Answering Your Questions - The Landscape Photography Podcast

this week we're answering your questions and your washing and listening to the landscape photography podcast so those of you that are audio subscribers to the podcast you probably caught that you might be watching this as well so I'm going to attempt and we'll see how long I actually stick with this but I'm going to attempt to record video along with audio for all of these podcast episodes so those of you watching this on YouTube you're listening to the landscape photography podcast this is available on iTunes and Spotify all of those things so if it's more convenient to listen to a podcast in the car you can check it out over there those of you guys that actually are subscribers to the audio show if you want to watch me on YouTube you can do that as well I'm going to try to record video along with all future episodes we'll see how long I can stick with that so why has it taken so long to get this episode out well first of all I got very busy with workshops you know I was leading workshops in the Faroe Islands have that trip to Scotland I've been out and about and gone a lot and it makes it really easy to fall behind and some of the other stuff that I do like the podcast but then I came back and after you know creating YouTube videos and leading workshops I was just kind of sick of the sound of my own voice if I'm being honest like guy I'm not somebody that's really overly confident or in love with the sound of my own voice and it tends to make recording some of these a little bit more challenging because I'm just kind of tired of hearing myself sometimes so for that reason I've taken a break from the podcast but I'm back and hopefully will will be consistent for here on out for at least a little bit so let's jump into today's show where I'm answering some of the questions that came in on the Facebook group if you would like to partake in some of those questions we have a Facebook group called the landscape photography podcast and that's where people offer images for Kashyyyk for the community to critique I jump in on that as well but we also you know take a lot of suggestions from that Facebook group for actions for the show so whether its future guests future topics or questions to be answered on episodes like this that's where all that stuff comes from so if you'd like to partake in that just join the Facebook group over there all right let's jump into it first question is from Andre he asks where do you see your photography now as opposed to say two years ago has it evolved what has changed in my style and approach and where do I see myself in two years so you know I I definitely feel like some of my growth has plateaued a little bit two years ago I was not as good as I am now I don't think but I will say that I haven't improved as much as I would like to say that I have improved in the last two years I think two years ago I was leading far less workshops and I was able to shoot on my own and shoot for myself a lot more that's the downside to leading workshops as often as somebody like me does is that I very seldom get to just go out and shoot for myself and that can be kind of a kind of a problem because you know you're in a workshop environment you know ideally the participants come first and my photographs come second or third and you know that takes a toll after a while when that's the only type of shooting you ever get to do so I haven't got to shoot as much as I would like to on my own I still shoot a lot give me or don't get me wrong like I shoot more than most people get to you know the people that have day jobs and stuff but I have not seen the growth in my own photography that I'd like to see I feel like lately in especially in my post-processing I'm getting almost too tasteful you know two years ago a lot of my edits were very heavy-handed you know I just learned all of these new techniques and I was implementing them all on every photo and that's not always the best technique and so a lot of my work was just over edited honestly and now I've been working on dialing that back for the last two years trying to get more tasteful and more discreet with my editing but now I'll find myself processing a photo for like 45 minutes I get back I get done I look at the screen I'm like that almost looks straight out of camera like did you do anything what do you have to show for the last 45 minutes so you know I feel like some of my most recent work lacks that dramatic pop that I would like it to have I've I've been erring on the side of not and not heavy-handed enough editing or not editing enough that's what I'm struggling with currently so I'm in two years I hope to be at a place where I'm fine I'm striking that perfect balance where things are processed to a point of nice stylisation and has that wow factor but it's not straight up Fantasyland so what I'm always striving for josiah asks i'm interested to know how you've made a name locally versus online or if I have a local focus with slice of my business as local versus what is online you know when I first was a became a full-time photographer all of my photography work was local I was shooing portraits and weddings and real estate sports for the note local newspaper I was very much a generalist and for that reason my focus was very much local so the the marketing that I did was still just you know social media and it was word of mouth and networking with local people but it was done with a local emphasis so I was you know finding a lot of local business owners through Facebook or maybe just meeting them in person I would do a shoot for one business owner but if we're talking real estate and that would lead to the next because if I did a good job for them they'd recommend me to a friend nowadays though my things have changed dramatically for me as as my youtube channel grew grew as you know my Instagram following has grown I'm followed by a whole lot more just photographer is rather than you know people potential photography clients the majority of the people to follow me are other photographers and that is opened up opened up the ability for the the educational side of things that I do the workshops the tutorials that stuff but none of that was ever a plan for me nothing that I've ever done with photography has been because I had this entrepreneurial spirit where I was gonna go make a bunch of money and create a business none of that came from wanting to make money it all came from just wanting to be a good photographer and as I my photography skills grew more people wanted to know what it was that I knew it has just kind of evolved organically and I think that's one of the the best pieces of advice that I can give people is you know focus on focus on the photography aspect don't don't do things for the wrong reasons don't do things for money don't do things for the popularity aspect do it because you love doing it and if you love doing it enough and you get good enough at something people are going to acknowledge that respect you for it and opportunities will become because of it Braden asks how do you adjust the different conditions when you're committed to a time and a spot say you're on a vacation or something so harsh light during the middle of the day overcast days what do you do in those less than optimal shooting conditions well I've talked about this a lot you know especially on on my youtube channel where you know when the light sucks it changes how you have to approach a scene you can't just go in with a preconceived notion of I'm gonna get the big wide landscape but if you try doing that on a big cloudless day in the middle of the afternoon it's just you're not gonna get a good photo from it so I shoot I change what I shoot based on light conditions so if we are greeted with that cloudless day which unfortunately happens pretty often I start thinking about what is going to look good with that harsh contrast that you're gonna have direct light equals harsh contrast and sometimes you can use that contrast to your benefit so I talked about shooting and forests a lot and the nice part about that is that that direct sunlight can really emphasize you know certain objects or subjects in a forest scene because you'll have a primarily dark and dark forest or a dark you know area in a forest with little beams or little splashes of light falling on foliage or tree trunks or whatever it is maybe your back lighting everything with that direct light and everything takes on that kind of back like glowy atmospheric feel you can use that stuff to your advantage it takes a very chaotic scene and simplifies it because you're letting the light dictate where you shoot so the same is kind of true for when you have those overcast days when you have an overcast day with a whole lot of a whole lot of cloud cover you have to think of it in terms of you have a giant softbox in the sky it kills that contrast that makes everything very soft and evenly lit sometimes forest scenes can be way more difficult on an overcast day because you don't have the benefit of the light splashing on subjects and drawing attention to things everything is even which means that you know you can shoot in any direction you don't have direction limitations you can compose shots in any direction all of that contrast is either going to have to come from subject matter so maybe have a bright tree trunk in the middle of it is surrounded by dark foliage or it's gonna have to come in post so a lot of times overcast shots they're a little bit more fun to post process because you're in Mork and you have far more control over where that contrasts and where those highlights are gonna fall based on how you dodge and burn that scene if we're talking outside of a forest scene a lot of times if I have that overcast sky that's going to lend itself much better to kind of more of those little vignettes you have to change what it is the shoot take a telephoto lens and shoot little vignettes of the scene rather than the big grand landscape focus on the little things that make that area different maybe it's interesting rock formations maybe you know it's a macro shot of the tiny pebbles on a beach whatever it happens to be also there is something to be said for when you do have those overcast skies sometimes you have to envision with that cloudy sky is going to look like if it's two stops darker with a whole bunch of contrast added to it sometimes though the the texture that is in that sky can really lend itself well to post-processing so I'm always kind of envisioning how I might post-process something like that as well Chris s best way to improve as a beginner do you join a club get out and practice a lot and how do you know what needs to improve you know I've never I've never been really a big fan of photo clubs and stuff and I think the reason reason for that is that they kind of just they they almost breed competitive I don't know there's this competitive thing going on in photo cliffs well you know sometimes that's cool I think it's not nearly as beneficial or constructive as it could be for me my biggest recommendation for getting better quickly is a you have to shoot a lot you know just have a lot of familiarity with your camera the more you go out and shoot the the better you're going to get the faster you're going to get better but finding a small group of friends or maybe it's just one or two friends they go out and shoot with pretty often is such a big deal you know especially if you can find somebody that's more experienced and better than you are to go out and shoot with there's so much that you can learn from other photographers and there's that whole aspect of you know you kind of feed off of each other like nobody wants to be the lame one that doesn't get up for sunrise so everybody gets up and you get out and shoot and a lot of times you're just more fruitful and you try a little harder when you go out with a group of friends it's more fun and you have those other people to bounce ideas off of you post process an image send it to them and they're like what are you doing whether your colors are all wrong and then you can you can fix things so find a small group of friends and just go out and shoot with each other bounce bounce photos off each other for critique that's that's one of the best things you can do when you're first starting Scott asks did the move to Sony allow me to make better photographs did it make me a better photographer than when I was with Canon not really I mean cameras are tools and granted I feel like I have better tools available to me now but I don't think that I'm a better photographer or making better images since I've switched to Sony granted I have higher resolution images you know I can print them larger and it's made it's changed the way I've shot a lot by having a sensor with far more dynamic range it means that a lot of times I don't have to bracket like I used to have to bracket you know a lot of times I can just expose for the highlights in the scene and the even if the left side of my histogram goes a little ways off the edge of the histogram I know that I've got enough latitude to be able to recover those shadows which means I don't have to bracket as much which means that the post-processing part is easier having said that though it's a it's kind of a crutch that you can get into where knowing that you have that latitude can kind of make you lazy and I feel like that maybe I've gotten a little bit lazy with my bracketing and exposure blending and stuff just because you know that you can you can make a passable image image by just exposing for the highlights even though you'd get a little bit higher quality image by still continuing to bracket exposed to the right and then use that brighter exposure for your shadow areas that's the best case scenario but sometimes I get a little bit lazy where it has made the biggest difference and honestly is one of the biggest factors in me switching over to Sony was the video quality you know the more YouTube content that I create the bigger the deal the video aspect is and it's nice now that I've switched to Sony I carry with me two bodies they're both full-frame they both take the same same battery same lenses and they're both excellent video cameras so it doesn't matter what I'm shooting with one camera I can be filming myself do it with the other that's not something I could really do with Canon I'm not gonna be holding a 5d Mark 4 out in front of me and trying to vlog with it would break my arm but it's really easy to do with the Sony cameras Scott asks are you using your rooftop tent much these days and do you have any new vehicle plans so those of you that don't know this I have a James abroad rooftop tent which is one of the hardshell tents they're really really cool because essentially anywhere that you can park you can essentially camp so you don't need you know a nice smooth place to lay down a tent it can be snowy or muddy or just terrible weather and it totally doesn't bother you because you're up off the ground on top of your car also if you're working nervous are worried about predators or animals or snakes or bugs or whatever it's really nice to be up off the ground on top of your car they are very expensive there's a huge sticker shock to them I think mine was like $3,700 which when you hear that it just sounds like a ridiculous amount but it's a tent that's gonna last for you know years and years and years and one of the cooler parts of it as as a photographer I can set up my campsite going on Club I can set up my tent in about 30 seconds I can tear it down in about two minutes when I went to Scotland I tested out the whole van life thing I rented from outdoorsy a Volkswagen what was it a Volkswagen conversion van of some kind and I found that to be so much more convenient than a rooftop tent simply because you know sometimes at during sunrise you don't want to roll out of bed and then have to collapse you know tear down your tent so you can drive to a sunrise shoot what's nice is in a van you can roll out of bed hop in the front seat and drive off and that's really really convenient really nice it's also nice because when it gets cold out you have a heater you know you can stay warm during the winter months you have a sink and you have a stove and you can you know make your breakfast all right there is I got kind of used to it and kind of spoiled by the the van life thing so I can envision myself doing some kind of van conversion but the problem is I don't know what I would want to convert because I would want four-wheel drive but I don't want one of those giant Mercedes Sprinter vans those things are ridiculously tall so I'm not sure what I would I would based off of but I could foresee myself doing a van converting David ass I'd love to hear your