Sometimes as a landscape photographer you’ll find that conditions are everything within the shot. the weather and/or light conditions can really make a scene that little bit more special to what it generally is. Take this shot below for example, shot from a great vantage point on the slopes of Beinn a’Chrulaiste in the Highlands of Scotland looking down over Rannoch Moor, Glen Etive, Glen Coe and the iconic mountainous rock formation of The Buachaille Etive Mor. on any given day this is an impressive sight and one I’ve experienced myself maybe 20 or more times over the years and in many different weather conditions. but for me the best conditions happened on my last visit, I finally got the cloud inversion that I coveted for so long.

As you can see from these two shots taken almost exactly 24 hours apart from the exact same vantage point although with the addition of the low laying cloud inversion the scene has completely transformed from the previous morning. So sometimes it can pay off to visit and revisit a location if you have a particular shot in mind. both of these mornings had very similar weather forecasts and both looked promising for a cloud inversion which is why I climbed this hill at 04:00 in the morning two mornings in a row, but only one morning produced the perfect conditions for that lovely, coveted temperature/cloud inversion where you are literally walking above the clouds.

Difference the day makes - Rannoch Moor, Glen Etive and Glen Coe from Bein a’Chrulaiste 1st and 2nd September 2021

So, don’t be stuck with writing off a location just because you’ve… ‘Been There! Done That! Got the T-Shirt!’ …and it didn’t work out. Some people often say ‘Third Time’s the Charm’ well, in the last instance it was a little over third times the charm, (more like 23rd times the charm, lol) but that for me made the challenge, the chase and the subsequent capture all the more enjoyable. it wasn’t all amazing! waking up in a cold car at 2-3-4- AM chittering while you check your gear, make your brew and breakfast before heading up a dark mountain, but when you do all that to try and capture a spectacular sunrise on a beautiful new day, it’s absolutely worth the effort regardless of if it works out the way you intended or not. As… ‘the more you try, the luckier you get’! …is the way I like to look at it.

Well, for the sake of not just giving one single example of why it’s good to revisit the same location more than once in differing conditions, here’s one more from a project I’m currently trying to formulate where I visit the same location on each month of the year to try and show that, for all the landscape stays the same, the scene can completely change depending on the time of year and the light and weather conditions at the time, also how the conditions can create a story within that scene. by the end of the project I hope to show how the scene transitions throughout the year. I hope to expand on this project as time goes on and implement new and more diverse locations and subjects. but for now, I’ve just been working on The Glen Etive Waterfall at the entrance of Glen Etive.

Difference-a-month-makes_(2)_February.png

Difference the month makes - Glen Etive Waterfall - February - June

So once again, don’t be so quick to discard locations (like I did) just because you’ve seen them before. sometimes a change in lighting or a change in weather conditions can spark a new idea or even change your perspective on how you viewed the scene the first-time round, just be patient and enjoy the chase and when you finally get that one shot, it’ll make it all the more satisfying.

Anyway, I hope if nothing else this will have sparked a little bit of inspiration in someone to never give up just because things haven’t turned out the way they planned so far, (or even if it’s just to remind myself that I have to do the same). and just keep chipping away at our passion. nobody starts out at the peak of their success, we all have to put in the effort to climb to that peak and sometimes the more we help each other the easier that climb can be.

Stay safe everybody and remember to just enjoy the chase.

Best Regards.

Sylvan

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