Dealing with lots of people at your shooting location

[olivermoss]

I am just back from shooting the Neskowin Ghost Forest. Most of what can be seen of it is only visible for a few hours a year. A little of it can be seen at low tide, but much more can be seen at an extreme low tide that happens for an hour a few days a year.



I'd planned to go to this specific extreme low tide event a while ago. When I was having breakfast at the local cafe everyone was talking about some article calling this specific low tide event the best chance to see the forest for the next 5 years. I've looked at the tide tables and I am pretty sure that is not accurate, but someone wrote it somewhere and the area got way, more more people than were expected by any of the local businesses.

Fortunately, one of my lenses is a monster wide angle to telephoto zoom. I was able to snipe far away shots that were temporarily free of people. wide angles can also be good by letting you get close to a subject and avoid the people that way, but my own shadow was also a problem. I pretty much had to stick to zoom shots.

After a while I set up shots with people in them and waited for an opening. Sometimes I waited a while. I never got the shots I most wanted, but I also can't complain too much, this was a pretty cool thing to get to do at all. My galleries are here if you'd like to see.

What are your strategies for dealing with crowds, especially in your landscapes? Do you find that photogs like to cooperate with each other, or do they get competitive for the shots? Do you go home and edit the kids playing in the sand out later?

Comments

[lazaefair]

Sometimes I set up my shot and wait for people to clear out, sometimes I crop in post, sometimes I outright ask people to move away for the few seconds I need. (Sometimes people move out of the way without prompting, which is nice.) Sometimes I wiggle my way to the front of the crowds.

But most often, I incorporate the people into the shot. Humanity is part of the environment, too, and there are a lot of stories you can mine from documenting the way people interact with the landscape that you're shooting. If nothing else, human figures are excellent at conveying a sense of scale to the viewer, as the Romantic painters knew.

[olivermoss]

Human figures are great both for scale and also to show depth. I do have a few figures in this shoot, but I try to avoid them if I can.

The scope of this scene was too big to ask people to move. Also each time we all pretty much had an hour to do whatever we got up early to do. I'd love to catch a winter low tide and maybe there will be few people, but crossing the 3 streams to get there might be brutal in winter :)

[lazaefair]

Forgot to say, those are some freaky-ass-looking formations and I do like that the lack of people in the photos you published give them a much eerier feel.

[olivermoss]

Thanks! I was going for creepy, but sadly the first day it was all sunny and bright. The next day I had some rain :)

[leesa_perrie]

For people I either wait (the same with cars) and hope I can get a shot, or if it's a holiday snap, just put up with them. Sometimes, if there's not much of the person (or vehicle) in the shot, I can photoshop them out - like some of my cloud photos taken at home where a stray aerial has got in the way!

What I really want is a neutral density lens. It won't work in all situations, but for getting people out of street scenes, it looks like a good option!

EDIT: Doh, forgot to say that I loved your photos! In this instance, keeping people out of the photos worked really well :)

[olivermoss]

Thank you!

I've tried some ND filters and they haven't given me the results I've hoped for. The problem may be that I bought cheap ones rather than good ones.