thoughts on the landscape photography workshop scene there are a ton of guys out there doing this and it's very hard to tell the difference between a photo safari and a legitimate teaching workshop where do I fit in in that scale and how do I feel about the various formats of workshops offered versus getting a client to just a great location versus actually teaching them something this is a really important question nowadays I think just because there like David's mentions there are so many workshops going on first of all one of the reasons that this is a thing is that you have many many of amazing photographers out there and if you are an amazing photographer with a large social media following you could easily sell out a workshop doesn't mean that you should be doing workshops however some of the advice that I give people is that if you are thinking about going on a workshop with someone that person that you're thinking about going on the workshop with should have an example of their teaching style somewhere in video form on the internet somewhere between YouTube and people that sell tutorials most people that are interested in education have an example of their teaching style somewhere on the Internet and if they don't that's kind of a red flag because if you're interested in education you should be have examples of you educating right so I highly recommend that you do a little bit of background you know investigation before you invest in a workshop and another thing is that you want to make sure that you're going on workshops with people that you not only like their photography but you can kind of it feels like somebody that you could relate to or somebody that you would want to spend a week of your time with not everybody is going to resonate well with somebody like me that's a little bit more laid-back and unprofessional and that person might be better served going on a workshop with somebody that is very professor like very highly organized none of this frivolous nonsense you know and everybody a different learning style and you need to find somebody that is going to offer a teaching style that to complement that and it shouldn't be difficult because literally there's thousands of workshops being led by different people so just make sure that the people that you are going on a workshop with our people that have examples of them actually teaching somewhere on in video form and make sure that you know it's somebody that you not only respect their work but you respect or you like that they they the way that they present information yeah so that's what I recommend to people Janek asks I personally haven't sold any artwork in the past few years and I would love any tips and ideas on creating new sales I know it's a bit of a boring question but I'm sure others would like to hear the answer to this so first of all I've done an episode in the past with Ryan Smith if you haven't heard that one check it check that out cuz Ryan makes a killing off print sales and he knows what he's talking about and you can probably make some better points and I'm about to make but check that out if you haven't already so some of the things that I would highly recommend is first of all get your work your physical work your physical printed work in a physical place in front of people with their physical eyes you know there's there's nothing that competes with actually seeing a print in person don't just try to sell your artwork online on your website everybody is doing that and it's really hard to make any kind of impact in a online type situation so try to get it print it physically get it in a physical place the other thing is is try to make those prints as big and impactful as you can afford to make them so print them on a really nice print medium maybe it's acrylic maybe it's a really large metal print and also print them as large as you can afford to so you know a giant you know 60 inch print is going to have far more impact than a little 24 inch one just because a buyer might not be able to afford that big one that's on the wall is still going to have that initial impact the initial wow factor and the going to end up staring at your photo longer which you know increases the opportunity for making a sale also make sure that you're putting them in a place where people are going expecting to spend money you know a lot of restaurants will allow photographers to hang their work up on the walls for free I've never sold a print that way or I've sold very few prints that way but if you can put a print up in a place say like a winery where people are going to spend a spend a fair bit of money or maybe it's like a local Art Fair or something like that if you can set up a booth like that people are going there with the intention of checking out art and probably spending money on it you're far more likely to make a sale in that kind of environment than you would be at like a restaurant or something so those are some of my biggest tips also make sure that whatever you're printing is kind of unique to you what I mean by that is if I was to just make a print of every iconic place that I've been to all my Mesa arches and Horseshoe Bend images or whatever my photography is not going to stand out from the next guys you know the everybody is printing those type of images so what I would I think that people should do is print work that is very specific to them so like for example if somebody thinks about me they might be thinking of seascapes or wave images or something like that so I would print out a some of my best portfolio work of that type of imagery and that way it's it makes