Travel and Scenic Photography 101

When you’re driving through the mountains somewhere, and you notice a car parked half off the road and some guy leaning to the left to avoid a branch with his Rebel 2000 camera in the act of focusing, you’ve met me. I do this because, to me, a trip isn’t fulfilling unless I’ve preserved that beauty for posterity. I’d like to share some of the techniques that make scenic photography such a wonderful artform - simple, yet elegant.

First off, equipment. As much as the cheapo disposable camera beckons, get real. These cameras have fisheye lenses which I call “spam” lenses. They cram everything in, with equal blurriness and boringness. Good photos are sharp, unless you use blur for artistic effect. Sharp comes from an adjustable lens. It can be a fixed lens or a zoom, but it must focus specially for each picture. Fixed lenses are limiting for scenic pictures, where to frame the shot you may need to move long distances. Imagine using a fixed lens on the Washington Monument, when you’re half a block away! Zooms get my vote, even though they often don’t have as wide an aperture, which limits their capabilities in low light situations.

Practically speaking, an SLR is the absolute best. They are lightweight, and can be used with top quality lenses. Film SLRs tend to be less expensive, but have the limitations of film, meaning you have to get it developed and so forth. Digital SLRs are VERY expensive, so for the budget conscious either go with a film SLR or a high quality basic digital camera. With digital, resolution is also a critical factor, so look at the specs before you buy.

OK, we’ve got the camera, emotions are running high, and that’s great, but not too great! Sometimes I find a spot that is so wonderful, I start shooting like a madman, only to be disappointed by the pictures. What happened? Emotions. When you experience a place, there are sounds, aromas and breezes as well as the visuals of the spot. Needless to say, you can’t photograph all of these elements, only the visual. When overwhelmed by the spectacle of a scenic hotspot, we are often overwhelmed by all of these elements.

So what to do? Look through your camera. The viewfinder does not lie (usually). Try to see what you are looking at as the finished picture. Most people perfunctorily take pictures, hoping that somehow the shot will come out great. If you wonder how the pictures came out when you are on the way to the drug store to get them, you’re doing something wrong. At the moment you click the pic, you should know exactly what you will get. (Of course with digital, that’s not a trick!).

Now, I was a tad dishonest in saying that you can’t capture all of the elements of a scene. You can hint at them. For starters, motion. Yes, even in a still picture, there is motion. Something happened before, during and after your picture. In a mountain vista scene, you may find something that hints at motion, whether it be a branch of a tree that has been swaying in the breeze, or a river flowing through the valley below. These add a sense of motion.

Then there’s the “rule of thirds.” When you place the main object of the picture smack-dab in the middle, it is static and boring. Place it one third of the way from either side, and you IMPLY motion. Put the horizon in a landscape photo a third of the way up or down, not across the middle.

Remember, when a person looks at a picture, their eyes move. You want to frame your photo to help that movement. If you can find some lines in the scene, such as a skyline, cloud formation, path through the forest, etcetera, use it interestingly, and with the rule of thirds to draw your viewer’s eyes into the picture.

Avoid “summit syndrome.” You get to the top of Mount Washington and shoot the majestic vista. Great. The pictures come out … boring! How? No PERSPECTIVE. Big vistas will be flat unless you have an object in the foreground, such as a rock or a tree, to give them perspective. Then the eye really grasps how big this scene is. People enjoying the view is a real winner, because the viewer may identify with their emotions, giving the image real impact.

Cheese! Yes, you do have to take the family photos. It’s obligatory. But when you do, make sure that they show the LOCATION of the photo. Otherwise, you might as well do it on your driveway. Frame the scene in context, with landmarks as part of the picture. Find a way to tell as story in the picture, such as little Sara climbing up the rocks by the waterfall.

Finally, any element in the picture that hints at more senses than just the visual will make it remarkable. Actor headshots for example, tell a story about the subject. You can almost hear them saying their next lines. If you photograph a garden, the viewer may experience the aroma of the flowers. A tourist street with an accordion player on the corner may have your amazed friends whistling “Dixie.”

In summation, picture taking on travel is recording the experience in a satisfying way. Use motion, perspective, sensory, storytelling and so forth, to bring your photos to life. Oh, and needless to say, make your job easy and go to great places! See you at the overlook!

