6 Very Useful Tips For Adventure Travel Photography

Adventure travel photography is a niche field in the whole of photography. It combines outdoor, landscape, and any unplanned situations abroad. Typically the photographer must make quick decisions and make do with what environment gives him or her.

I shoot mostly outdoor scenic and adventure travel subjects, which means I’m at the mercy of what light nature gives me. Often the contrast is too much for film or digital sensors to handle, hence my use of Graduated ND filters. HDR is also a solution if you’re shooting digital; however, I have an extensive background in the traditional film, so I’m still using filters to solve lighting problems.

Landscape photography is one of the most challenging forms of photography. Why? Because there are too many elements outside of your control. Unlike other types of photography (portrait, glamor, commercial, etc.) where you can set-up the background, lighting, strobes, and direct subjects in a fully controlled environment, you have little or no control over your atmosphere when outdoors.

You can’t go, for example, tell the Sun to move east and below the horizon, move a mountain close to the raging river just under a lenticular cloud, change the weather, or drag the moon below the shadow of the Earth to form a lunar eclipse. You are wholly at the mercy of your environment; the photographic process is accomplished by your eyes, feet, knowledge, and complete awareness of

1. Use Your Eyes

This is the very basic principle of adventure travel photography. You can train your eyes to compose photographically. First, know that you’re trying to communicate a message in two dimensions, so you have to learn to “see” two-dimensionally * it is up to you to place subjects, foreground, and background to give the illusion of three dimensions.

The tools for creating illusions of three-dimensional space are overlapping, changing size and placement, linear perspective, relative hue and value, and atmospheric perspective (there is too much for me to cover here in detail, I will leave it up to you to pick up a book on basic painting techniques or just visit your local art museum and study several paintings).

Popradské Pleso

Also, learn the basic rules that artists of old have used to make compositional arrangements that are pleasing to the eyes * rules of third, Golden Mean, Golden Triangles, and Golden Spiral; these are rules that the Ancient Greeks have used to make aesthetically pleasing compositions.

Once you learn the rules, learn how and when to break it effectively so that you’re not blindly limiting your creativity through these sets of rules. **A quick trip to your local Google Search Engine will fetch several results about the rules.

Neuschwanstein Panorama

2. Use Your Feet

To capture those rare and fleeting moments when light, landscape, and the living combine to reveal a photographic composition, you have to be quick on your feet. In the wild, your compositional photograph doesn’t come to you; you go to it.

Your mobility, combined with your eyes, will help you find the perfect moment when everything in the landscape is exactly the magical scene you had hoped it would be.

3. Improve Your Technical Knowledge

Your technical knowledge of the camera is of paramount importance when you finally have your composition to capture. You have to know things such as diffraction, depth of field, hyperfocal distance, shutter speed, aperture, Scheimpflug rule (for large format), etc.,

This knowledge comes with time and uses with the camera set your camera on manual mode sometimes, don’t just blindly set everything on auto because you want full control of the exposure process not what the exposure computer (and it’s a sophisticated one) on your camera wants.

In outdoor adventure travel photography, your knowledge of the area you’re working in is significant to your success. Scout out the location first and then returns when the light is “appropriate” for your subject.

Your knowledge of light and its properties comes into play in determining what is appropriate for that subject. One of the most important books to read has nothing to do with photography: “Color and Light in Nature,” by David K. Lynch and William Livingston and “Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics,” by Craig F. Bohren.

Reinebringen View

4. Be Aware Of Your Surroundings

You must always be aware of your surroundings. Knowing where the Sun/Moon rises and sets can make or break an image * you could have easily found an excellent photographic subject and wait around for sunset only to find out that the mountain range behind you is covering the Golden Light.

Kjeasen Mountain Farm above the Simadalsfjord

There could be a herd of rare Tule Elk slowly migrating towards the rising moon, creating a unique silhouette or a field of flowers just over the hills * you must also be constantly aware because of fleeting moments in nature changes in just mere minutes and seconds. An alpenglow, for example, last no more than a span of 5 minutes * I don’t know how many times I’ve missed a shot because I could not find a fascinating subject to place in such a fantastic display of light and color.

Bolivian Vicunias

5. Be Quick But Slow Down

This seems like an oxymoron, but you have to be quick to capture just the right moment, but you have to slow down to think of your composition. It’s one thing to let the shutter fly and throw a Hail Mary, thinking maybe you’ll catch something, but it’s counterproductive. It’s better to get one great shot than a hundred okay ones. Use a tripod! This will force you to slow down and think about your composition before pressing the shutter.

Sheep Station Horse

Ansel Adams used to give his students s a cut-out viewing card for seeing the composition before setting up the camera. This is a decidedly low-tech “tool” that is merely a card with a hole cut out in the same shape as the image format. You close one eye and view through the card, and you will see the composition the way your camera would, in 2 dimensions. This method had helped me a bunch when I used to shoot 4×5 Large Format film, but it can help you too.

Alpenglow at Lower Cathedral Lake

6. Leave No Trace

Respect, respect, respect. Know the regulations and specific concerns for the area you’ll visit. Pack it in, pack it out, take only photographs and leave nothing behind. Avoid, when possible, places where human impacts are just beginning. Preserve the past, observe, but do not affect, cultural, or essential structures and artifacts. Watch wildlife from a distance and do not follow or approach them. Never feed wildlife, feeding animals damages their health and alters natural behaviors.

Lake Moraine Dawn

DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR ADVENTURE TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY?