Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

[Heroique]

If you’re a scouter, please share your secrets and best practices from the field. :D

I often scout without camera gear – that’s a lot of fun! I think it’s as much fun as going out to take photos.

But on shooting days, even as I hike with gear to a known subject, it’s natural for me to notice possible shots for the future. And if I come upon a subject in great light, I’ll drop my original plans and compose right then and there. Spontaneous scouting is a useful tool in my bag, just as important as deliberative scouting.

Please share your scouting preferences in this poll – maybe they’ll also inspire you to offer personal or unique insights that can help other LFers on the quest for images.

[Heroique]

And here are a few scouting questions on my mind:


Do you treat shooting and scouting as two very different activities, requiring attention from separate parts of the mind – and ideally, needing separate outings?
Do you return (and return again) to areas you’ve scouted before?
Do you wait for specific conditions, such as weather, season, or time of day, then head out to scout?
Do you have a scouting kit? What do you bring? For example, a spot meter? Viewing card? Binoculars?
What are the main facts you record (or remember) about a promising subject? If you're off trail, how do you record a location if it's tricky to find?

[Vaughn]

No.10

I do not scout, generally. I am more interested in the light that I am seeing and prefer to wander with the camera until the light, place, and me all come together. I would not call that spontaneous scouting...just photographing.

I have been photographing along Prairie Creek with LF since 1977. Scouting is not really needed. Standing outside my house and figuring out what the weather is like 50 miles to the north is the challenge. Will there be a breeze or not?! I know the trees and sections of creek very well...and have had to say good-by to many old friends. I will occasionally find myself remembering an image made in a spot as I pass it and notice that in the 30 years, the opening that the light had brought alive has now closed in. Elsewhere, there are some places I might never be at again, or at least never in the same light. Some areas I return to every few years and rediscover (Death Valley, Dry Falls, etc).

I suppose I am looking at light all the time, only sometimes I have a camera with me.

[Michael R]

I’m basically 1 and 3 through 7. My way of making photographs would be excruciating to anyone besides me, but to answer your questions:

1. Not necessarily different parts of the mind per se. But from a practical perspective in order to avoid it becoming too technically overwhelming/daunting I need to divide it up into several separate, more manageable steps. Usually that means multiple visits.

2. Yes but really only before I make the actual photograph(s). By the time I make exposures I’ve usually exhausted the location in terms of ideas. Not always, but most of the time.

3. Not usually for the initial scouting and figuring out the compositions or whatever one calls it, but I will return under the planned conditions to do stuff like metering if required. Once everything has been sorted out I’ll come back a final time to make the exposures.

4. It depends on which part of the process. I used to always have a little note pad to make sketches, notes, whatever, and a viewing card, often a 35mm camera. However over the past several years I’ve come to rely mostly on my phone and leave the rest of it at home. It’s just so convenient for making preparatory photo studies.

5. I mostly photograph locally so remembering the location is not a problem. The facts I try to record are mostly to deal with technical challenges/problems.

[Heroique]

I know the trees and sections of creek very well … and have had to say good-by to many old friends.

I feel your pain. Several trees I’ve posted here are now victims of the mountain pine beetle. Their bleached remains remain photogenic, but I do miss my old friends.


…I’ll return under the planned conditions to do stuff like metering if required. Once everything has been sorted out, I’ll come back a final time to make the exposures.

Just as you describe, I’ve scouted a selected subject more than once before feeling ready for an exposure. Some of my favorite images were made this way. And as Vaughn says, I’ve also returned to a selected subject to find natural changes have made my original idea impossible. All part of a living and dying landscape.

-----
How about a scouting example…

Here’s a favorite tree I found when scouting (gearless) off trail – or I should say off beach (in Olympic NP in Washington state):

215520

I liked its shape and the surrounding forest floor, so I recorded its location, noting that ideally, I’d like to return when the coast was enveloped in a thick marine layer, as the Olympic NP coast often is during morning hours. The reason – to add some atmospheric separation between the tree and its background.

