotoPills
or Google maps.
I use Google maps majority of the time,
and I just placed it, drop a pin in the location.
That gives me the opportunity to know this is
where I wanna be.
And then, when I get there on location,
I can scan around as to what sort
of compositions will work.
But, I like to have some sort of a plan
as to where I'm actually heading
to make the most of the time I've got on location.
My second tip is thinking about the type of gear
that you need to bring with you.
It's an important consideration
in terms of maximizing the type of images you want
to create, and the type of gear that you need to bring
with you to have a successful trip.
There's quite a few things we could cover off here,
but to keep it really simple,
the first and foremost thing is having done the research
around the locations that we're going to be shooting at.
It's thinking about a type of focal length,
or the type of lenses that you'll need to bring
to achieve those focal lengths.
In terms of other gear, clearly a tripod.
This is my second tripod I use for filming.
The tripod that I'm using right now is my main tripod.
Always important to consider things like the obvious,
which you potentially can forget,
things like your battery chargers.
So, make sure your battery charger in your bag
or in the uh..
If you're like me,
I generally only have a couple of SD cards.
So, I usually take my laptop or my iPad
to transfer my images.
So, I always make sure I have my card reader on board.
I always usually take my backup hard drive as well,
so I can transfer them from the computer
onto the hard drive so I don't lose the images.
They're backed up in the field.
Things in terms of my actual kit on location?
Again, depending on your style and what sort
of images you're looking to shoot.
I usually like to take my polarizer,
which is in this pouch here,
always handy to have.
Always important to have, and they're always my bag,
always my pocket, and I'm always losing them,
is the cloth.
Cloth to wipe your lenses, wipe your camera down.
We are expecting some rain later in the week.
So again, having lost these and leave them on me,
always handy to have.
For this trip, given its a family vacation,
we'll be driving up into the Alps,
I've taken a smaller bag than my main bag I normally use.
That's my second tip,
is really thinking about the type of gear
that you need to capture the image you're looking
to capture.
So, I couldn't be more excited for this trip.
I'm really looking forward it.
So, let's pack up the gear,
pack up the car, grab the family,
hit the road, and we'll go to the high country.
I'll see you up there.
(relaxing music)
(birds chirping)
There's a great example of where I've decided to,
first thing in the morning, have a look around.
This is day two of our, actually day three,
of our family vacation here.
So, I'm actually looking around
in the valley here, the side of the mountain,
because the last time I was here,
I took a photograph from the other side of the mountain,
that I wasn't exactly happy with.
So, I really wanted to capture a sunlit peak.
All the granite boulders were on top of Mount Buffalo.
(birds chirping)
What a spectacular place it is.
Part of the reason I decided to come here,
and along this road here in the Buchan Valley,
is because I really was looking for a composition
that was wet.
We'll have some really wet and rough weather
over the next few days.
I'm really into that sort of moody, atmospheric images.
And whilst-
If I look to, which would be your right, my left,
absolutely fantastic pastel colors coming through
across the Alps.
I stuck with my plan because I really wanna be able
to capture that image later on this week sometime.
So, working on this valley.
I was gonna have a look at
what sort of compositions I can get
in reasonably flat conditions.
Although, I think these clouds
above me actually might actually light up
over The Horn and the front.
It's actually starting to glow a little bit.
So, we're potentially gonna get something
that actually looks quite exciting.
I think I wanna give it an F11.
So, F11, 1/6 of a second, ISO 400.
I was actually going for just focusing on the peak,
which is The Horn, the highest point in Mount Buffalo.
The one thing to be aware
about scouting and all the reasons I actually do do it,
if it's actually the destination
or somewhere I'm gonna be for a couple of days,
is to actually get out in the daylight.
Because what I didn't notice,
that last shot I just took was looking
at the power lines distracting here.
And actually, it's blending in with the Gum trees,
almost a similar color, actually.
It was probably made from old Gum tree,
the actual pole itself.
So, a great reminder that by scouting around
in the daylight and having a look
what sort of compositions you're going to create
in what is for the ideal conditions,
or the conditions you're looking for.
You can avoid that fundamental mistake.
The light is just about to hit.
I think they are going to be going back to-
They are.
(birds chirping)
It's just there, off camera.
The light is just hitting the peaks
across the whole Buffalo plateau now.
Absolutely fantastic.
So, I got some clouds in the background.
It is what I came for, so that's exciting.
So, we're going for F16, ISO 100.8 per second.
I'm gonna blacken the shot anyway,
see if I can bring out some of the detail
in the clouds later on.
Beautiful morning. What a morning so far.
That'll do the job, so let's head up into the mountain.
♪ Hear the birds and see the Sun ♪
♪ Side by side our fears are done ♪
♪ All the good times just begun ♪
(birds chirping)
♪ Though we know what we have lets hold on tight ♪
♪ Follow what we're looking for in life ♪
♪ Call us crazy but things are finally right ♪
♪ For you and I the future is bright ♪
♪ Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh ♪
♪ You and I we've got it ♪
♪ Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh ♪
♪ We don't need no more ♪
♪ Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh ♪
♪ Even in the hard times ♪
It's and absolute, wonderful way
to spend a whole holiday here in the Northeast country.
I can see over to my right, which is off camera,
absolutely stunning layers and layers
of the Australian Alps and the snowy mountains,
and the clouds moving quite quickly up here.
I've actually moved a lot too,
(Adrian laughs)
But, looking to really just enjoy this moment,
to be honest with you.
(birds chirping)
Checking the weather, the weather from a few videos ago.
I thank David Letter Click Photography
for recommending the app.
We knew each other.
We've actually really enjoyed using it.
It's been really helpful, even here in Australia,
even though it's from the UK.
And, whilst-
I think I'm gonna load up and go now.
(indistinct)
the sky with the clouds.
There weren't clouds were on the forecast.
♪ Hear the crickets see them all ♪
♪ side by side and through and through ♪
♪ No limit to what we can do ♪
I've just come down the track, three minutes.
I ran into another photographer and his wife.
They gave me a bit of a snake warning there
when I get to the track.
So, I didn't see it luckily.
But, it wouldn't have been a pleasant experience,
something I don't really want to run into,
but it's a beautiful day.
So, I guess they're out getting some sunshine themselves.
If you've been getting value out of this video,
feel free to hit the like button.
If you wanna see more photographs
around filming in the high country, or above the snow line,
I would recommend the video, watching the video,
I did in an ancient rainforest a few months ago
if you haven't seen that as well.
Have a look and check that out as well.
It might be of interest to you.
Other than that, thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye for now.