Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week! Me well its fall my most favorite season of the year! I love everything about it. Cooler weather, fall colors, harvest and beautiful landscapes to be had. My photography club takes trips this time of year just to capture the beauty of the season. Now my goal is to capture stunning photographs of the fall colors. But this is not a haphazard endeavor .  It is very much a planned one. In this blog I want to explain my process in how I find and make great photographs and the planning that is involved. And the apps and websites that I used to do this.

The best way to shoot stunning photographs is to put stunning scenes in front of your camera. But not only do you have to go to these places you must be there at the right time of day. We all know as photographers that there are certain times of the day that are best for great photographs. The golden hour that sunrise and sunset come into but don't forget the blue hour and twilight. So not only where you go to get those stunning photographs but when you go is important. So where do you start to your planning? 

First you have to come up with a place you want to go for the stunning photographs. For example a few years ago me and my Photo wingman decided to take a trip to Utah. Neither one of us had been before so we had to start planning our shots. We knew that there were many stunning shots there but there was still a lot of planning to do. Our first stop was Google. We Googled Utah and looked at images. We also used 500px and looked up Utah.  There are many fantastic photographs already taken of the places we wanted to photograph and so we picked out many for each of our stops on our 10 day trip.  We then went into detail trying to plan the correct time , direction of the sun, and the view point of the shot we wanted. To do this we used Photo Pills.  Photo Pills is an app you can buy that you can used to track the sun the moon , stars when and where blue hour and golden hour will happen.  Really anything logistical about your shot you can calculate and plan before you even leave home. Now Photo Pills is a big complicated app like Adobe Photoshop is but it is also as Fort Fisher Tree Milky Way powerful too. Here is a link that can help you navigate Photo Pills. Photo Pills Video Help Other apps and websites that can help your on your planning are Google Maps, Google Earth, Flickr, Instagram, 500px, and many more.  One of the few things that you can't plan for is the weather. Usually only a couple of weeks in advance can you plan for the weather. Apps like The Weather Channel, Weather Bug, clear outside or Weather on your iPhone can help with this. When you plan months in advance you just can't plan for the weather. I've got a trip to Cincinnati OH planned for this weekend that we've had planned for months and it looks like we are going to be pretty wet but don't let that deter you. Some of my best shots were shot in inclement weather.  When we went to Utah we did intense planning for shots and just the logistics of our trip from hotels we would stay in the route and order of things we would see make sure you put at least that much planning in your shots that you want to get while you're on your photography trip. That way you bring home those stunning shots that everyone will be envious of.

The great shots that you see online are not cute accidents. They are calculated and planned for well in advance and they are no accident at all.  Using all of the tools mentioned above will help you become a better photographer with more winners to print and put on your wall.