Landscape photography from the field

Trip Planning

How I Prepare for Every Landscape Photography Trip (And Why It Takes Less Than 20 Minutes)
Video Tutorials

How I Prepare for Every Landscape Photography Trip (And Why It Takes Less Than 20 Minutes)

There’s a particular kind of anxiety that comes from arriving at a location you’ve never shot before, watching the golden light begin to move, and realizing you have no idea where to stand. I’ve been doing this for two decades and I still feel it when I skip my prep. The difference between a session where I’m working with intention and one where I’m scrambling is almost never about gear or even experience.

Two Habits That Finally Made My Landscape Photography Intentional
Video Tutorials

Two Habits That Finally Made My Landscape Photography Intentional

Twenty years into this work, I still have seasons where I grind through a hundred frames and come home with nothing worth printing. Not because the light was bad or the location was wrong, but because I showed up without a real plan and tried to photograph everything at once. Both are quiet killers of a good shoot, and they tend to feed each other. When you haven’t planned, you panic at the scene.

How to Plan a Landscape Photography Trip When You're Not Actually on a Photography Trip
Video Tutorials

How to Plan a Landscape Photography Trip When You're Not Actually on a Photography Trip

Most of my best-planned shoots have happened on trips that weren’t really photography trips at all. A week in the Cascades with the kids. A long weekend in coastal Oregon that my wife organized. A family jaunt to the coast where I had maybe three mornings to myself before anyone else was awake. Those constraints are real, and if you’ve ever stood in a parking lot at golden hour, half-guilty that you’re not back at the cabin making dinner, you know exactly what I mean.