An Entire Day in the Life of a Landscape Photographer From Sunrise to the Milky Way

I started living in my SUV a few months ago to pursue landscape photography full-time. This episode is the pure essence of what a true day involves.

You won't find any in-depth lessons, tutorials, or even me talking to the camera in this episode. My goal was to provide the most accurate representation of being there with me throughout the journey of a day. The summer solstice resulted in early sunrises, late sunsets, and extended blue hours to wait for enough darkness to capture the stars. This caused me to sleep for 3-to-4-hour periods twice a day rather than a full night of sleep. Personally, the hardest part about landscape photography is just being there. Thankfully, this is much easier when you're waking up or resting your head near where you plan on shooting. 

I was extremely lucky I had such conditions for every part of the day. It wasn't until after creating this video I realized how most days would have had some portion either filled with rain, clouds blocking the stars, or smoky haze in every photo. If you're curious how I captured or edited any of the photos in this episode, please let me know in the comments, or if you just have any general feedback for the format, please let me know. As always, thanks for watching.

Alex Armitage's picture

Alex Armitage has traveled the world to photograph and film some of the most beautiful places it has to offer. No matter the location, perfecting it's presentation to those absent in the moment is always the goal; hopefully to transmute the feeling of being there into a visual medium.

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2 Comments

I really enjoyed this and thanks for posting. So many questions but will try and limit. Where do you sleep, as in where do you pull over where you know you won't be run off by the authorities? Where did you shower in the locker scene? Gym membership? When you went down to the river while brushing was that to rinse or something else? What was the filter kit you used (entire setup) in the flower shot? What focal length for the flower shot? And was the final barn shot a merged shot of the night and day shot or just the long exposure night shot? What was the big battery like unit you were charging with the solar panels? Aren't you concerns with people stealing those if left on car roof? BTW, you have a great eye for composure. Love the mountains framed by trees and the flower shot. The astro shots are amazing but not my thing (nowadays anyone can stick on a night sky in post so it devalues I think). Would love to watch more videos like this - different days taking different shots, just like this one with almost silent theme (let the word to the speaking), sort of like that guy that builds stuff out of clay and doesn't talk to the camera. Kudos!

Thanks so much Robert, I'll answer best I can.
1. Considering I was only sleeping from 11pm to 4:45am many mornings, I could get away with sleeping off some dirt roads without much trouble
2. No gym membership (yet). No major chains of gyms in many of the towns up here, Usually in most cities there is a place to shower. The river water isn't bad either honestly
3. No I was just walking around. I rinse with a little water from my water bottle.
4. Filter kit was version one of the wine country camera system
5. I think I'm at ~18mm
6. First night shot used the blue hour shot, second shot was. 7 shot pano I took afterwards, no blue hour merge of course
7. Battery is a Maxoak/Bluetti AC50s, links in the video description.
8. Where I work inside, I can see my car typically. Even then not too concerned about someone trying to steal a solar panel while I'm inside, at least where I was.

Thanks again Robert and hope that helps.