Often times, when we see an image in a magazine, online, or in a gallery, we’re impressed at the beauty, composition, or presentation of the shot. Most of the time we don’t stop to think of all that goes into actually getting "The Shot."
After completing seven days of photography in Southern Utah and Northern Nevada, I decided to give you a brief recap of exactly how hard photographers work to come away with a few images they can be proud of.
The goal of any landscape and wildlife photographer is to be in a position that allows them to spend as much time during the day shooting as possible. This means putting in hours and hours of research ahead of time so that we have a general idea of the layout, sun position, weather and composition possibilities before we even get to a scene.
With a good 50 hours worth of research already under my belt, I set off for the Southwest United States on a Tuesday afternoon.
Over the following days I endured:
- Six nights sleeping in the back of a Toyota Prius. Photographers need to adhere to a budget in order to maximize the time we spend in the field, and to save cost, and put myself closer to the areas I want to photograph I’ve chosen to sleep in my vehicle. This saves cash…but the rest I get isn’t the best.
- One shower. During the middle of the trip we broke down and got a proper hotel one night to clean and get a good night sleep. A shower does amazing things to rejuvenate you after five days of hiking grime has built up.
- I hiked nearly 50 miles over the week. About half of that was in water that required special equipment to keep me warm, safe, and my gear dry.
I watched as rain began to fall while I was in the middle of a slot canyon. Slot Canyons are amazing places for photography, but during a storm they can be deadly. Watching rain drops keep fallin’ on my head while I was in the middle of one of these canyons was quite nerve wracking. Luckily, the sun came back out, and I was treated to a canyon all to myself for photography. Which is rare.
- I drove over 2300 miles in seven days. A lot of photography is being in the right place at the right time. This means constant watching of weather reports, and changing plans on the fly to give yourself the best opportunity to be where the photography is hopefully great.
- I was in a different location for sunrise and sunset every day….and spent the afternoons in still different areas. Being in the right place for sunrise photography requires that you get up at least an hour or two before, usually hike somewhere in the dark…and this is all before you really know whether or not you’re going to have conditions worthy of photographing. Over those seven days, I had only two sunsets that were worth photographing (one was amazing…which made up for the others). I had only one sunrise that was even decent…the rest were bland, but still required that I get up, break down camp, and get to my location before there was light to see.
This is hard work for only a couple of images, but these trips serve another purpose, too. They allow us to get out and experience places firsthand…so that when we’re conducting a
workshop, we know where to be and the time of day to be there. We’re familiar with the types of issues students are going to come in contact with, because we’ve lived through them ourselves.
When you
sign up for a workshop with us, you’re getting that experience and research working for you…so all you have to do is show up and shoot. It’s just up to you whether you sleep in your car or not.
