The Landscape Photography Workhorse Lens

For a couple of months I didn't really pick up the camera although I wanted to go and do photography I really struggled with confidence and feeling like I could actually create a good photograph and then thankfully everything changed on this one trip. I want you to join me in this video with some friends as we head out into the back country to a magical location filled with snow-capped mountains, flowing rivers, waterfalls, and rainforests. You'll see how I like to use the wide angle lens and how it is still probably the most utilised part of my photography kit. I hope you enjoy this one and it gives you some much needed motivation as well. You wouldn't think it was the middle of winter at the moment aside from the snow and the mountains but gee it's warm. We've got a few hours before the light gets photogenic. We've got a few sections we're going to check out, a few streams and creeks, even a bit of a gorge up there so we've got a bit of ground to cover. Absolutely phenomenal. Right here, this little waterfall scene has just completely caught our eye. That just keeps going right up to this big peak. There's even an avalanche pouring down up there. But ignoring that for now, right here is a beautiful little frame. The dracophyllum plants, which I often love to use. Patchy snow is quite tricky in landscape photography. You're better off having a full coverage than this patchy stuff. So I'm actually trying to not get that in the frame and just going into something like this. Okay, the lights are softened up. Getting a little bit nervous because of this low cloud, I'm really worried that we're not going to get any light at all. Scouting out potential compositions for facing this wonderful peak with the waterfall on that right hand side and maybe running a vertical frame through here potentially. You can just see the river down the bottom which is nice, like that. That's one idea anyway and always for me it starts off with the the finishing point, the focal point, the mountain. So we've got that one there. which is really good and then this perspective looking towards this ridge this range with that peak there but it's just finding what's your what's your foreground what's your mid ground how do you piece it all together got a huge reflective lake down the bottom so the boys are just walking up this line now this this knoll i said maybe we get up there and we can look down with reflections and that peak in the back but that low cloud has got me a little bit nervous i might get shut down we will see if that's the case if you're on a location where you're not getting much light or color then just wait till the light really comes down close to that blue hour and you just got to just create a bit of more of a moody type image i guess at the end of the day and if anything if you're not getting color in the sky maybe that's where you try and use something more vibrant in your foreground something like this for example something with a bit of color so the image just isn't all kind of gray like what i've got back here basically couldn't get any worse couldn't get any worse That's looking pretty good over there too. I know man, every direction now. Panic time. Time to panic. Framing this up here, look at this guys. The light is just starting to really kick off at getting these nice colours in the front. The greens, the creek, flying through to the peak and vertical, that's the way to do it. It's been an interesting afternoon out here in the valley. We've set up camp and the cloud base has just been breaking our heart intermittently but now it's just opened up. and we have amazing perspectives everywhere so now it's a game of trying to frame something up before it all disappears again but the light is just getting good we're in the golden hour now wow when you want to add depth to the frame you want layering getting closer to the viewer so often when there's a reflection people may be tempted to just go in tight like this which is obviously beautiful but it is a very kind of flat two-dimensional image once you come back and maybe add something in the front of the frame And then come down and bring it all together and get a lot more depth. Just finding the right stuff, that's the trick. All right, we're gonna go up onto this little knoll and try that same concept of getting some near and far elements and look down onto the reflection in the back there. The light is just doing its thing now. Walking on this terrain, it just zaps your energy because the whole ground is spongy. That's why we're wearing waders. It looks nice and flat and grassy, but it's very damp and boggy. You can hear me out of breath, just from walking back and forth all over this stuff. Right there, there's a frame here. Through the middle with these. And this opening here, punching in relatively tight, 20 mil, 21. It's all about the symmetry of these reflective shots. I've got the valley wall either side. See when that even weight. You're gonna have a lot on this side. Balance it out on that side. Don't overcompensate one side. So I'm kind of punching in this area here, wow. So we just had some, the keas have been flying around, the parrots, and they're just watching us. They're just keeping an eye on what we're doing. Some of them can be very, very brave and curious. They haven't come down close, but I'm gonna go up to them because they may, as they have in the past, I've got a few images of the kea in the landscape. It's probably one of my favorite things to do, one of the harder things to achieve, to get the right background with the bird in the foreground, like an environmental wildlife image. But they're here now, so I'm going to go try my luck. All right, so I'm going to go focus stack. He's a young one. Got yellow on him. He's eating some berries. Hey, bud. Nice day. Well, we're pretty lost for words. That was a special, special window in time. A one-hour window of good light, amazing vistas, and then the wildlife, the keas. Guys, you can go months without having those experiences in nature that, you know, you're really enjoying. And then suddenly you have a one-hour moment like that. That's why we do it, right? That's why we're photographers. It's for those fleeting moments of beauty, reverence, awe, wonder. Now, the only downside to this beautiful animal, they like to come and destroy things like your tent and your expensive gear that you might have left around. Hey, get off there. What are you guys up to? Look at this. They've really... It's all fun and games until they start putting holes all through your tents. And they just don't care. Look. Go on. Get out of here. We don't have spiders or snakes to worry about but once the keas get revved up it's like Gollum. He doesn't actually run away though. They stop and just keep watching. Oh he's on the camera now mate. He's on the Sony. Well that was a long cold night and uh woken up everything's frozen. The waders are rock hard. Could barely get those on. Got some beautiful light but unfortunately we've really had to dedicate some time to packing everything up because the keas have been at us They've done a number on the tents they've made for a pretty long night. This morning I'm trying to find a perspective where I can look back towards this range, look at that nice colour. It's not going to last long, took a bit of time this morning packing up the tents. Coming for a walk into the forest now. Oh that looks nice, look at that. I'm going to follow this stream, there's a big waterfall, I figured well it should have a nice creek at the bottom so I've just entered in now and we'll see what we can do. The light's going to be tricky, hopefully we can find some areas of shade. We've made it to the base of the waterfall. It's actually quite interesting, big S curve going up there and a beautiful blue pool down the bottom. When you approach a scene like this, it's a little bit wide open in this area. So the first thing that I did was gravitate to the left-hand side here and thought about using some of these greens to build out the depth and put some textures in there. But then I got drawn to this side and basically placed the lens in the branches there. and that created a natural window and I made sure I positioned the lens high enough that I could still look down and see that blue pool. Shooting with a wide angle and seeing the world through the eyes of a wide angle is just a totally different thing if you're not used to it but it's a game of getting incredibly close to create a diminishing perspective and really create a three-dimensional feel. So you have to just look and get super close to objects. First time. How do you do this properly? First time. Yeah, he was working after that. That's normal. Do you have any last words?