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Location Planning & Image Editing for Landscape Photography
As photography is not my main profession and I love spending time with my family, I don’t often take the time to go on photo trips on my own. Therefore, these times with the camera in nature and in faraway countries are all the more valuable to me. Over the years, I have learned that it is not enough to simply spend a week or two on location and simply react to the landscape and lighting conditions if I want to take home convincing images. That’s why it’s very important to plan the exact location and time for my shots beforehand and I devote a lot of time to the planning.
In September, I visited Iceland to experience the island in its fall colors. Anyone who thinks that there are no autumn colors on Iceland should definitely fly there in mid/late September. The grasses, bushes and trees turn into wonderful colors. On my route, I also visited classic Icelandic motifs such as Cape Dyrhólaey.
Using two pictures as examples, I would like to explain how these shots came about, what worked well and what didn’t turn out quite as planned.
Location planning & recording
The first location is the Háifoss waterfall in Iceland’s highlands. I use both Google Earth Pro and the website https://www.suncalc.org/ for “digital” location scouting from my desk at home to plan my photo location and time of day as precisely as possible. In addition to the nature of the terrain, these applications can also be used to directly display sunrise and sunset dates and lines as well as the height of the sun at certain times of day.
As I had a sunset shot in mind in which the waterfall and the valley would be partly in the shade, it was important to determine the right time so that the sun would still be above the edge of the valley. On the other hand, I was prepared to use exposure bracketing or graduated filters to ensure the correct exposure for both the light and shadow areas. The exposure time should also not be too short in order to achieve a nice soft focus of the waterfall.
I mainly monitor the local weather using the Windy app and the Icelandic website https://vedur.is/. The weather in Iceland often varies, but the forecasts have nevertheless become quite accurate – there is always a residual risk, of course.
My biggest challenge is my limited travel time. I can’t wait a week at a particular photo location for the perfect conditions, so I plan different locations in advance of the trip and then decide at short notice which one I’m going to visit.
High clouds were forecasted for this evening, but they weren’t supposed to move in before sunset. Unfortunately, they arrived a good hour earlier then planned, so my shot of Háifoss wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the result.
3 exposures
The second location is Cape Dyrhólaey in the south of Iceland. The well-known cape has a spectacular cliff edge and the raging ocean often hits the beach and rocks with high and dangerous waves and has knocked over many a tripod of careless photographers.
My aim was to take a shot from the rocks of the cape in the direction of the setting sun over the beach. In summer, such a shot is not possible as the sun sets elsewhere, and I really wanted to integrate the warmly lit rocks of the cape and the low sun into my composition.
Calibration and subsequent image processing
My photo editing workflow is as follows. First, I import my photos into Adobe Lightroom. There, I make a selection of the images and then edit the selected photos. Depending on the requirements, I may also use Adobe Photoshop for editing.
The image of Cape Dyrhólaey is a panorama of 7 portrait format images, which I first had to stitch together. Calibrating the display beforehand helped me to find the right color representation when editing.
Then I adjusted the shadows, highlights, contrast for the sky and foreground and then added a little Orton Glow in Photoshop to make the image a little “softer”. I am very happy with the result.
SpyderPro
Advanced color calibration for your editing monitor
"In addition to the neutral representation of the colors on my display, the calibration ensures that highlights and shadows are set correctly and therefore nuances and gradations can also be reliably assessed."
– Markus van Hauten
About Markus van Hauten
Markus van Hauten began photographing in 2006 and after long periods in sports photography, he finally landed in landscape photography in 2014. He is particularly fond of Iceland, mountain regions and coasts. Being able to enjoy the fantastic sunrises and special weather moods in places in the middle of nature alone with his camera is always a special contrast to his everyday life. These are moments that help him recharge his batteries. This often results in pictures his viewers seem to remember for a long time.
Since 2015, he has taken part in competitions on a regular basis, and in 2016 he won the “Panoramic” category at the prestigious “Sony World Photography Awards”, among others.
Website:
www.van-hauten.eu
Instagram:
@markusvanhauten
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/vanhautenfotografie
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