
How to Do Armchair Location Scouting for Outdoor Photos
Being an accomplished photographer means developing a range of complementary skills all of which combine in an agreeable process that, hopefully, results in good photographs.
Being an accomplished photographer means developing a range of complementary skills all of which combine in an agreeable process that, hopefully, results in good photographs.
You have a photograph in mind and now you want to try and make it a reality. Or, a client has contacted you to help them realize a photograph they have in mind. What now?
The Photographer's Ephemeris—one of the most popular location scouting apps on the market—has just added support for a user-friendly type of location tagging called "what3words." The update should make it easier for landscape and outdoor photographers to save and share their exact photo location no matter where on Earth they're shooting from.
If there is a type of photography where a great planning increases your chances of success, that’s Milky Way photography.
Before I going into this one, let me first share a little recap about my background with Apple. A number of years back, I was in love with the iPhone 4S. I felt it was a phone made for photographers and supported it wholeheartedly, going so far as doing speeches at Apple stores about how their products catered to my workflow.
There are a lot of great location scouting tools out there. But while PhotoPills and The Photographer's Ephemeris do an amazing job and are packed full of useful features, photographer Tony Northrup explains why he prefers to use something else that's completely free: Google Earth.
Designer and engineer Jordan Vincent has created a set of data visualizations (read: creative infographics) that landscape photographers might find invaluable. Using visitor data from all of the most popular US National Parks, he was able to plot attendance by type of lodging, time of year, and average temperature.
PIXEO is a new app that aims to make it easier for photographers to find great photo locations nearby. Photographers view, navigate, and contribute to an ever-growing global map of spots that currently features 10,000+ locations.
Sherpa is a free iOS app that turns top geotagged Instagram photos in to a travel guide and location scouting tool.
Hang around a group of landscape photographers long enough, and you'll undoubtedly hear them talking about location scouting.