So what you see here is the image during my return visit (a year later). I headed out early when the morning beach was under impenetrable thick fog. But as you can see, when I arrived, the marine layer had burnt off. Not even a wisp of fog in the crystal blue sky. I missed my visualization by about 90 minutes. But who’s to complain when hiking in this primitive and beautiful area?

I’ll return this summer for another try – pitching my tent nearby for an earlier start.

Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
T-max 100 (in T-max rs)
Epson 4990/Epson Scan

[Vaughn]

I feel your pain. Several trees I’ve posted here are now victims of the mountain pine beetle. Their bleached remains remain photogenic, but I do miss my old friends....

Old age has taken most of my favorite big-leaf maples. Amongst the redwoods, they are relative short and short-lived...the ones I grew accustomed to are only a hundred feet tall or so and live at most 200 years. I think the weight of the lichens and ferns helps to bring them down, eventually.

Half of this one has fallen...

[Tobias Key]

I do initial scouting by studying UK ordnance survey explorer maps, I don't know what the US equivalent is. These are very detailed and include contour lines, footpaths/bridleways and parking spots. Much more useful than google maps for working out what you can get access to, and of course not battery reliant. After planning out some walks I tend to go scouting in the middle of the day, and work out good shooting spots. I prefer to shoot before and just after sunrise/sunset so time is limited when I need to be productive.

[Jim Noel]

I am always scouting for subjects, especially when driving out of the city. I don't use any tools other than my eyes until I take a camera to the site. Usually an image shows itself to me. If not, I use a viewing card the same ratio as the camera I have with me. Then the camera goes on the tripod and I use the ground glass to scan as I slowly rotate the camera. (A technique I learned during one of my conversations with Paula Chamlee.)
After the exposure is made the camera is rotated 180 degrees, where I often find a better image.

[Heroique]

I do initial scouting by studying UK ordnance survey explorer maps, I don't know what the US equivalent is…

Sometimes I use what I presume is the U.S. equivalent, the USGS quadrangle ("Quad") series. These are quite useful, 7.5 minute topographic maps whose scale is 1:24,000 (that is, 1 inch = 2,000 feet). They show enough detail about natural and cultural features to make scouting off-trail areas very easy, very fun. To be sure, exploring with these maps is, I believe, about as much fun one can have in the woods, whether or not I find a landscape subject.


I am always scouting for subjects, especially when driving out of the city.

The poll might have had an option for car scouting. For me, scouting by car can be an art, especially when I’m on lonely FS roads. I think it requires a lot of talent to look for and recognize subjects ahead of you and to the side, while concentrating on safe driving. I sometimes stop to explore if my FS map says there’s a stream or cliff hiding behind the screen of trees. I've discovered a handful of LF shots this way.

[Vaughn]

I am terrible at 'scouting by car'. I'm okay for using a car to find general areas to explore on foot, but seeing image possibilities requires far too much mental focus, or de-focusing might be better, than driving/moving in a car allows me.

Google Earth is a good resource for finding places to work in...although I am not set up for doing that on the road.

[seall]

Maps are very helpfull.

I have the Full GB OS 1:25,000 HD Explorer map, Full GB OS 1:50,000 HD Landranger map, Full GB 1:10,000 scale OS Open Map Local map and the new Full GB 1:10,000 scale OS Vector Map Local and some historic maps from my own area. These are all on my hardware GPS smart phone running OMN3 software which I use offline anytime I want, the vector map local on gps is fantastic in the car!

[Heroique]

Maps are very helpful. I have the … full GB 1:10,000 scale OS Open Map Local map and the new Full GB 1:10,000 scale OS Vector Map Local and some historic maps from my own area.

Your 1:10,000 scale map sounds like a luxurious scouting tool.

That’s enough detail to mark the specific location of a subject for a future visit, even if you don’t have GPS coordinates.

“X” marks the spot. :D

[seall]

Your 1:10,000 scale map sounds like a luxurious scouting tool.

It sure is, although it does require a reasonable amount of space to store the maps - preferably using internal memory. Think I have used about 150GB running on a recent Samsung which has not given me any problems at all. Brilliant resource.

