After graduating from photography school, I spent a good deal of my 20s photographing the cityscapes of New York. In my 30s, I discovered a new muse, after I relocated to Upstate NY-the landscape. What's so nouveau about the landscape? You'll only understand this after living in a cramped, 5th floor walk up apartment for years, with views topped only by brick walls.
Anyone who went to photography school is familiar with "the golden hour" - that gorgeous time right before sunset or right after sunrise; by far the best time to shoot landscape photography. Everything and I mean everything is gorgeous at this hour.
When I moved to the Adirondacks, I sought inspiration from the area's numerous mountains and lakes. Though I'd attended various photography schools, studied with different photographers and shot a good deal of (non-mountainous) landscape photography in the past, nothing prepared me for photographing mountains.
I've since met other photographers in the area, who concur that the terrain poses unique and significant challenges that affect not only neophytes, such as myself at the time, but also more seasoned area photographers.
I was relieved to discover this. After all, the thought had occurred to me that my urban environs had deflowered me in the most vulgar of ways. Or that my years attending photography schools, and the long hours of inhaling photographic chemicals left me so ill-equipped that I couldn't even properly take a simple nature photograph.
But it wasn't my photography school, nor my many years in an urban environment. It was that photographing certain elements of nature can be even more mysterious and baffling than the human element, which I had, at least to some degree, come to readily understand. So, here are some tips and tricks of what I've learned while wrestling with such subjects.
1. Know Where You Are
I'm not talking about bringing a compass with you wherever you go, unless of course, you have a habit of getting lost, in which case it might be worthwhile. But, more so that you need to understand your lighting and position. Remember before when we were discussing "the golden hour"? Well one of the things you'll soon discover when photographing mountains is that there often isn't a golden hour, or if there is, it can be diminished greatly-very disappointing when you've spent hours waiting for a particular shot.
2. Shadows Haunt You
It's the shadows of nature I'm referring to here. Until you're out in the middle of nature, you don't realize how shadows can and will get in the way of your shot. Think about light and shadows and the way they play upon each other; if you're not looking for a highly shadowed shot, this will be a problem.
But all is not lost! There are ways to work around this. When I first started to photograph the mountains, I'd set up my shots where my back was to the sun. But if you're familiar with pine trees, you'll know that's when their shadows get particularly frisky. You can work around this, however, by setting up near a creek or lake, which will decrease the amount of shadows in the picture.
3. You're Not a Mule Horse, You're a Human
If you're used to hiking long stretches of terrain with heavy packs on your back, then maybe you can skip this one. But those of us who range from average to flabby, consider that we aren't mule horses, and not in the best of shape. It's best to accept this ahead of time, because in the process of seeking out your shots, you'll climb many a steep and arduous mountain, and for this reason, leave the heavy tripod at home.
After a few trips carrying my full-weight tripod, I thought it was time to give myself a gift-a travel tripod. Invest. It's worth it.
4. For the Love of Contrast
There is no even keel when it comes to lighting the landscape evenly in the mountains. A bright sky might just be sitting above a group of mountains that are totally in shadow. With most cameras, the dynamic range is too low to capture the detail of both. To overcome this issue, you will probably want to invest in a graduated neutral density filter, which will allow you to do things like darken the sky, so that you can get more precise detail in the mountain ridge and sky you're photographing.
5. Nature's Not Always Quiet
In fact, it can be pretty darn busy, which can pose a problem when you're looking for a good foreground element. This is something you can't bypass as a good foreground element not only captures your viewer's eye but also gives the shot depth. In nature, this can be a serious challenge; the terrain is full of hundreds of different elements (refer to the shadows point above), competing for your attention. It can be difficult to set up a shot where you actually have something in the foreground.
There's no easy way to get around this one. You're probably just going to have to search awhile to find an area when you will have a foreground element. But the search will be worth it in the end. I know I said 5, but there's another point I want to mention, and that's that when photographing in the mountains, keep in mind that you'll need to go very wide to get a complete and well-composed shot. Thank God for my background and experience in photography school.
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