Hiking and taking pictures

Filed under: nnxj.com — jane @ March 17, 2010 edit

I am just curious how often this happens to other folks because it always happens to me. I go somewhere to go hiking and tell myself I want to hike in a few miles to get some good shots of stuff most folks never see since they hike in maybe 1 mile max. However it seems like I can never get down the trail because I am always taking pictures. I just can't seem to pass up something that looks nice and never get down the trail which gets annoying. I end up with pics I like but still can't seem to ever make my goal for where I wanted to end up at for pictures.

I guess I can always keep my camera packed away but I am still too tempted to stop and shoot.

that happens to me all the time. Next summer i'm determined to do a long hiking trip so I actually get some photos further down the road.

Sounds familiar! My husband and I recently took a trip out West, hiked around Bryce Canron and the Kodachrome Basin areas. We were loaded and ready to shoot from as many aspects of these places as we could reach. But we barely scratched the surface, we kept stopping and setting up. :lol:

If you really have a "destination point" you want to shoot, you just have to keep your head down and trudge on until you reach it. You can always get those shots along the trail on the way back out. ;)

Good luck, and happy trails! :D

you could hike without the camera first, that way you get used to discriminating between the "interesting" shots, the "in-the-moment aesthetically pleasing" shots, and the "truly great" shots, by simply not taking any at all

Bring lots of film/memory, and allow lots of time :p

Ok. I fail to see how pancakes are weird. As long as i store them in a tupperware container, i can keep them all day long. It keeps me from taking pictures of things that aren't really what i want. MY neighbor gave me the idea and he always says whenever we go out hiking together "save the film, eat a pancake". Just trying to help you with your problem, though.

I guess another solution you could do is put your camera away and make it hard to access, and this way you wont take it out until you've gone far enough. I honestly think its weird that you have this problem in the first place!!!

What i do, is when i wake up early in the morning i make myself pancakes. Then i will put the pancakes in a tupperware sandwich conatiner, and then pour the syrup and all the goodies i like on my pancakes, and then whenever i see something i like, and want to take a picture of, i eat a pancake. Then, by the time the pancakes are all done, i can start taking pictures. works for me! :)

Grr I'm the complete opposite. I get so carried away hiking, or watching the sport game, or doing whatever that I forget to take photos.

Yep.. very wierd.. I perfer to take the time spent making the pancakes t sleep a bit longer.

I um.. tried that once.. got really wierd looks since I setup my camp like 4 miles from the trailhead.. but thats as far as I got all day taking pics.

Of course then you would stumble across bigfoot or a UFO landing and not have your camera. I have my camera with me at all times now. My wife gets jealous i think.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. LMFAO. Like that would ever happen!!!

With the pancake thing, somehow I see myself getting syrup all over the place, getting PO'd and ending up with no photographs. Hmmm...

The dry run idea is very good. Alot of my outdoor shooting is large format nowadays. Not the kind of camera you can just sling around your neck and snap shoot with. Now i have paricular goals of shooting just one scene. By the time I get set up meter and what not, almost an hour passes by the time I have my first exposure. I will also work the same spot several times till I get the image or two in a way that truly expresses the affect on print the way I see it. Good luck!

Problem is most of the time I don't have the time to do dry runs. Often I am taking a Friday or Monday off and driving up to the mountains. Being a 6ish hour drive I can't really do it for a 2 day weekend to scout one weekend and go the next.. plus it gets pricey driving =p I just need a timelock on my camera

of course Ansel Adams had the same problems, in one of his books he talked about how as the team he was with climbed a mountain to take photos, he took almost all of them on the way up, and only one or two where they were to take photos... no more shots for the way down, when he saw the most brilliant moments of the day

how's this: a hybrid of a dry run, if your camera is already hard to setup, then you're fine, but if you have a camera that takes a few moments to snap a shot, then make it real hard to take the photo... say, drink, or don't sleep, that way you HAVE to take a tripod, and it takes you a little while to setup... plus being tired or high you don't care about the crap shots because it's just not worth the effort (i'm beginning to recall a test on the tv show Brainiac...)

or you could stare at trees/nature/vegetation all day until you're bored to death of it, get the mediocre out of the head

Problem is most of the time I don't have the time to do dry runs. Often I am taking a Friday or Monday off and driving up to the mountains. Being a 6ish hour drive I can't really do it for a 2 day weekend to scout one weekend and go the next.. plus it gets pricey driving =p I just need a timelock on my camera

Of course then you would stumble across bigfoot or a UFO landing and not have your camera. I have my camera with me at all times now. My wife gets jealous i think.

#If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.#