#they taught us how to use these tools which is all fine and dandy or whatever

[poisonedfate]

have my one final assignment for this term left and when i tell you i've never been more confused in my entire life......well

[enkisstories]

The hermit then unfolded a scroll covered in writing and drawings, that he claimed was a copy of a centuries old one in an even older language, that in turn was a copy of an even more ancient one in an almost forgotten language and so on.

"Listen well, so that you can preserve the legend in your own words and pictures", he told the visitors. "You may stay as many days as you need for that task."

Hermit: "Long ago, Maxis was slithering through the valley, when she beheld a human village that stood in flames..."

Kylo: "It's sure strange to imagine the godess of creativity and freedom as a... giant snake? Dinosaur?"

Armitage: "It is, indeed! But then again, of course she wouldn't have looked human before there even were humans."

Hermit: "It bears no connection to the story I'm about to tell you, but since you brought them up, let me tell you that Maxis was very fond of dinosaurs. She experimented with their scales until eventually she had invented feathers to enable them to fly like the insects.

The formerly earthbound creatures could now join the winds on the pathes Ea had laid out for them. Although they hadn't met back then, in the present Ea and Maxis greatly enjoy to watch the flight of the birds together, freedom and order in perfect harmony."

Finn: "What are we to her?"

Hermit: "Humankind? The fancy new I-Phone that one gets into the queue for the midnight release. Listen on and you'll hear it for yourself!"

Hermit: "...took the shape of a young woman. Immediately the humans stopped being afraid of her and were now more willing to let Maxis tend to their wounded.

But instead of mixing medicine and fitting bandages, Maxis touched five uninjured, three of the settled and two of the raiders, and imparted medical knowledge onto them."

Hermit: "Don't perceive me leaving now as a punishment, dear people. My blessing will remain with you.

As I gifted the creatures that came before you new body plans, I bestowed to you the gift of imagination. Many species cooperate and communicate and some have learned to use tools, that doesn't make you any special. But you alone are able to change the world around you by means of pattern-recognition, planning and abstract ideas."

The group made sure to faithfully write down the story. In time they'd forget some of the many details, each of them different ones. But the main lesson remained with them forever:

They had gotten taught time again by the church how Maxis had given humanity all kinds of presents that had helped civilisation along. But in truth the godess had only ever given them a single material object (you know which one). Everything else she wanted humanity to achieve, she had instigated by means of inspiration.

The hermit then disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Rose: "Where'd he go?!"

Finn: "Seeing that this place is a nexus between Origin and the material world, straight back home, I'd say. I mean, he outright told us that he's closer to Lady Maxis than anybody, sooo..."

Kylo: "Okay, straight to the point: Have we acquired any useful powers here?"

Finn: "Kylo! Didn't you get it? We've just talked to Lord Ea!"

Kylo: "Yes, fine and dandy, but he gushed about his wife. I could have stayed home and listened to Armi if I wanted that!"

Behind the scenes:

The Dragon Legend and the hermit's additional information are critical to a potential story arc involving the church of Maxis.

The characters are all pretty high-powered already, being governors and owning that totally not Starkiller weather machine, so I'm undecided whether I really want to go this way.

[avatar-legends-confessionblog]

But it looks like they're pro israel which is hilarious since ka's on this blog has been beating zk's over the head with accusations of supporting genocide. Meanwhile they're tell what probably is an actual genocide supporter welcome home sister, and glad you saw the light.

The fact that anyone on any side is using an actual real life genocide as a gotcha moment because their fake fictional ship fandom gets hate for dismissing/or overstating a fake fictional genocide, is how I know y’all have sincerely lost the plot and ATLA might as well have been about nothing for all that it fucking taught y’all.

The genocide of the air nomads is fictional, it is made up, the air nomads are a fictional race and their genocide is a narrative tool (yes I know that it is based on a very real very tragic Tibetan genocide but the air nomads are not Tibet they might be inspired by Tibetan monk culture and there is a conversation to be had there, but please do not conflate the two, they are not on the same level at all).

