Mountain Photography Tips

Inspiration in the Grand Landscape

Photographing mountains can be a real obsession, whether you're camping, hiking or just walking outdoors and absorbing in the view. Regarding photographing mountains, I very much favor the “grand landscapes” - those sweeping views full of solid peaks as seen from high superiority points, ideally filled with vibrant sunrise or sunset light. These huge views are the reason why most people endeavor up a mountain at all - to see the view!

Yet, it can be rather challenging for us photography lovers to be very inventive when capturing big landscapes. In the end, the big landscape photo is mainly about the landscape itself, instead of a display of the photographer’s absolute view. Here I'll help you to explain how photographing the awesome landscapes can be a very satisfying quest, and not only from behind the camera!

Don’t hide your camera in your bag.

Let's say you’re rising on a mountain trail, wading a river or just walking through heavy brushwood. It does makes sense to hold your camera in your bag to protect it. Sure this is good practice, but if you want to capture some of that mountain beauty you'll need at least one camera around your neck. You should be prepared to catch intriguing photos in an instant. You can’t do that with your camera hidden into your camera bag.

Decrease the amount of gear you’re taking with.

Yes, the more gear you bring, the more time you’ll take attempting to choose what to use; and the fantastic view may be gone by that time. You could simply just have a DSLR camera body with a smaller zoom lens, roughly 16-85mm, for basically all of your shots.

Be patient in the mountains.

You may lose the view you want because you’re switching lenses or looking for the right settings. However, you must quite often sit and wait for the correct moment to show up. As many nature photographers know, early morning and late evening often has the best light and views, so it can be hours or days in to your journey until you find yourself in the right spot to shoot during these times of the day.