View Poll Results: A poll about your scouting preferences

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  • 1) My scouting is w/o the distraction of camera gear – I go gearless

    6 13.95%
  • 2) It makes sense to scout w/ camera gear, ready for immediate action

    12 27.91%
  • 3) I’m a digital scouter, recording locations and ideas with a digital device

    6 13.95%
  • 4) Me, I’m an analog scouter – pencil, pad, notes, sketches, etc.

    5 11.63%
  • 5) My memory is good – I simply memorize ideas while scouting

    10 23.26%
  • 6) I always have a framing device to help (smart phone, viewing card)

    9 20.93%
  • 7) I look for subjects, then plan my return to coincide w/ good light/season

    20 46.51%
  • 8) I look for good light and its timing, and will return to look for subjects

    3 6.98%
  • 9) Scouting? My images find me, I don’t find them. Call it the art of Zen!

    8 18.60%
  • 10) Some helpful remarks from my personal experiences: [Please share below!]

    5 11.63%
Multiple Choice Poll.
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Thread: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

  1. #11
    45er
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    Nov 2017
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    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!

  2. #12
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Quote Originally Posted by seall View Post
    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.

  3. #13
    45er
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    Nov 2017
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Quote Originally Posted by Heroique View Post
    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/s...-map-data-sets

  4. #14

    Join Date
    Sep 1998
    Location
    Oregon now (formerly Austria)
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    3,397

    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    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

  5. #15
    Corran's Avatar
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    Apr 2011
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    North GA Mountains
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Google Maps

    suncalc.org
    Bryan | Blog | YouTube | Instagram | Portfolio
    All comments and thoughtful critique welcome

  6. #16
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaughn View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Doremus Scudder View Post
    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. ;^)

    Quote Originally Posted by Doremus Scudder View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Doremus Scudder View Post
    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).

  7. #17
    Vaughn's Avatar
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Quote Originally Posted by Heroique View Post
    ...
    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.

    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.)
    "Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China

  8. #18
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    Re: Landscapers, please share wisdom about scouting

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaughn View Post
    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!

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