And what it definitely should not be conflated to is the CURRENTLY ONGOING Palestinian genocide which is a very real, very tragic, humanitarian violation that is happening to very real people that exist here in the real world. And it does not belong in a fandom space to be used as a tool to decide which ship fandom is the worst. It is not a “gotcha” or an “own”. Do you guys even hear yourselves? This is fake! this is all fake! these character are fake, these ships are fake, Aang is fake, Zuko is fake, katara is fake. Being Pro Israel is very real. It is a real political affiliation with very serious real life connotations and it does not become funny or ironic just because they crossed shipping lines.

We can discuss the real world implications of this show and its character and how real world themes and biases affect the viewings of these characters and their portrayal within the show and in fandom and we can even discuss the themes and characters of this show as they appeal to current events, that is all well and good and should be actively encouraged but that doesn’t make these characters any less fake! but you know who is real? The people fucking dying everyday from a genocide y’all are using to one up each other.

This stupid fucking ship war is all fine and dandy, fucking call each other misogynists or racists or any other kind of bigot as it pertains to these characters for the rest of time, for all the rest of the world cares but what we will not do is use an actual fucking genocide that has nothing to do with this fucking children’s t.v show as a ship fandom morality own.

We are not playing which side has more Palestinian genocide supporters or which side has more fascists we as an entire fucking fandom should be denouncing that shit just like we should be denouncing every other kind of threat of real world harm, violence or abuse made to anybody in this fandom no matter the fucking shipping lines because when some of y’all will realize that no fucking fictional character is worth harassing real life people over nobody fucking knows.

X

[mego42]

hi! a song inside the halls of the dark is an absolute masterpiece of plotting and pacing (and prob my fave fic I’ve read for the show so far), so for the ask a writer meme, I’d love to hear about your planning process(es). the idea of even plotting out something like that, let alone actually finishing it, just breaks my brain lol. do you do a lot of outlining? how much does the outcome end up looking like the ideas that sparked it?

adsfghgsj okay well first off, thank you! that is unspeakably flattering and i don’t know how to cope! my weird robot emotions are misfiring! but also, thank you for this question bc this is the kind of nerd shit i LIVE FOR and up until, idk, 5? 6? months ago my answer would’ve more or less been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but sometime in between now and then i leveled up how much of a nerd i am.

okay so, the short answer to your (first) question is yes, i do a lot of outlining though the scale of outline varies based on the complexity of the story. in song’s case, how i outline actually evolved significantly over the course of writing it (see that level up) and if i were to outline it today, it would look very different from what i originally started with.

the short answer to your second question is in song’s case, the original idea was a v short, almost fluffy stuck in a hotel room for a night one shot i daydreamed up while listening to a halsey song (is there somewhere, if you were wondering). obvs what it turned into was uh, v different.

digging into how i outline is going to get long, excessively nerdy and borderline terrifying so i’m hiding the rest of this under the cut, read at your own risk.

I preface everything here with a couple of reminders:

1. i am a crazy person who straight up does not know how to have hobbies like a normal person

2. i am actively trying to push myself and grow as a writer including developing new skills and training myself to practice certain habits bc at some point I would like to push myself out of the nest and try my hand at original fiction one day with a vague goal of maybe seeing if i could get it published. idk if i’ll ever actually do that BUT in the meantime, i do stuff like the nightmare that follows to myself

initial outline / what happens next list

okay so the most basic of my outlines (and how i originally outlined song) are p much just lists of what happens next. i do them as bullet lists bc my brain finds them less intimidating and i just start with one and then ask myself what happens next. sometimes the bullets are v vague, sometimes they get so specific i end up writing what becomes dialogue, i try not to think too hard about it, i just keep asking what happens next.

