When I first began this blog, I took a much different approach than I do now. I shared detailed trip reports, as well as processing ideas, and techniques I’ve learned from my own experimentation, as well as from other photographers. While I still take a heavy interest in these subjects, the blog has sort of evolved and settled into a rhythm of its own.
This blog has become about place.
Sometimes, however, its necessary to discuss the process of finding those places. A few posts ago, I wrote about the use of guidebooks, etc, to help guide photography trips. While I don’t use guidebooks at a crutch for my creativity, I do rely on them, in the same way as I might rely on a friend to show me around a new area. However, a well-written guide is tough to come by.
A few months ago, my friend Bret Edge and his collaborator Dan Baumbach began publishing several editions of iFotoGuide, an app available for iPod and iPhone, that guides photographers to many of the more photogenic locations in our national parks. To date, they’ve published three editions: Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Arches national parks. Bret offered me a download of the Grand Canyon edition, and I had a chance to try it out on my recent Grand Canyon visit.
Main Menu
When you first open up the App, you see a main menu with several options. In addition to the location-specific options I’ll talk about in a second, a few that really stuck out to me were:
– The sunrise-sunset table. Even though I look up the exact sunrise and sunset times before I leave home, its sometimes nice to be able to look it up in the field. The table they included in the App was extremely helpful.
– Additional resources. Because I’m so involved with the concept of ‘sense of place’ I very much enjoy getting to a place by reading about its ecology, history, etc. This link from the main menu gives the photographer a whole host of references to begin looking for new and exciting reading resources.
In addition to these highlights, there is also a ton of information about the region of each park. There are addresses and phone numbers for several hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, etc. There is also detailed weather and general information about the parks. For the traveler who gets stuck with a surprise, these resources could become invaluable very quickly. Finally, iFotoGuide has partnered with several affiliates, providing the user discounts to their services as well.
The photography-specific resources are also top notch. There is a comprehensive list of photo locations, organized conveniently and intuitively as ‘sunrise locations,’ ‘sunset locations,’ and ‘all day locations.’ In the Grand Canyon, one must rely on shuttles, and the directions to each of these locations also give shuttle information. The locations are described accurately, and give suggestions on what might make effective compositions. The authors also took the time to describe alternates to each location, since in the Grand Canyon, the popular overlooks are just that–very popular.
To me, the most unique asset of iFotoGuide is the interactive map. What Bret and Dan have done is take the Park Service map (you know those), and they’ve put virtual “pins” in the map, on which you can click and get photos of a location as well as information about photographing that location. I think this is super cool. However, its also the root of my biggest (and really only) nit about iFotoGuide. About half of the time I tried loading the interactive map, it crashed the App while loading. I tried rebooting my iPod and the issue persisted. I’m also not sure if its an OS issue (my iPod OS is pretty old). At any rate, it did prevent me from trying to use the feature more than I would have.
To sum it up, the iFotoGuide is a well-written, convenient and super informative resource for the photographer. And, at $4.99, it won’t break the bank.
Cedar Ridge sunrise, May 2011
Greg, this is a helpful and informative post. I know that you share it with all good intentions. I would issue a caution though, which goes back to a story about publicity of locations. Many top photographers today earn at least part of their living from being tour guides to where to make photographs. I admire and respect the photography of Bret Edge and Dan Bambaugh and I follow their blogs, but I do not admire them further adding to the congestion at good photography sites. In the early days of this controversy, my father was well aware that his photographs of wild places would bring them more publicity. This became one of his biggest moral struggles because within himself and in the conservation community debate raged about it. The argument on one side was that if more people came to appreciate our natural treasures, more people would advocate for their protection. On the other side, there was a growing awareness that people were the problem and that they were loving the places to death. Unless you are doing some good to preserve or protect the sites in question, I would be wary of jumping on the bandwagon of publicizing locations in nature that are nearly always sensitive to increased impact.
To address Davids comment:
I think he is absolutely right. It seems that you can’t go anywhere that is accessible and not find hoards of photographers. And most of them really are not in any way concerned with their impact on the environment.
A good example is the tufa formations at Mono Lake. One evening I was there, it was after the ranger had left for the day. What I witnessed was that a lot of people took advantage of this and started climbing up on the tufas. The most egregious violators of these delicate formations were photographers. Needless to say I had some very harsh words with them and only after threatening to photograph them and follow them to their cars and photograph their license plates and report them to the park service did they climb down. It was disgraceful. What I also thought was shocking is that I was the only one to confront these jerks.
Another example is Michael Fatali and what he did in Arches National Park. You can read about it here: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_99bbcf49-6e16-521e-97c0-ea6b2dbfb67a.html. This self proclaimed lover of nature really showed what he cared most about. His ego and money.
Due to the popularity of landscape photography it has started to draw people into it that are driven not by the beauty of nature, but by some “reality show” mentality of competitive disregard for what they are doing. I don’t believe that these people can even appreciate what is in front of them. It’s become trophy hunting.
I’ll leave it at that as I could go on with other examples.
By the way nice review. 🙂 Have you tried “The Photographers Ephemeris”. it is an outstanding app for the IPhone/iPod and there is a version for the Mac desktop.
Best Regards,
Greg….
Interesting post Greg, especially the exchange with David.
I am fortunate in many ways, having spent most of my Photographic life in SW China (hardly a Mecca for Photographers) – and now in NW Spain. Likewise, I can go for many weeks without seeing another photographer.
I like it this way, I like my privacy, and I like my wilderness wild.
My family has been connected with conservation for the last 30 years, and the story is the same in Scotland as it is in the States. Beautiful landscape images directly increase popularity of the wilderness, which in turn threatens the survival of the area, or ultimately, the crowds ruin the ambience.
Who has the right to police this however?
No easy answers, no quick solutions. Human nature is not the best when it comes to these issues… ME ME ME…
One can only hope, that as you and others write about having a strong Moral Compass then others will consider their actions in the countryside and moderate their behavior.
Many thanks for the comments, and the interesting discussion that has arisen from my post. I really appreciate your candid and unedited thoughts.
Some of the things I see coming out of this are a discussion of disclosure (do we share the location of every photo location?), ethics of art, and connection to the land.
Although there are no easy or clear-cut answers to these issues, it sounds like a great set of blog posts!