The result of location planning, and a little cooperation from Mother Nature.
New Gear vs. New Travel
A while ago I found myself having to make an important decision. I had a choice; both options being great; however which one should I choose?
My new website had now generated enough sales in order for me to upgrade to a new camera. With great anticipation, I logged onto the B&H Photo website, and began the process of buying a new Nikon D800 camera body. However, just as I was about to confirm my purchase, a thought ran across my mind. Instead of new gear; why not consider travel to a place I had never been to.
After some thought, I feel that my decision really was a simple choice. While I would love to shoot with a new Nikon D800 camera, I realized that it was not a priority for me to own all the best gear; however it was a much bigger goal for me to visit as many beautiful locations as possible. It may sound cliche, but when it comes to camera gear and landscape photography; no matter how much gear you have, beautiful images can only be captured while visiting beautiful places.
Traveling, especially far away places still requires plenty of research and preparation. Even then, bad or unexpected weather can lead to disappointment. One thing I learned from my recent trip was no matter how difficult, try not to have the highest of expectations. My biggest recommendation is if you are not traveling with an organized group, do as much research on your travel destination as possible. During my preplanning I selected the exact locations I wanted to visit, time of visit, length of stay and knew my options for overnight accommodation while at each location.
Even though some bad weather resulted in my trip being far from perfect, I have absolutely no regrets. I feel that photographing new vistas has increased my knowledge of my trade, by making me more aware of light and composition than ever before. I also have a renewed desire to be a better photographer, and a passion to embark on new travel again in the near future.
My decision to travel to Iceland resulted in an unforgettable adventure!
Stunning! If you are a match for our photography collective, we’d love to feature this(and/or other work of yours). You can see submissions on the site or please e-mail me with any questions. Beautiful work.
Thank you again; your comments are very much appreciated.
What a beautiful image !
Thank you; I appreciate that!
You shoulda gotten that D800 as well 😛 Having spent my money on it, I can tell you, it’s worth every penny. Guess you’ll have to go generate some more print sales! I’m impressed that you made enough print sales to garner that kinda dough!
You’ll have to tell me what the trick is. Do you just email people you know, and they’re the ones buying the prints, or are you selling to people that you don’t know? My problem is that all of the people I know are still too young to be buying artwork.
I loved this photo when you posted it on flickr. The other shot you posted today, as you were walking around for new compositions, was also beautiful. I was wondering if you planned the trip on your own or did it as a group — guess you went alone, which is awesome! Looking forward to seeing more shots!!!
Hey, thanks Aaron!! I will definitely catch up with you on Flickr, and send you an email.
The weather aside you came home with some incredible images and in the end if you come back with one keeper it’s worth every rain soaked and cold mile taken to get the image. Looks to me like you came back with a few jaw droppers. Really stunning David!
Hey Luke, thank you so much my friend. You know I appreciate that. I should be on Flickr for a bit today, ad looking forward to your work.
Hi David, These images are incredible and I love reading your stories and tips! It is very good to remember with landscape photography, plan and wait for the moment! You do have creative titles as well. Haven’t located any posts about workshops/classes yet, where can I find those? It was great meeting you at HITW, I have been waiting to see if you post some of the images you took there (recently). Look forward to seeing them. I posted a couple of mine on Flickr.
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