Lessons

Lesson Info

Researching Locations

So I know we haven't talked about gear in this workshop yet. I mean, in the part one, but not in the part two. So this is my first gear and last one, probably. These glasses, they're from Easy Peasy. You probably can write it in the video, and they're screen glasses. I only use them for the screen. I don't use them to edit 'cause they warm up everything. But otherwise, much better sleep and much better fitting in the eyes when I'm just doing non-editing stuff. They're called like computer glasses or something, and they're 50 bucks. Best investment I've done, so. I want to one share the stoke. Now this episode is about how to find the best locations off the beaten path. So I know I've talked about location research a lot, but this is a new episode that's more tactical, and it's called, how to find places to shoot off the beaten path? And it pertains to pre-trip research. So from home, before you go, how do you find the spots to shoot? So I'm gonna tell you how I do it. Let me just intro...

duce the idea that there is so many. I mean, we've all seen that photo of Lake Moraine on the internet. (camera shuttering) Right? That view of the lake, of Lake Moraine. Or like the bridge of the Lofoten Islands. There's these places that are so iconic. Nothing wrong with them. It's just like, they're so cool, actually, that people go from all over the world to shoot them, right? But if you're driven to differentiate yourself and your work, it's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna be enough for you to go there and shoot that. Like, how do you find these places where you can be among the first ones who have shot them and have fun in the process of doing that? Like, have new adventures. This is what this episode's all about. Let me start with an example. Let's say you're going to the state of Arkansas in the US. I don't know much about it, but if I have to think about, you know, what I know at least before I can even do any research, I know they're famous for the forests and I know they're famous for the rivers. That's all I know, right? So at least I have a starting point in my head. I know sort of what it's gonna look like, but that's not enough. So I wanna start as broad as possible before I go there. So I'm just gonna pull up Google here and just literally type Arkansas. I know it sounds silly, but just bear with me. And I'm gonna hit images. Boom. Okay, so cool waterfalls, cool view. This looks cool. Hang on a minute. This looks good. Okay. This looks like a place I wanna go photograph. It doesn't look like a secret place 'cause obviously it's the first result on Google for Arkansas, but it's a good place to start. It's good to have this anchor. Start here. So this is Arkansas Department of Higher Education. This might not lead me to the location of this image. Remember, we're here to try to find the location. So I'm just gonna hit Copy Image Address and then open the old images.google.com, which is the best thing on internet where you can search an image with another image. So I can just paste the image URL. Boom. Okay, it broke. I think I pasted it twice. Okay. Search by image. Boom. There you go. Arkansas River. Okay. Now I'm seeing more examples of this place. So I'm just gonna hit it. Hang on. Campers on top of Hawksbill Crag near the Buffalo National River. There you go. Got my first location, so. Just like that, thanks to the magic of Google, I know where to go, where to start at least. Boom. Hawksbill Crag. Okay. And I always like to use Google with the satellite view. Although here, it doesn't do much 'cause we, what makes the view is that being on the side of it, but at least I got a place to start. And by the way, this image, I think I saw when I was pasting the, on Google Image when I was, yeah, see. Sometimes the images have the name. It's pretty rare. But see it says here, file name says, "Whitaker Point". I'm guessing that's the name of the place as well. It's called Hawksbill Crag and Whitaker Point. Maybe it's got two names. Yeah, it's got two names. Okay. Well, two ways to do it. I rarely find the name in the file name of the image, but in this case it works. Otherwise, you just use images.google.com. So now you have your first location, your place to start. You can continue skimming Google with the, you know, the keyword, Arkansas, or Ozarks National Forest. But let me find another way that is also interesting. So I like to start with photo sites like 500px. They're good for that reason because people are really good at geotagging their stuff here. So I don't even think I have to log in. If I type Arkansas, let's see what I get. A lion. Some cool spots. Some cool spots. Here's Hawksbill Crag again. So it's definitely not a secret anymore. Well, that's cool. More waterfalls, some wildlife. Okay. Let's try another keyword. That may be better. Ozarks National forest, which is their big national forest. So it's good to keep the keywords interesting, and I keep it varied. That looks cool. I'm getting a much better vibe with this keyword. Command click. I feel like this keyword is used by people who are a bit more advanced in their explorations. Like, they care to name the things the name of the forest versus just Arkansas. Like, I'm dealing with people who are a bit more into it, which I want that, more niche. Wow. That's cool. Okay. This is definitely a place I wanna go. It doesn't look too famous. The Gulf located in the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozarks of Missouri. Okay. Must be close there, I guess. Mill Spring. He's geotagged it and everything. So now let's say I wanna find this place. A. This is probably not gonna work. Let's try the Middle Spring, Missouri. No, that's just a town. Let's continue. Let's go with The Gulf now that we're a little bit closer. I think we might be in luck. Yeah. Wow. It looks like a cenote in Mexico, or cenote. Or cenote, like Tuckerman would say (chuckles). Tuckerman. Okay. Found location number two thanks to Google and 500px. Pretty pumped about this one. So, you know, I'll just save this on my Google document or wherever I'm working with. And usually when I find a nice spot on somebody's 500px feed, I'm gonna continue to look at their other photos because if they have this spot, they're gonna have way more. And doesn't always work. Let's see. Yeah, it looks like a lot of fall photos. It's not gonna work because I'm going there in the spring. Let's assume that, I'm not going there by the way, but I'm assuming I'm going in the spring already. Yeah, these are all like places that, this is interesting. Big Spring, Missouri. Okay. We're getting a bit out of Arkansas. But this would be a good spot, too. So