Seth Lutnick is a photographer, composer, and performer. He has taken thousands of scenic photos, recorded two albums of original music, and appeared on stage, TV and film. Visit his website - www.getitdone.biz - for more detailed plans on photography, music, health and education, and extensive product links for the resources to fulfill your goals.

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FLASH AUDIO VIDEO PLAYER 2GB MP3/4 WMA FM USB2.0 FS IN
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I call mine a poor mans iPod, but that doesn’t mean it lacks in quality at all. For ?50 it is an amazing little gadget. It is basically an iPod duplicate, just with a different interface. Just like an iPod, the screen makes it very easy to scroll through different artists, genres or albums to find a song. Also, like an iPod, the screen can be used to play videos and view pictures, which can be easily converted and written to the device by a program which comes on a CD which is included with the player. It doesn’t support all video files, but for me it has so far supported .avi and .wmv. However, unlike an iPod, it has a built in radio and microphone for recording whatever you like, whenever. It has an internal battery and needs to be charged through USB like an iPod (in case you were wondering). The 2GB isn’t really a lot compared to other players, but for the price, and along with the features it is excellent. You can actually store a whole feature length film on this, and still have room for about 500 songs, so thats not bad. The screen is a bit small for watching a film on, but an easy watching programme is ideal for waiting for the bus, for example (Family Guy for me…). Bottom line is, if you want something that can play videos and music and, buy an iPod. If you want this but are on a tight budget, this Philips player is an absolute must have.
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I’ve just got this and i’ve got to say it’s really good. Buy it and you will love it.

JEJA JV-TV104FA 10.4″ Digital Mobile LCD Mini TV With FreeView DVB-T Tuner
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Sharp Digital Tv Recorder with twin Digital tuner, 160Gb Hard Drive & PIP (Picture in Picture)
Twin tuners. 160GB HDD.
Customer Review: Good piece of kit, does the essentials well
I bought this item after trying one or two other models and returning them. This one seems to work well: I have had it for a month or two, put it through its paces, and it hasn’t wobbled once. For short-term record-and-watch, it is a major step forward from the VCR or DVD-R - far simpler to use, vastly more capable, better recording quality - giving you a well organised and labelled library of 80+ hours of your favourite TV for minimal effort. And at the typical price of say 120 to 150 quid, it avoids the need for a big investment in technology which will be improved-on still further over the next few years. If you are looking for something like the sky-plus experience on freeview then this might be for you. It has twin digital tuners which will let you: - record - or play - one channel, whilst … - playing another channel, or play a previous recording. So long as you understand this limitation its a good piece of kit - it is enough for most people, most or all of the time. But: - if your heart is set in recording two channels at once - when there’s two good programmes on at the same time, and you are out for the evening - then this box will only record one of them. - It will do picture in picture - nicely - eg you can change channels on the small picture or on the large oe, swap chanels, etc. However, you can’t do P-i-P if you’re recording something at the same time, because the box can do two things at once, but not three. Things that work well: - recording is a doddle. go in to the 7-day programme guide / EPG, highlight the programme you want, and press the red “record” button. that’s it. programme is now shown underlined in red. - pause /rewind / fast forward / slo-mo / record of live TV - when it does a recording it saves the programme info too and you can control it to always pad the begining / end, eg 1min at the start / 3mins at the end. - The 160gb hard disk does indeed hold 80-90 hours of programmes, picture quality and stability is good, the timer recording works reliably and you can set it to record daily / weekly) - its pretty helpful re deleting old recordings automatically should you so desire - eg you can set it do delete oldest first, including/excluding unwatched recordings, you can protect individual recordings against deletion and/or viewing. you can see how much disk is free and how much is reqd for the recordings in the pipeline. - setup is easy and the remote is well laid out, the manual and the menu system are simple, the onscreen colours aren’t garish! Minor limitations: - whilst you can delete or hide channels, you can’t reorder them. - if you want to record part of a programme - eg due to something else overlapping with it - its quite tricky. you need to set one recording, save, then go and edit its timings, then set the other recording. - if your disk gets full and you want to archive stuff off to DVD - this would need to be done via Scart lead and would be slow [a 1hr programme would take 1hr to archive]. - There’s no socket for faster file transfer, or for using the hard disk as a backup for your home PC. Hope this is helpful in making your choice.
Customer Review: Sharpe Hard Disc Recorder
A exellent machine that is very easy to set up and to use but can only be used on digital signals