Are you a photographer who has visited a landscape one time and then heads to different locations and never return? Are you someone that visits the same location time and time again? Revisiting a place can provide significant opportunities for landscape photographers.
Being a photographer of landscapes I love to return to places to improve the chance of capturing images that I can be proud of. Each visit helps me understand the location and find compositions that are strong, and identify what conditions in the environment help me create an original photo.
Advantages of Revisiting
If you visit a site again offers a number of advantages over simply visiting an area only once. It helps you understand the basic procedures that make your subsequent visits more effective and efficient. You will know what is the most beautiful view or which path is most suitable for you, and the best place to park. This helps in the process of getting to the most desirable location more comprehensible and easy.
If you are approaching a scene for your first visit, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. My senses are often overwhelmed when I visit new places. Although I have strategies to help me slow down, I tend to choose to shoot my time and shoot the “obvious” shot instead of taking the time to create a compelling composition that tells an interesting story.
I am able to think and process my thoughts more effectively If I go back to the scene on my third and fourth visits. My compositions get better or more engaging because I am aware of the scene.
Finally, the environmental conditions are different on subsequent visits. At first the novelty of a spot makes everything appear to be perfect. But is the light the top? Did the clouds cooperate? Are rain and fog making the area more special? The more often you visit any location, the chance of observing and recognizing specific conditions increase and could result in more and more intriguing photographs.
If you’ve visited a spot at least once, it could appear attractive at first glance but is it really being a sign of “newness,” or is it the right circumstances and composition also lining up?
My Recent Experience
I recently traveled to Arizona particularly in the Superstition Mountain area. I’m likely to visit the area more often during the next months, and I planned this first trip as to be a scouting expedition. Discover where the trail heads were, look at the area from various perspectives, and get an idea of the area to ensure that, on subsequent visits I will have a better chance of getting the perfect photograph.
On my arrival at the airport, I saw a particular park I had to explore as soon as I arrived. Its proximity to the place my accommodation was ideal and based on the research I conducted, it appeared to have a lot of possibilities. However, I wanted to understand the details: access passes, park hours and trailheads, as well as the way it appeared in the real world.
In the three-day period, I explored the area, scouted and even captured this area 5 times. The first day I walked through the park to look at what I believed to be an intriguing trail. I set waypoints on my hike for future visits as well, and because it was cloudy I also took some photos.
