Landscape photography tip: walk

1 06 2009

Signpost for walking in SwitzerlandDuring my recent trip to Switzerland I took many landscape photos. While trying to capture the magnificence of the mountain landscape I realised that the fact that I was walking helped a lot.

If you photograph a person you can ask the person to move this way or that, change the angle, move a light. With landscapes that is a bit tricky since they are kind of stationary. In order to overcome this limitation you have to do all the moving. If you do the moving by car you limit yourself further by having to stick to roads and to places where you can stop and park.

On foot you have much better access to the landscape. (of course this is not true for all locations) While hiking though a landscape you can see the landscape change as landscape elements shift in relation to each other. You also see more candidates to serve as foreground objects. As for the light, you get a feeling of how the sun moves through the landscape.

If you gain more experience as a photographer I imagine you will develop the skills to see the visualize the landscape from different viewpoints,  but I’m not there yet and am not yet able to see at a glance what the best view is and at what time.

Some of the results of my trip to in Switzerland are up at my Switzerland gallery (more pictures will be added there soon)

Hope this tip helps you and let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Happy shooting (and walking)

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