Please note, I am not affiliated to the company or service in any way - Just a very contented user.

https://support.anquet.com/support/solutions/articles/13000048034-size-of-map-data-sets

[Doremus Scudder]

I don't scout; I explore.

I do find scenes that I return to time and again till I can get the image I want. When I was photographing in my erstwhile "home town" of Vienna, Austria, I'd make notes about possibilities in the reminder app on my phone, which would remind me whenever I passed that way again (with or without camera...). I have, a few times, found a place I'd like to work at at a certain time of day, and arranged to be back there then.

There are some places I returned to numerous times before getting the image I wanted; some I never got.

Still, scouted images are in the minority in my work. Usually I just hit the trail or the road and see what I can find. I generally "search" in locations that appeal to me and have potential, but rarely go after a particular place/subject. My motto: Good photographs are where you find them.

I think that focusing too much on what you think you want to photograph can blind you to the possibilities of what there is to photograph. I reflect a great deal about what I'm trying to communicate with my work and which subjects best lend themselves to that end, but not when I'm actively working. When I'm out with the camera, I try to clear my mind, ask permission from the landscape to let me photograph, and then wander about with my sensitivities and awareness at full power. In that state of mind, photographs often find me, not the other way around.

I do make use of a framing card. It saves time choosing lenses and, often, saves me having to set up the camera at all :)

Best,

Doremus

[Corran]

Google Maps

suncalc.org

[Heroique]

Old age has taken most of my favorite big-leaf maples. Amongst the redwoods, they are relative short and short-lived...the ones I grew accustomed to are only a hundred feet tall or so and live at most 200 years. I think the weight of the lichens and ferns helps to bring them down, eventually. Half of this one has fallen...

Very nice, mysterious, looks like an enchanted forest. I’ll be scouting some gigantic Big Leaf Maples during my upcoming trip to Olympic NP – I have a few days scheduled for the Hoh Rain Forest, where their gigantic limbs serve as hanging gardens for ferns, lichens, and mosses. Like you, I’ve seen (and heard) the limbs strain, crack, and break, swinging their burdens in the wind.


I don't scout; I explore.

I might prefer the term “explore,” too. It makes me feel a little bit heroic, like I’m a Victorian explorer charting unknown lands for the Queen, winning fame back in the homeland. ;^)


I think that focusing too much on what you think you want to photograph can blind you to the possibilities of what there is to photograph.

I firmly believe this too. To be sure, I’ve experienced it. I’ve felt the limitations of hiking to a subject up the trail, and missing subjects in plain sight on the way there, since my mind was, well, on my mind. It’s one reason I selected option #1 (gearless), though it’s not the only way I enjoy scouting. I mean exploring.


When I'm out with the camera, I try to clear my mind, ask permission from the landscape to let me photograph, and then wander about with my sensitivities and awareness at full power. In that state of mind, photographs often find me, not the other way around.

Certainly this means one of the options you selected was #9 (Zen). :D

[Vaughn]

...
I might prefer the term “explore,” too. It makes me feel a little bit heroic, like I’m a Victorian explorer charting unknown lands for the Queen, winning fame back in the homeland. ;^)
...

I'll stick to 'wandering'. Has less of a colonial feel to it. :cool:

It is nice experiencing the forest primeval (or desert, mountains,etc) with the feeling one could be the first to ever step foot where one is standing. Bull pucky, of course. With native peoples living on the land for tens of thousands of years, the chances are greater that several people have taken a piss where one is now standing. But 'exploring' is still a cool word...personal exploration is one of the functions of art, and the space between my ears is not well mapped (even tho it is obvious someone been pissing around in there for ages.)

[Heroique]

It is nice experiencing the forest primeval (or desert, mountains,etc) with the feeling one could be the first to ever step foot where one is standing.

Scouting/exploring primeval areas would be an excellent thread topic – an adventure-filled one.

But I suspect not enough of us explore off-trail to keep it alive for long. There are plenty of primitive-looking landscape images around here, but a trail or road is likely just outside the frame.

Perception is everything!