Professional landscape photographers do a lot more than simply pack their bag and head out into the wilderness to find great shots. There is an impressive amount of careful planning that goes into most shoots that often leverages some very helpful modern tools. This excellent video will show you how to plan your own landscape shoot to give yourself the best chances of a successful outcome.
Coming to you from Chris Sale, this helpful video will show you how to plan a landscape photography shoot. Modern tech has come quite a long way in the last decade or so, and there are now numerous programs and smartphone apps to help you precisely plan images. One of my favorites is the AR tool in PhotoPills. This allows you to point your phone at anything and see an overlay of future positions of things like the sun and moon, making it incredible straightforward to find exactly the right moment for the image you have in mind. There are many such apps; it is definitely worth getting one for your work. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Sale.
If you would like to continue learning about landscape photography, be sure to check out "Photographing the World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing With Elia Locardi!"
Planning will only get you so far. You said it. I personally plan trips but not shots until I am in the field. It has nothing to with whether or not planning shots at home is good or bad. I simply want photography not to be so laid out, non-spontaneous. I guess for me the shot is the consequence of a reaction to a moment. This is why I have a hard time using focus stacking and stitching, but I occasionally try. Every picture is my baby because every picture is a genuine in the moment memory. Good for those that make a living taking shots. I understand that that requires a more disciplined method.
Why are you detailing your personal methodology of taking photos? It has nothing to do with location selection and travel.
What are you talking about? His video was about using scouting tools to increase your chances of good shots and I was saying that angle of sun and modeling of location using virtual tools has never served me well. Instead I pick interesting locations through planning of my trip and then when I get there I react to the conditions in the field. Just because the sun comes up in a certain direction doesn't mean it is the most interesting shot. What I was sharing was that there is an emotion that goes beyond the technical that be felt in a picture when happy surprises happen. I think this can be more powerful than a sterile overcalculated, overdesigned photo.
There are too many technically perfect but blah pictures in the world. Go to 500px if you want to see them. I think more compelling pictures are one with a more innocent, imperfect quality. All this over planning and over saturated garbage may be appealing to some but I like seeing a picture where I know the photographer cared about what they were shooting. Most wildlife photographers say the difference between one photographer's picture and another's is that you can see one of them actually cared about the animal, had a passion.
I hope this answers your question. And I don't have a problem with people seeing differently. Follow what speaks to you. I just have a different perspective. Probably from old age seeing the world overconsumed with showing off to each other, feeling that they must see everything even if it destroys what they see. I like Thoreau. Never travelled further than 10 miles from Walden's pond. And I am an aerospace engineer. I guess technology doesn't impress me anymore. People and experiences do.
Your narcissistic pontification has absolutely nothing to do with planning a trip out in the field. You don't understand, apparently, landscape photography or obviously, light. I can imagine that you would get to the author's location at high noon and start shooting away, hoping for "imperfect quality." At least you would get the imperfect aspect accomplished. Those who do this for a living don't trek up hillsides for two and half hours only to rely on the hope of a "happy surprise."
Very interesting. Methodical. I think I would be somewhere between that and just winging it. We used to say we used Dreamovision when shooting tv news. I would have an idea of what I wanted before the shoot, but being news it was never going to exactly be that vision, but at least you had a plan that you would then adapt. Dreamovision was good for photographers to have, but very bad for assignment editors to have.