it’s really specifically about what happens next, not asking myself what i want to happen in the story, bc next implies the bullet before informs the one after, so you end up with an overall picture of what you want with a base level of causality built in. it also gives you room to surprise yourself (i think literally every what happens next outline i’ve done has had me going oh, okaaaaaay at some point).

sometimes, this is all you need. for trade my heart for honey, i started and stopped here bc at the end of the day, the skeleton for that fic is super basic: beth and rio attempt to play pool without tripping over their horrendous sexual tension. they fail. the end.

for your monster looks like mine, i did a version of the what happens next list, but i brought in some of my tricks from the pace structuring method i’ve been honing for the multi-chapter i’m currently planning. instead of mapping tentpole beats by story pace, i mapped tentpole beats for what points i wanted beth and rio to be scoring against each other and then mapped out the lead-up and fallout to connect the two and also what they were doing to each other physically at the same time so i could see how it all played together so the conversation supported the smut and vice versa. it was a TOTALLY normal approach to writing pwp. not over the top at all. 

song’s original outline was basically a SUPER long what happens next list and if i could go back in time i would slap myself upside the head like bitch you have no idea what you’re getting into and you are WAY TOO COCKY ABOUT IT, but it’s okay i learned.

the spreadsheet method

somewhere around when i was in the middle of i want to say ch 9 of song, @pynkhues posted about her outlining process including a super awesome spreadsheet she uses (i cannot for the life of me find the original post, forgive me but know that it was hers) and i immediately jacked a version of it to use as my own and oh my god it changed my whole life. 

iirc hers was a bit more in depth but since i was sort of baby-stepping into it, i stripped it down into the following and did a sheet for each of the remaining chapters (well, ch 10 and ch 11, ch 11 ended up getting wildly out of control so i split it in two and mushed the epilogue i’d been planning onto the end of it as a closing breakout scene:

plot

character

it’s a lot of repetition, tbh BUT once i started using it, i found the repetition was incredibly clarifying and by making myself take the time to go through each column and go through the same stuff over and over, it honed in on the strongest, most relevant bits of what i was planning and helped me see patterns and connections i maybe hadn’t been thinking of on the onset.

when i outlined swear i used this method and added a layer to my chapter overviews where i track the lies and corresponding truths worked into the chapter narratives (bc that’s a key theme of the story), and color-coded the beats that corresponded to the main plot vs individual character arcs vs foreshadowing so i’d have an at a glance visual reference to make sure nothing was getting lost and all of the characters (even minor ones) had stuff happening to them and didn’t just feel like cardboard cutouts coming in and out of the story as i needed them

pace structuring

these are all fine and dandy but one thing they’re missing is pacing! for song’s pacing, i will be real with you, i v much went a lot with my gut. i’ve spent most of my life consuming and paying a lot of attention to stories. i’m fascinated with how they come together and literally cannot shut off the part of my brain that likes to pick them apart to examine the pieces to see how they all fit together. as such, it’s left me with a p instinctive grasp for how a story should feel when it’s working which is fantastic when it is, but really useless when it isn’t bc i struggle to identify where and why sometimes so i can fix it.

for the buffyverse, once i started to realize (with no small amount of horror) the scope of what i wanted to write, i realized p quick i needed some kind of tool kit to help me figure out the arc and pacing bc this was going to be a lot closer to trying to plot a whole novel from the ground up (which is great bc one of the things i want to practice is pacing and plotting out novels from the ground up, hahaha)

i’ve been working with a two main docs (and neither of them are spreadsheets, yet, bc one thing the spreadsheet method taught me it’s that while i find them very soothing, my brain works in bullet lists so i’m starting with bullets and then i’m gonna strain it through a spreadsheet):

1. Thoughts:

just a doc where I word vomit out anything I’m thinking, I don’t worry about keeping it organized, I just throw whatever I’m thinking in there so it’s memorialized and I can sort through it later.

