I took some time during the day yesterday to go scouting for new photography locations. I’m getting tired of the bird photos and need to go back to shooting landscapes and other subjects. So, I set out to scout downtown Austin and decided to go to an area called Zilker Park. I wanted to see if there was a good vantage point for a morning or evening skyline photo when I ran across a location named Lou Neff Point. It’s the intersection of the Colorado River (aka Town Lake) and Barton Creek (home of a very popular swimming hole). I usually take a photo with my phone so I can remember what the site looked like and also to register the GPS location. The goose and the canoe people made it for an interestingly enough photo to post for you all to enjoy. Of course, the golden hour would have made the image much better.
Scouting is a very important part of photography. Famous photographers return back to the same site over and over in order to better understand the light patterns and to better plan for the “just right” photo. Most of us also use some tools that help with the sunrise and sunset time and location. The application we use the most is The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE). They produce an iPhone, iPad and Android application in addition to the web-based service. Another helpful application is Google Earth. They also have a desktop, mobile and web application. It provides you with great vantage points and is a huge help when used with TPE. So, before you go out next time think about using these applications alongside a scouting trip. You’ll be amazed at how your photography will improve.
Stay tuned for a follow-up visit to this site in the future when the light is just right. By the way, if you want to visit this site click here for a map view.
This image was taken with my iPhone 6 Plus using the back camera set at 4mm. The camera was set on Automatic mode with the aperture set at f/2.2, shutter speed at 1/2500th of a second and the ISO set at 32.
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© 2015 T. Kahler Photography
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