A typical landscape shoot

Posted by Photomithra(Srinivasa S) on Nov 6, 2019 | 11 comments

Regular readers here will be aware that I’m a landscape photographer – check out my landscape image showcase. In this post, I thought I’ll take the example of a recent landscape shoot outing we had and take you through what typically happens on such outings.

For a landscape shoot, we typically shoot early in the morning or late into the evening – see why. In this example, we were shooting sunset at the location of a waterfall. 4-5 people traveling with gear meant we were taking car(s). We started 4-5 hours before actual sunset – this is typical too. Depending on the distance of the location, we need to plan our start time so that we reach the location at least an hour or two before sunset. Why so much time earlier? Read on…

The location itself might not be on a “map” – in such cases, we have to rely on local people for directions. In this particular case, we were delayed by 10-15 minutes because we went in the wrong direction. When traveling by car, we have to figure out where to park the car. Sometimes its easy, sometimes, not so much. See below – can you spot our cars?

We may have to walk a considerable distance to reach the actual location, because a car cannot go everywhere. Again, a bit of direction seeking from locals, if available. Else rely on Google (offline) maps, satellite views for help. Its good to have offline maps handy, because some places may not have (good) cell coverage. Here’s us walking through a village and at the edge of a paddy field to get to the location.

Once at the location itself, we tend to move around, trying to find good spots to shoot from and good compositions to frame. The location may be a vast open space where a lot of ground needs to be covered to unearth nice frames, or it can be a small confined space. In this case, it was the latter.

After all this, each of us set out to do our own thing. Some flew drones, some started setting up rigs for timelapses, etc.

Here at this location, I chose to be a little foolish/brave. I crossed the stream seen above – though it was shallow, it was a little slippery. Had to do multiple trips back and forth to get my camera, bag, tripod one by one across this stream. In the end, while getting all my stuff back, I slipped and had a fall – slight bruises, wet clothes, wet camera bag, the camera in my hand saved by the L-bracket – it was a hairy few moments before I could ascertain both me and the gear were all ok. For all this, I have just this one image to show – and this is typical too! Mostly, we manage to come out with one or at most, a couple of images from each such shoot.

Not to forget, after all this, we have to make our way back to the parked car in darkness, and drive back in our exhausted states as well.

So, that was a little behind-the-scenes of what typically happens in our landscape shoot outings. What do you think? Do give me a shout-out in the comments below, or on one of my social channels.

Cheers.