2. Act Timelines / Scene Breakdowns:

basically, i have a basic three-act story structure with tentpole story beats broken out by general ballpark percentages of how far into the story/act they should occur for the pacing to feel right. i use that as the framework i run my plot and character beats through and do it in a couple of passes:

high level: i go through and break out what’s happening in the story for each tentpole beat (what the specific story and plot focus is)

by character: i go through and fill in (at least) one sub-bullet beneath each plot tentpole beat with what’s happening with each main character in their individual subplot, how they got there, what their general feelings and mindset is, if they’re having any revelations, etc (one thing i fucked up with song is not making sure i had stuff going on for all of the characters, the plot was super focused on beth and while i generally knew what rio was doing and why, ruby and annie more or less floated in and out of the story at whim and i hate that, so i’m trying to be better about it going forward)

by relationship: now i go in and fill in a layer of bullllets with how the plot and character beats are shaping relationships and how they’re progressing through each tentpole beat

at this point i’ve got a pretty fleshed out outline hitting on plot, character and relationship development at least in broad, general terms. i can look at it like a map and see how characters are growing and changing throughout the story and look for areas where the plot is pushing the characters vs the other way around and places where it seems weak or poorly connected/supported and i tinker with that for awhile until i feel like it’s in good shape.

next step is applying the what happens next approach to the scene by scene breakdowns. i’m trying an experiment with this one where instead of breaking the fic into chapters first, i’m breaking it into scenes and working out the beats of them so they incorporate all of my outlined stuff and then i’m gonna go back and see where the chapter breaks look like they fall.

I’m like, 75% of the way through my scene breakdown for this particular fic and once I’m done with that, I’m going to take everything and plug it into the spreadsheet I worked with for the last couple of chapters of song and highlight/color code like I did for swear to make sure my chapter breakdowns align with everything I’m trying to do and I’m tracking all of my themes and details and setting things up to pay them off later.

so, you know, an absolutely normal amount of planning for a hobby i do entirely for funsies in my largely nonexistent spare time. 

(sorry this was i am assuming WAAY MORE INFORMATION than you ever wanted or needed to know but once i started i couldn’t stop)

(and seriously, thank you, am truly verklempt that you love song like that 💖)

bts fic writing q’s IF YOU DARE hahaha

[renegadesrpg]

Dark Angels: Creation, Part 12 - Grace. Zav and Bryn

Zav: --Giving the area a last look around, I step into the old church and stand behind her. –

Damn, woman, you brought the whole thing. That expended a lot of energy. You know, you could have just brought the important tools and materialized the furniture and raw materials from closer by. It wouldn’t have taken as much out of you. Bryn: “I wanted my own things. I know the herbs were cut at the right time of the moon and a consecrated athame was used. I know the crystals have already been purified.”

And I wanted to keep the last connection to the one who’d helped me furnish the cavern, made the tables and cabinets and taught me so much. But I wasn’t about to say that out loud.