just if you find a cool photo on somebody's profile, just keep digging through that profile. You might find other gems. So now I got two locations which are good point where I start and then The Gulf, which is way more niche. Now, this one looks pretty interesting. Not my vibe, but pretty cool spot nonetheless. Now I just wanna move on to the next site that I use a lot, which is The Outbound. If you haven't heard of The Outbound, it's awesome. It's not sponsored, again, but it's a good way to find things to do when you go somewhere. So I'll just type Arkansas. I bet you we're gonna find that first result of that rock. There it is, tagged to Hawksbill Crag. You can also start on The Outbound, I guess, but it's not as fun, 'cause I don't feel like I've worked enough for this one now. Okay, so let's see all the adventures. And none of this looks too inspiring. Let's continue down. This looks pretty cool, Natural Bridge. What is this? Let's see what the Natural Bridge is all about. Let's find more photos quickly on Google. Nah, no, not gonna go there. All right, moving on. It's crazy how fast we can go now with just to Google. You know, with The outbound, you have to dig deep when you're in places that are not so popular like Arkansas, I guess. I'm on page four now, and I'm finally seeing something I like. This looks really interesting. Yeah, it is a cool viewpoint. I'll definitely go there. I've also stumbled upon this new one called the Lost Valley. And looks pretty short, but it's, I think it's a loop with several things to see. And I like shooting loops because I don't like to go back the same way I came. I like loops because they allow you to make more of a set again in your images, like beginning and end, and so like new places. And this one looks pretty interesting. Like, this is cool, if you come here at the right time of day. What is this? The cavern. Okay, so it's on the way to the trail. Good. Well, I got my fourth location or fifth location. Got wet rock room trail, Lost Valley. Lost Valley's got a cool name. Okay, so that's 500px, The Outbound, and Google. Now there's another one that I like to use. It's blogs. I found some of my favorite places thanks to blogs, because blogs are used by people who generally are a bit more driven by their passions. I found like I can find the blog from a geologist or the blog from a photographer down there or the blog from a naturalist. Just people who have like a second layer of information with the environment. You know, it's people who are driven enough by this that they made a blog and they maintain it. So definitely not the same crowd as you have on The Outbound or 500px, which is just people, you know, taking cool photos. And nothing wrong with that, but I like good blogs for that. So I'm just gonna begin with Ozarks National Forest blog. Let's see what we got, and I'm just gonna hit Images literally. That looks good. Okay. Let's see what we got here. Okay, this is a blog by Backwoods. It appears to be a clothing company. Cool. They have the Crag again. Yeah, seems like they got, whoa, big bluff. Okay, if you have the right weather, this looks really cool. Which in the spring, I might get. Compton's Double Falls, and, whoa, the Narrows have kind of definitely saved that guy. Where is it? The Narrows, Arkansas. There it is. Yeah, it helps when you're there in the morning. Looks like morning light's the best one in that time of the year, which looks like he was in a hotel. Looks like fall to me. Okay, the Narrows. So just one example of a blog. Let's see if there's another one. Let's see what we got here. Nope. Image licensing. No good. So yeah, with blogs, it's, you gotta be patient because there's so many of them and some are pretty badly built. But to me, it's always jam because a few people go into these sites. So definitely something worth digging into. Now the other one that is probably my favorite is using satellite imagery. Google has made it so easy for us to have like awesome satellite photos of the world that it'd be crazy enough to use them as photographers. There is photos of the whole planet there. So I think that for this one, we should just start with the classic example. I like to spend hours on maps and satellites just looking at different places and getting ideas from them. So let's start with the classic Lake Moraine. And this is a bit tedious, but just bear with me for a sec, because you'll be surprised. So Lake Moraine, this is place that is world famous, and right Lucy so, it's really cool. So when I'm looking at satellite images, I'm, first thing I'm doing is I'm keeping in mind all of the access to that place. Because there's no point in finding a place like this which is maybe, you know, not even accessible with a trail. Maybe it's just only by helicopter. It doesn't look like it's a trail. So I'm keeping in mind how close the nearest road is because I don't have a helicopter, and I don't need, I don't, just weather, just walk there, actually. So with Moraine, let's keep it into the front range. This is where the road goes, Highway 1. So we have Louise here, another legend. Now I'm gonna be looking for lakes. So this looks pretty good. I don't know that there's a trail that goes to it. This looks like a glacier melt water. I'm just looking for color in the lakes. This is like these two lakes here I've never seen before, Consolation Lakes. They're literally like an extra Moraine Lake. Let's look 'em up. It looks like Moraine Lake, but with no one there. Is this really Consolation Lakes? Looks like it. Wow. Okay. This is worth researching now. Consolation Lakes trails. All trails. Okay, Consolation Lakes is a 5.8 kilometer, moderately-trafficked out and back trail. So its traffic's moderate and it's literally four miles from the Lake Moraine parking lot. So how long did it took me, two minutes, three minutes? And we just found a place that, I mean, at least I've never seen in a photo and that is literally four miles from the parking lot of the most photographed place in North America. That's the power of satellite. This is how I use the internet to find places. And it's the most powerful thing there is out there to find places. Like, maps are great, asking people is great. And that's good when you're on the ground. But the internet, all the tools that are disposable are just limitless. So there's no excuses for shooting the same places over and over. Fine if you wanna go do that for a while, but you're gonna start feeling a bit bored of that. This summer, I encourage you to just find these places that are relatively easy to find, but that nobody goes the extra mile to do so. Just, I hope that this will inspire you to go do that this summer. Use the internet.