Switzerland photos and what I learned

17 06 2009

As you could have read in a previous post I was planing a trip to Switzerland. I also tried to think a bit in advance what kind op pictures I would like to come home with.
The results you can find here: Switzerland Gallery
What I’ve learned:

  • For a picture of mountains to work they need to be placed into context. This can be the valley, other mountains or a foreground object like a cabin. For this reasons pictures taken while on top of the mountain hardly ever reflect the true magnificence of the scenery Landscape
  • One day is too short. If you are photographing landscapes staying somewhere for one day is too short. Landscape photography is a lot about being at the right place at the right time. The right time relating to time of day and of year and under the right weather conditions. The right place is of course the best location to capture the landscape. If you are just there for one day you need luck.
  • Don’t take too many pictures. After a 1 week trip I returned with 1500 pictures. The trip ended 3 weeks ago and I am still not done sorting through them. Many of them are nearly duplicates. For most shots it is not needed to shoot more than one. Make your shot check in the preview that is is ok and move on. A lot of other pictures were just not good composition wise and of most of them I knew at the time of taking that it wouldn’t be brilliant. So next time I will try to limit myself and only take a picture when I feel the composition is good.
    Of course the great thing about digital photography is that you don’t have to care about how much film you have, but it is also a disadvantage as you are more likely to not think enough about the composition.
  • Check your camera! It sound obvious, but I had a number of shots failed because I forgot to set the settings back (ISO value, still manual focus etc etc) I also had some images with dust spots. So check your camera.
  • As mentioned in a previous post walk. I spend 2 days in the alps (in the Jungfrau region) one of those days walking and the other going by train and with a cable car up the mountains. Almost all of the successful alpine landscape pictures were taken during the day walking. It really helps to get a feeling of the landscape.

I hope you have also learned something from my trip. Let me know if you have any comments by leaving a comment.

Happy shooting!
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Preparation for a trip: part 1, What?

10 05 2009

In a couple of weeks I’ll be making a short trip to Switzerland. No need to mention that I will be bringing my camera along. However since I am trying to improve my photography I should prepare myself to ensure that I’ll come home with stunning photo’s. So how to prepare?

In a number of posts I will highlight several aspects in my preparation. In this post I will focus on the subject. e.g. What to photograph?

Switzerland has a lot of things to offer, Mountains, culture, history, architecture. In short more than enough options. Since I live in the Netherlands, which is so flat you can fax it, the thing which triggers my imagination most is mountains.

So I want to go and photograph mountains, but that doesn’t entirely finish off the what question. There are many different kind of mountain images. Just type in mountain in Google image search. I use the Google image search to help me pre visualize what kind of photo I would like to make. In my case I am most moved by those pictures which help you feel the grandeur of the mountains with their own stories which remind me of the mountains in Tolkien etc. I would like to make photo’s which show that these mountains have a story to tell.

How to translate this into a picture. When I look at pictures I like I often see depth I have a feeling of the size and age of the mountains. In an online tutorial on www.jeffwignall.com it is explained what kind of elements help to create depth. If I want to create the illusion of depth I need to look for those elements. Another element which helps to create depth is shadow created by the mountains.
Conclusion
On my trip I’ll be looking to make photo’s of mountains. The photo’s should not be misplaced in a Tolkien kind story, so they should contain depth. Some sketches come to mind

  • A foreground object (shed, house, ..) with some sort of road or river leading the viewer into the mountain. The image is most strong when this is layered by haze or fog.
  • A very powerful image is a range of mountains reflected in a lake; it shows the full scale of the mountains
  • Whit sunrise or sun set the first part to be hit by the sunlight are the mountain peaks and while the sun is climbing through the sky, the shadows chase each other through the mountains.
  • Maybe a long time exposure of an after sunset sky with the first stars visible tracing their way on the sky

In the next post I will go into how to make this happen.


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