my stuff separate and different from somebody that might be set up next to me or or whatever so make sure your stuff is unique to you print it large and impactful and get it physically in front of others dan asks how do I stay inspired stay fresh and get out of the inspirational rut I wish I had a great great answer for that because I'm kind of in one myself my problem is that as somebody that does it full-time I feel very much pressured not only because I have a YouTube channel in a podcast be publishing - and all my social media stuff but I also have to make a living so I feel very pressured to you know to be producing and creating all of the time and and to think about one thing all the time and I think that's very much not a healthy thing for a human brain we need diversity in order to remain excited and inspired by things so one of my biggest pieces of advice is that you need to allow yourself that take a break from things it doesn't matter what it is what interest it is you have to take a break from it at some point you can't just think about it all day every day for years on end and not get burnout you have to give yourself a break so when you're not feeling super inspired allow yourself to take that break Aaron Bodden that gave me one of the best pieces of advice she says that when you're in a creative rut you have to focus on input rather than output and I've I tried to take that to heart and what she means by that is you know when you're not feeling inspired to create or when you're not loving what it is that you are creating take a break from creating and just focus on you know appreciate you appreciating artwork of other kinds maybe it's you know going to a concert and listening to music maybe it's watching tutorials and learning something new and and focusing on just learning new skills maybe it's you know just watching them watching Game of Thrones and appreciating the color grading and the lighting that they have in the show focusing on you know creative input and inspiration eventually will inspire you to start creating again and you'll be more excited about the stuff that you are creating once you've allowed yourself to you know to become Rhian spired don't force yourself to create when you're feeling uninspired because you're not gonna like that work anyway okay the last question is gonna be from Brian pecks he says name three things or one thing that has dramatically improved your work so I've probably focused on this or if I've emphasized it too much maybe and maybe it's not too much maybe it's just right post-processing is so important and in my opinion editing and post-processing is 50% of the creative process of photography for example you can have Joe Schmo and like Ryan Dyer or Michael Shane bloom or insert amazing photographer here and the thing that's going to separate them even though they're shooting the same scene at the same time you know three feet from each other is the way that person on the right non Joe Schmo Michael Shane bloomer Ryan Dyer is going to post process that image that's where all of the personality and all the mood and all the emotion and all the style and all the feeling is coming from a camera is designed to capture data that's literally what what modern digital cameras are doing they're just capturing data a raw file is flat by definition and what you need to do is you need to inject some of that style that feeling that mood back into the photo and that comes from post-processing you know this this person over here is going to see a scene even though they're standing next to each other completely different than this person over here post-processing is also where we inject our brain filter back into the equation remember that we're seeing things through our brain filter we're noticing some things our brain is filtering out the things that are not interesting to us but our camera sees all and it sees all equally so when we post process we're really trying to emphasize the things that we liked and we noticed and de-emphasize are downplay the things that we did not like and did not notice at the time post-processing is where all of that stuff comes from it's also where the feeling and the mood comes from so in my opinion when I started to really improve at post-processing and really put any more effort into getting better and getting more tasteful of post-processing that's really where my my photography started to take off that was kind of a springboard that they made me grow more quickly than you know note understanding the exposure triangle because you can have an amazing photographer that doesn't understand their settings but it is an amazing post processor though that photographer is probably going to outshoot or create more interesting work than the photographer that everything they shoot is straight out of camera but they're amazing at their settings like there's there's lots of those people people that are not good at post-processing but understand the camera aspect but it's the really amazing postprocessors that their artwork stands out from the crowd oftentimes alright guys thank you so much for tuning in this week I hope you guys hold me to this I'm going to attempt to record video for all or most episodes moving forward we'll see how we do but hopefully you guys have enjoyed this and we'll see you in the next episode take it easy everybody [Music]

Channel: Nick Page

Views: 11,392

Keywords: photography, landscape photography, nick page, travel, podcast, landscape photography podcast

Id: s-N9ucJt2ZQ

Length: 30min 15sec (1815 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2019