Estudio de vida útil

There are wonderful landscape photo opportunities all across the world, anywhere you live. Sometimes photographers start thinking that the only landscapes are those of Ansel Adams and the West. That’s simply not true. I’ve photographed through-out the United States and loved landscapes that I’ve found everywhere. As you look through this book, you’ll find locations from Washington to Maine to Florida to California and lots of places in between.

So, how do you find interesting landscapes to photograph? Part of this comes from being willing to just get out and explore the location you’re in. Get a map and get off the main highways. Give yourself some time to do this. You don’t have to take time off from work and spend weeks on it. Just take your time going through what-ever location you’re in and really look for landscape possibilities.

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c h a p t e r 7 : c o n n e c t i n g w i t h a L a n d s c a p e

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Before going to any new location, I search the Internet to see what might be interest-ing in the area. I look for thinterest-ings like parks and refuges to see what might be there.

Then I check out the websites of those locations to see what types of landscapes are present. This can start to give me an idea of what I might be seeing. Big parks, espe-cially national parks, often have well-crafted websites that will give you a great deal of information about the location, maps, and important landmarks.

Whenever I go to a location for more than a few days, I try to find local bookstores.

I almost always find local guides there that give an idea as to places and times to go, types of landscapes to look for, and sometimes full information about the geology, biology, and history of the location. I try not to buy too many books because my library gets a little full anyway, but I always seem to leave with at least a couple.

Visitor centers are another great source of information about landscapes (Figure 7.9).

They usually have specific maps to the area that can be extremely helpful, as well as gift and book shops with more resources. You’ll also be able to talk to rangers and naturalists who can point you to some very specific locations. I’ve found the staff at nature centers to be consistently helpful—they love their location and sharing it with visitors. They can point you to all sorts of great places for landscape photography.

Sometimes I’ve totally changed my plans based on talking with these people because they give me such great ideas.

FIgure 7.9

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Chapter 7 Assignments

It’s All in the Emphasis

Ask yourself, “What’s my photograph about?” What you emphasize has a huge effect on how you answer that question. Find a landscape that’s easy for you to access. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but it should have some variation of features in it. Photograph it early or late so that the light creates nice shadows. Now take a series of pictures where each one changes the emphasis as to what’s most important for your photo. Don’t move to a different location—

change how you frame your image to change the emphasis in what’s seen in your photograph.

Practice Working a Subject

Working a subject can be such a great way of exploring a scene. It opens up options, in addition to adding more variety to your photography. But if you aren’t used to working a subject, you may find that you forget to do it when you’re in front of a stunning scene in a distant location.

That’s why it’s important to practice working a subject on a small scale on a landscape that isn’t as important to you. Find a simple landscape that’s near where you live, a place that you can easily access. Photograph it early or late in the day so that you get nice light. Now try photo-graphing it in as many different ways as you can think of. Change your position, your height, your focal length, and so on. Develop a way of working that will give you practice in working a subject.

Random Acts of Photography

One way of breaking up old patterns is to do something completely different. This little exercise will open your mind to new possibilities. Once again, go to an accessible location, but this time find a smaller landscape where you can walk around at least part of it fairly easily. Find a spot to start where you can photograph an interesting landscape and take that shot. Now either hold your camera just below chest level or put it on a tripod that high. Keep your camera low enough that it isn’t easy to look through the viewfinder. Now go through your landscape taking pictures in a very specific way: Every 20 feet, stop and point your camera toward something that looks interesting for a landscape, but don’t look through your viewfinder. Point your camera toward the subject the best you can, take the picture, and then go another 20 feet and find a new land-scape. You’ll get some awful pictures, but you’ll also get some very interesting pictures you probably never would’ve thought of. Shoot at least ten photos this way.

Share your results with the book’s Flickr group!

Join the group here: www.flickr.com/groups/LandscapesfromSnapshotstoGreatShots

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