VALUABLE TOOLS TO SEARCH AND PLAN A SHOOT ON LOCATION

Finding and planning a shoot on a location at the perfect moment can be a hassle and cumbersome. These tools and tips can help you a bit further to find a nice photo spot and go there in the best conditions.

SEARCH

Finding a good and interesting photoshoot spot can take some time but sometimes you doesn't have to go completely over the top in your search.

Google Maps

During our recent trip to Denmark I have used Google Maps quite a bit in combination with the official tourism sites from the country. This is a quick way to find nice areas of interest and to plan your area of stay and route through the country if you plan a road trip.

With Google Maps you can find nice places of interest with some pictures of the location are already in place that gives you a quick preview.

Google Maps gives you a nice overview of the location, the terrain, surrounding area, national parks and also pictures of the places of interest.

National and local tourism web sites

If you travel to a country or region, you can visit the national or local tourism web site of that country, a region or city. Almost every country, region or city has a dedicated web site with lots of information for tourists that you can use.

It won’t bring you to remote and less accessible or unique locations but it can direct you to a area of interest or national parks that can be interesting. Some sites also have grouped information on a page based on a theme like architecture, ancient castles, etc.

I can’t list all the tourist web sites, there are simply too many, here but a quick search in your favourite search engine will get you further.

Social media

Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are a good starting place to follow travellers around the globe and see what they visit through their posts. Most of the time, they will reference the location in their post or you can try to perform a reverse search on the image with Google Image Search.

Travel web sites

There are plenty of travel web sites or blogs like In Wanderment, The World Travel Guy, Dancing the earth, just to name a few, that can provide good information that a photographer can use as inspiration for the next trip or place to visit.

Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura describes itself in the about section as follows: “We are a global community of explorers, who have together created a comprehensive database of the world’s most wondrous places and foods“.

Now, if you love food and photography, then this is the place to be. If you are in only for the photography, you’ll need to filter out the food part but but despite that, there are many beautiful locations to be found if you do a little research. There is a handy map available that provides quick access to the spots.

Pixeo

Pixeo is a personal project of Shawn and Lisette Kent, two Canadian photographers that are also husband and wife, that provides access to a database of curated interesting places. A world map is available for quick search and the photos presented are most of the time from a high quality and creatively photographed making a visit to this site an absolute pleasure.

Pixeo allows you to find photo spots from around the world provided by a community of contributors.

PhotoHound

Another interesting site is PhotoHound which is a project of 4 photographers from Slovenia, Germany, England and Wales. Their site lists more than 10.000 spots in 161 countries en regions.

Each photo spot comes with a photo and description and background information of the location. They also provide guides which combines curated information of a region or city together to make it easy to find something you need. And it is possible that your photo is selected and shows up in the Curators’ Choice.

PhotoHound can be used on a desktop but a mobile app for iOS and Android is also available.

PhotoHound is run by 4 photographers and powered by a community of photographers.

Locationscout

Locationscout has over 250.000 entries in its database and has a community over more than 188.000 users. You can search for locations on the web site or with the help of the iOS or Android app on the go.

Payed subscriptions are possible and unlocks new features and you get some video courses included in the package.

Locationscout has a huge amount of entries to look into.

PLAN

When you have found your favourite photo spot, it is time to get it planned. You don’t want to miss the sunrise or sunset for a photo at the beach. Or discover that a need to park your car near the road and walk for 2 hours before you come at your location noticing that the sun is throwing its soft light on the other side of the mountain during golden hour.

Weather sites and apps

Depending on what you want, follow up the national and local weather forecast if you want to have the (near) perfect conditions.

If you are in for a nice sunset near the beach, you can check the satellite images for cloud cover. With many clouds in the area it might be possible that the sun gets blocked during the shoot.

If you do long exposure shoots and want dramatic skies, a cloudy and windy day can help you getting the perfect clouds in the background.

Google Earth / Google Maps

Google Earth / Google Maps not only provide information how to get to the location but you can also check the surroundings and search for a better viewpoint towards your subject. You can explore the location at your house and maybe find the best place from where you can get a great composition.

Det Grå Fyr lighthouse, Denmark, in Google Earth.

Photo Ephemeris

If you want to shoot the sunrise, sunset or just want the perfect light during golden or blue hour then the Photographer’s Ephemeris is a must have. With this tool, available on the desktop or as mobile app, allows you to view the location of the sun, the moon and milky way at any point and given time.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris allows you to carefully plan your position in function of the available light during the day or shoot the moon, milky way or solar eclipses.

If you love eclipse photography, there is the option to obtain the solar eclipse path so you can position yourself perfectly to get the best photos.

There is a free version and a paying Pro version available with additional features like integration with Google Maps and Street view, map styles, 3D terrain model with dynamic lighting and shadows and more.

PhotoPills

PhotoPills comes as a mobile app and, just like the Photographer’s Ephemeris, it allows you to plan your shoot based on location and light conditions. It comes with a bunch of features like for shooting the milky way, uses augmented reality and also has +10.000 points of interests.

PhotoPills provides an excellent value for money and bundles a lot of functionality.

CONCLUSION

With the tools mentioned here you can start exploring the world for a nice photo spot and plan your shoot accordingly. There are still a lot of variables that we can not count in until you are at the location but this will give you an advantage.

This blog article might receive some updates in the near future when I discover or find more valuable tools and tips regarding this subject. If you have any suggestions please let me know in the comments.