LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you?  If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog we are going to talk about How to do Landscape Photography without traveling to places that others are posting about.  During the pandemic we learned that there was little to no travel allowed all around the world.  This caused a lot of photographers on line to look at his or her back yard or local areas to get the images that they want.  This is what sparked the thought for this blog.  With all that being said there is one huge elephant in the room that we need to address.  That topic would be what if you don’t have the money to travel even in the local area meaning within 100 miles of your home.  What are you going to do to create compelling images for others to enjoy.  

The best way to answer those questions is as simple as drive. Not the physical act of driving because let’s face it the price of gas is high all around the world right now.  The inner drive or motivation to get out there and just shoot.  What is it that makes you wake up around 4 am and grab your gear to go shoot.  I may not wake up and head out to shoot but I still wake up and read articles, watch videos about how to grow as a person or a photographer.  I have a drive to create and one way that I know how to do that is to just get out there and create.  

You see I am lucky enough to live on a friends property who owns 35 acres in the northern AZ desert so I have options to shoot something new everyday.  I have lived at this location for a year now and I still have not explored it as much as I can.  The trick to getting a shot every time that I head out to shoot is you have to think small.  You have to look at the details around you to get a great image.  I have learned how to create landscape images that are so different to what you see online today that just speak to me.  I have fallen in love with old dead trees, cracks in the dirt, roots (OMG ROOTS), and most of all blue bird skies.  The forest that I live in has a canopy of 7ft so not that high at all (so is it really called a forest at that point asking for a friend). 

It has taken me a year to truly learn how to photograph a landscape that is not a vista so that means when I am able to travel I will be able to look at those bucket list shots in a different way.  Then you have the fact that I am able to now find beauty in the smallest of things all around me.  The beauty is in the eye of the beholder is how that saying goes and I have to agree with that on so many levels.  Getting up and out shooting is so much easier now that I am not looking for the huge vista shot.  They call this genre of photography intimate photography and when you use the term intimate it is so true.  You see a lot of the trees that you see in my images are barely 2 feet tall so you have to use a ultra wide angle lens to change the view of them.  

This allows you to get lower perspective that is not normally used for a shot like this.  The way to create a different image in the same location is very hard because you truly have to go back to the same area on the property time and time again and just keep looking for an image even though the last time you were at that spot there was not an image.  This means that you have to change the way that you are thinking about how to shoot the same area again.  Clearing your mind about an area is hard as well because you remember the little things about it and you dismiss that area because there was nothing there the last time you went over to it.  The trick to this is to explore the location looking for an image and keep going back.  

Simple right you just keep looking and you will find something new to shoot right.  Nope the same stuff is there because it really doesn’t change that much at all.  You have to go to each spot with fresh eyes or you will not find a new comp.  The landscape will be the same as it was the last time but with fresh eyes you will see more of the landscape.  You cannot pick one thing to shoot you have to change it up in order to get killer images every time you explore the same location over and over again.  Try different comps until you find that one that just works.  You will see more and more every time that you grab your gear and you will also see the same comps over and over again.  The beauty in this is by going to the same location and not writing down or not documenting the location you will forget where a certain comp is.  

This leads to you finding that killer comp over and over again.  This gives you more to shoot at different times of the year.  I found that by not writing down where I have shot on the property gives me so much more to explore over and over again.  I am the type that will keep looking until I see the image then workout what it is that I want to shoot.  Looking at the landscape that I live in is just like looking at my wife every morning I fall in love with her over and over again.  The landscape is ever changing and yet feels the same every time that I look at it.  This landscape that I live in is home and that is why I keep shooting it.  When you don’t have the money to travel pick a small location and keep going back to it over and over again and see just how many images you can find over time.  I have done this for a year and I still have so much more to find out here.  Thanks for stopping by enjoy from St Johns AZ y’all