{"id":190,"date":"2014-07-28T19:27:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T19:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2014-07-28T19:36:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T19:36:47","slug":"it-takes-three-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"It takes three visits …"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a new place is to be photographed, doing a great job on the first and only visit to the place is indeed rare.\u00a0 I know this from first hand experience.\u00a0 Whenever I visit a new place, I rarely succeed making a great image on the first day.\u00a0 Usually, the first day is spent in just acclimatizing myself to the new location and developing a broad idea of the possibilities of the place.\u00a0 On the second and third days that I am in the new location, I start to make images.\u00a0 When I visited Yellowstone for the first time, I made good images on the second and third days, not the first day that I got there.\u00a0 When I photograph locally around my house, a bulk of my landscape photographs are made over the weekend and typically one day of the weekend (such as a Saturday or a Sunday).\u00a0 Therefore, my best local landscapes are made when I revisit the same location three consecutive weekends.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, I photographed the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which is located about 90 minutes from my home in San Jose, CA.\u00a0 On my first visit to this place, I hiked with a friend and my son for several hours and had no images taken.\u00a0 On our return, just by luck, I found a tree and the surrounding forest interesting and made a vertical panoramic stitch.\u00a0 I would have been perfectly happy not making a single image in that visit, but I took advantage of the opportunity and made this image.<\/p>\n

\"Big

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 Image made on first visit to location.\u00a0 Usually, I am happy making no images on the first visit.<\/p><\/div>\n

This image was made by shooting several vertically overlapping images that were stitched together in Photoshop.\u00a0 Not a bad image for my first trip, but most people expect a lot of images from just one trip.<\/p>\n

Now, on the way back from this first trip, I observed that the morning fog had settled on part of the road and furthermore, since the sun had risen quite a bit by our return, we also witnessed godbeams in several parts of the road.\u00a0 However, due to earlier commitments, we could not stop to photograph.\u00a0 I made a mental note of the location on the road and the time we saw that light, promising to come again soon.<\/p>\n

The next day, I made my second visit to the same location, timing myself based on the previous days’ observation.\u00a0 Lo and behold, the same light appeared on several sections of the road and I was able to make several images with greater ease and higher success.\u00a0 Here are a few of them.<\/p>\n

\"Early

Early morning fog along road, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 Image made on my second visit to this location.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Trees

Trees and Morning Fog, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 Image made on second visit to this location.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Crepuscular

Crepuscular rays, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 Image made on my second visit to this location.<\/p><\/div>\n

These are just some of the images made during my second visit.\u00a0 It was much more successful than my first trip.<\/p>\n

Interesting thing is that I noticed a great vista point in the location that had bad light when I was returning from both my first and second visits.\u00a0 To photograph from that vista point, I decided to make a third trip.<\/p>\n

The following are couple of images I shot from the vista point, on my third visit.<\/p>\n

\"Foggy

Foggy morning, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 Image made on my third visit to this location.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Foggy

Foggy morning, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Boulder Creek, CA, USA.\u00a0 My last keeper image from my third visit.\u00a0 My most favorite image from the three visits.<\/p><\/div>\n

My last keeper image in this series also happens to be my favorite image from the series.\u00a0 To reach this image, I had to make three visits.<\/p>\n

In general, if you are looking to photograph a new landscape location, give it at least three visits.<\/p>\n

Several things happen as you advance from the first to the third visit:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You get very familiar with the roads and the access to key locations<\/li>\n
  2. You get very familiar with the photogenic possibilities of the location<\/li>\n
  3. You get very familiar with how and when the light is going to start and advance<\/li>\n
  4. You get time in between the visits to pre-visualize a composition<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In summary, allow time for the new location to grow on you.\u00a0 Give it at least three visits.<\/p>\n

    If you like this post, please forward it to your friends.\u00a0\u00a0 Furthermore, I would greatly appreciate it if you could visit my Facebook page, https:\/\/Facebook.com\/pixgaga<\/a> and “like” it.\u00a0 Comments on this post most welcome.<\/p>\n

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    When a new place is to be photographed, doing a great job on the first and only visit to the place is indeed rare.\u00a0 I know this from first hand experience.\u00a0 Whenever I visit a new place, I rarely succeed making a great image on the first day.\u00a0 Usually, the first day is spent in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,28,126],"tags":[156,72,170,157,158,160,159],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composition","category-landscapes","category-photographic-composition","tag-big-basin-redwoods-state-park","tag-landscape-photography","tag-photographic-composition","tag-photographic-seeing","tag-photography-composition","tag-photography-location","tag-photography-seeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pixgaga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}