Explore Landscapes #71

In this article, I’ll provide a step-by-step guide to streamline your on-location workflow for stress-free landscape photography to help you create better images.

Picture this: you're in the middle of a stunning landscape, the golden hour is in full swing, and the most beautiful light is falling on the landscape. But chaos strikes—your camera battery is dead, your memory card is full, and the light is fading fast.

Does this sound familiar? I must admit that this has happened several times, and I missed ‘the shot each time.’

In time, I realized that I needed to find an on-location workflow to quickly and efficiently set up the camera, decoupling the technical aspects of using it from the creativity of photographing. Some of this stems from my being a recovering aeronautical engineer with a ‘fondness’ for processes, procedures, and checklists.

In this article, I’ll provide a step-by-step guide to streamline your on-location workflow for stress-free landscape photography to help you create better images.

Note: This is my workflow, and it suits my approach and genre of photography—landscape photography. It might not suit you. Hopefully, this article will give you some ideas on creating a workflow that suits you and your photography.

Pre-Shoot Preparation: Laying the Foundation for Success

Before discussing my on-location workflow, I think it’s important to mention what you can do before the shoot to give yourself the best chance of success. Some of these will seem obvious, but sometimes, I forget something and regret it in the field.

Here are a few things to start doing:

• Pre-emptive planning: Charge your camera battery, format the memory card (in your camera), and pack spares of both.

• Gear checklist: Camera, lenses, filters, tripod, remote shutter, extra batteries, memory cards

• Location scouting: Research your shoot location ahead of time (using, e.g., Google Earth, Instagram, photography forums, etc.). This is certainly open to debate. Some photographers prefer to arrive at a location without preconceptions about what they will shoot or how it may have been photographed before.

• Weather watch: Check forecasts to anticipate conditions to maximize or adjust your shooting opportunities.

• Always pack snacks: Because hangry photographers don’t take the best photos!

Get Yourself Ready to See

My love for nature and being outdoors is stronger than my love of photography. I like nothing more than to be off-the-grid in the wilderness, hiking, exploring, and letting my curious mind discover what’s out there.

So, the first part of my photography workflow has nothing to do with photography - I hike and Explore.

By exploring nature, I allow myself to Experience it through sight, sound, smell, and touch.

Then, if I find something I’d like to photograph, I’m in the right frame of mind and can Create an image.

This approach developed over the last few years during my regular trips to Joshua Tree. It eliminated the self-imposed pressure of needing to find and shoot images during every photo trip, significantly reducing my disappointment and frustration if I couldn’t find a picture.

If I don’t come away with any keepers, it’s no problem; I still had a fabulous day out in nature. Read this article for more about why I Explore. Experience. Create.

1. Find your Composition before Setting up your Tripod.

• So you’ve explored and experienced the natural landscape around you and found a scene you‘d like to photograph.

• Survey the scene: Slow down, absorb the landscape, and take time to choose your composition. I often use my phone to frame potential compositions or an artist’s viewfinder (such as the ViewCatcher).

• Don’t be tempted to set it up automatically so the camera is at head height, as this can limit your composition. Adjust your perspective. Don’t be afraid to get low, climb high, or embrace the awkward pose to capture your shot. I wrote a previous article on composition that explored what I do when weighing up a landscape scene and thinking about how I want to photograph it.

2. Attach your Camera to your Tripod, Level, and Refine your Composition

• Sometimes, you don’t have to try too hard to find a good composition-it’s just presented itself.

• When I can’t make a composition ‘feel right,’ I pull out my mental ‘Rolodex’ of composition ‘rules’ and seek assistance. There are all kinds of composition ‘rules’ out there. In this article, I share eight landscape photography composition rules (more accurately described as suggestions rather than absolute rules) that I use.

3. Select your Exposure Settings based on the Histogram

• Metering is the traditional method of measuring the amount of light reaching your camera’s sensor.

• A histogram can be displayed during shooting (on mirrorless cameras) or reviewed after shooting (on DSLRs). It is far more accurate than relying on camera metering, which is far more accurate than relying on the camera’s display screen.

• Read this article to learn more about trusting your histogram.

• To make a photograph that we can see, we have to adjust the amount of light that the sensor is exposed to. An image that is too bright is overexposed; an image that is too dark is underexposed. Exposure is controlled by aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (commonly known as the exposure triangle).

• These three camera/lens settings work together to regulate the amount of light that reaches the sensor. Aperture and Shutter speed regulate the amount of light reaching the sensor, and ISO amplifies the light signal that reaches the sensor.

• Read this article to learn more about light and exposure.

4. If Dynamic Range exceeded use Exposure Bracketing

• Sometimes, photographing sunrise, sunset, or other high-contrast scenes makes it impossible to position the histogram graph without clipping the whites, blacks, or both.

• This is because the scene's dynamic range (the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the image) exceeds what the camera’s sensor can capture in a single image.

• In this case, you can use exposure bracketing to take several images with different exposure settings. The bracketed images are then combined in post-processing to create a final shot showing the scene's full dynamic range.

• I’ll explain how to use Exposure Bracketing in an upcoming article (scheduled for Jan 20th)

5. Focus and then Take the Shot using 2-Second Delay Shutter

• Where you focus in a scene you want to photograph depends on what image you want to create. What's your artistic intent? Are you looking to have the foreground subject in focus and the background blurred to accentuate your subject? Are you looking for front-to-back sharpness with no area of the image out of focus?

• Read this article to learn more about understanding focus.

• I shoot most of my landscape photos with my camera mounted on a tripod. To prevent me from introducing any movement into the tripod as I press the shutter button, I use the 2-second timer. The 2-second delay between pressing the shutter button and the photograph being taken is enough time for any vibration I may have introduced to dampen out.

• Read this article to learn more about the five key camera settings you should know and practice, including how to set up your 2-second timer, display the histogram, set up exposure bracketing, and more.

Celebrate the Capture and Plan the Edit

Hopefully, this article has shown the importance of a ‘solid’ on-location workflow for landscape photography. Once you have the shots, it’s all about post-processing. Please read my article on mastering the basics of Adobe Lightroom.

Let me know your favorite on-location tips or stories in the comments.