A few minutes can make a big difference. When shooting wildlife a few minutes make the difference between seeing the leopard or not. Things come and go. Animals and birds move around. In landscape photography the mountains, trees and rocks typically do not run away; they still tend to be in the same place tomorrow. However, clouds do move and they can move very fast. The position of the clouds can make a huge compositional difference to your image. Their movement can also dramatically impact the light in your image. They can determine where light or shadows fall which can also dramatically impact our photographs.

          Another constantly changing element that keeps landscape photography exciting is the light. Near sunrise and sunset the light changes very fast. A few minutes can make a big difference. Nice warm light can get harsh quickly. At the other end of the day nice warm light can get dark very quickly. During the fast changing light sessions of photography many aspects of the light can change rapidly. The quantity of the light changes. The quality of the light changes. The color temperature of the light changes. The intensity of the light changes. The mood of the light changes, especially when things like fog and clouds play along.

          On a trip to Namibia I was photographing the Spitzkoppe (see my workshop offerings if you are interested in shooting them with me). I saw these two rocks that drew my attention. In a matter of minutes I took a number of photographs of the same two rocks. Look at each one of them and compare how different the light is. The light changed very quickly.

When the light changes quickly like that you do not have time to start looking for a good foreground. Before long the light is gone. Long before the good light comes scout and plan where you are going to shoot from. Pre-visialize your compositions. Be ready. Unless you have a number of compositions scoped out and ready, and unless these different compositions are really close together so that you can quickly move to each of them BEFORE the light is lost you are better off to just stay put with what you have. The light is too precious to waist on trying to find something now. This is crunch time. This is the time for shooting. Preparation work has to be done before the light starts to change rapidly.

          Although all four images are similar in composition the light is very different in each. The color and mood is even different. Just keep shooting. You might just end up with a nice series of images.