Helpful Websites for Scouting a Location Online

by | Aug 11, 2015 | Tips & Tricks | 0 comments

Do you like taking pictures of old covered bridges?

During this time of preparation for the 2015 CAPTURE workshops, I ran across this amazing website!

www.coveredbridgemap.com

You really should check it out!

What about waterfalls? Do you like taking pictures of beautiful (or obsolete) waterfalls?

For some place like CAPTURE Vermont, this is the website I use for my online waterfall scouting:

www.newenglandwaterfalls.com

And if I happen to be in North Carolina, I like to use www.ncwaterfalls.com

Websites like these are so important! Before I go anywhere to take pictures, I generally spend quite a bit of time researching the area and figuring out what’s there before I arrive. True, there’s nothing quite like on-the-ground, in-person walking-around scouting, but how do you know where to start walking around if you don’t have the bigger picture first?

I’ve written blog posts about this before. How to Do Scouting for Landscape Photography is a quick list of what I usually look for and websites to help me find them. Tools for Planning a Photo Shoot will help you make the most of any given location.

I’ve been putting all these tools to good use as I prepare for CAPTURE Vermont because I bet there’s one thing about CAPTURE Vermont that you don’t know, and probably would never guess . . .

2 CAPTURE-Vermont-2015 (w-dates)

I’ve only been to Vermont once! And that was on a family vacation when we were traveling from PA to NH on Highway 9 through the Green Mountain National Forest and we didn’t even have time to stop anywhere! So, believe it or not, this is really the only picture I have ever taken in Vermont! If you’re on a family vacation and can’t stop anywhere, what do you do? Take pictures of the driver, I guess. 🙂

5828_Vermont-USA_Canon EOS 40D, 37 mm, 1-125 sec at f - 5.0, ISO 400

This means that I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got quite a bit a bit of homework to do! Logistically speaking, to give you an inside peak, Leicester was the best spot in the entire northeast for a CAPTURE this year. So that’s where it will be!

And boy! have I been doing my homework! Hours of internet research. It’s nothing new. Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Images, suncalc.net, and yes, coveredbridgemap.com and newenglandwaterfalls.com. I’ve consulted with locals and already plan to arrive several days in advance to do the necessary ground-scouting to find the right shooting locations I’m comfortable with bringing other photographers to and confident will make for great, autumn shots.

I hope you’ll find these websites helpful for your pre-scouting. I also hope you’ll be able to join me in Vermont as we visit in-person the best places I have pre-scouted. The first four folks to sign up get a $50 discount!

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