Tips for Better Landscape Photos in New Locations

Do you struggle with your landscape photography when at a new location? It can be challenging when you are photographing a new area. You don’t have a go-to composition, you don’t know when the light is best, and so on. This video walks through how one photographer approaches a new location. 

This video comes from landscape photographer Michael Shainblum, in a new-to-him location in Death Valley, California. He talks about and demonstrates his approach to an unfamiliar area as we follow him around, exploring the sand dunes in the late afternoon. 

Shainblum works his way through the sand dunes and is already thinking about composition options before he hikes into them, providing commentary along the way. As he works through different compositions, he identifies several key tips as we follow along based on his experience photographing new landscape scenes over the years, from how much time to allow, a few key applications he finds helpful in the field, and for helping make things easier when he returns to a location. 

As a landscape photographer who feels most comfortable in familiar locations, this video provides several tips I look forward to implementing the next time I am in a new place. It was interesting to watch an established landscape photographer like Shainblum work in a new area.

Jeffrey Tadlock's picture

Jeffrey Tadlock is an Ohio-based landscape photographer with frequent travels regionally and within the US to explore various landscapes. Jeffrey enjoys the process and experience of capturing images as much as the final image itself.

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