“Besides, it all comes from somewhere. We don’t just “make it” out of thin air. Sin might be powerful enough to do it, but when we do, it comes from somewhere.” Zav: --with a shrug, I look the place over and pick out a corner near the front with good natural light— That may be, but I figure with the risks we take, we earn it. When I materialize stuff, I picture it from a catalogue or someplace I’ve seen it on sale and get it from there. --That I generally find a way to compensate wherever I got it from goes without saying. Unlike the Horseman, Sin recruited honorable souls. Or in my case angels. Walking to the corner I’d scoped out…— This is good. It’s got good light. It’s open to your work area so I can be near if you need me, and vice versa, and I can see the door. We’ll ward the rest of the place against anyone, reaper, demon, angel or any other creature except through that door. --The shop… damn, I’m going to have to let some of my local people know I survived after this is all over. Dragon for one. And what if it made national news? What if Truely saw it? Panic spurts through my brain. What if she thinks I’m dead? What if she turns to someone else before I can get there…? No, no, no….I’m going to find her number and call her just as soon as I get this set up.— I think the chair right hear near the 10 foot tall leaded glass windows. And there are outlets in the wall along the back…. – When Sin had renovated he’d had this place wired for electricity and had installed generators too. After all, drug lords needed electricity to process product and they wouldn’t want the amount of energy used to alert any Polícia Federal. And I’m sure the local police were getting regular bribes from him as well. It would be expected. Sin made it a policy when dealing with humans to /always/ do the expected. Well, meeting those expectations worked for us too. Bryn was used to conjuring her own light in that cave she’d worked in, but I’d needed electric power to run my shop and I’d need it here too. Thinking back to a catalog I’d looked through a couple of weeks ago, I materialize a set I’d looked at. Tattoo chair with an adjustable head rest and arms and hydraulic control to raise and lower it, an artist chair, and a rolling tray. I look at the back wall and materialize a counter I’d seen there and then extra ink, pots, an autoclave and gauze and wrap from the same catalog the chair had come from on top of it. Later, I’d tally up the totals and move some money into the company accounts. Dropping my backpack on the counter, I turn to Bryn...— Ok, let’s get this show on the road. Where do you want me? Bryn: While Zav had been building his workspace I’d done basic anti-demon warding. He’d have to show me the symbols and spell for keeping out angels and reapers later, but for now we were safe. “Why don’t you lay down on your new handy dandy reclining tattoo chair?” While he moved to it, I unwrapped my ritual athame from it’s soft leather bindings and examined the edge. Sharper was better for skin. Less painful. The edge gleamed in the sunlight and drew blood as I ran my thumb along it lightly. “Perfect.” Zav: --eyeing her with the knife—You know what you’re doing with that thing? How to cut me to get enough without bleeding me dry? Bryn: Laughing, “Don’t be a sissy. You’re not the first ‘blood’ donor I’ve worked with, although you are the first grace donor. But it has to work the same and you’ll heal faster than humans. I’m going to slice along your arm and hold it pointing to the ground while your grace drains into a bowl. You’ve explained the magick of making a grace stone and once we’ve done this I’ll do a small one as a test. I won’t take more than I need.” Zav: Take /more/ than you think you’ll need. I’ll recover faster than if you have to cut me twice. And if you have extra make grace stones for you, Sean and Adrian, too. You won’t be able to handle as much as Sin, but a little in a stone will make you faster and sharpen your senses. –shrugging— It can’t hurt. If we had the time I’d ask you to put some in the protection bracelet you’re making for the fighters, but we don’t. So instead I’m going to add a few drops to the ink when I do the protection tats. Bryn: Frowning down at him as I stretch his arm out on the chair’s armrest. “Just don’t be a hero, ok? Your grace will regenerate but we don’t need you down for days. Let me know when to stop.” He nods in agreement, but I’ve known this guy too long. I’ll have to watch the cues. Taking the athame in hand, I draw it vertically along his arm, laying open the radial artery. I’d never take this risk with a human, no matter how powerful. They’d bleed out too fast. I’d have gone for the cephalic vein. Slower flowing and quicker clotting. But I was counting on reaper healing to make sure that didn’t happen to Zav. Shimmering blue liquid began to flow and I quickly move his arm off the chair’s armrest and squat on the floor holding it over a deep bowl. It runs down his arm and over his fingers in a stream. “You doing all right up there Romeo?” Zav: --I grunted as she made a long deep slice in my forearm. It’s funny how that same injury in the heat of battle is numb but sitting here, knowing what she’s going to do, it hurts like a bitch. – I’m fine. Let it flow little witch. You’re just sad because it isn’t real blood. Bryn: “Ok, I take that as an insult. And it’s never a good idea to insult the lady with the knife.” The truth is, I /have/ done blood magick before. It’s ancient and powerful and the more powerful the subject, the stronger the magick and the less you needed. Which is why I usually used my own, but there had been times when I’d needed volunteer donors. And I always used volunteers only. Anybody that has to kill somebody to get enough blood for the spell is either an amature or not using powerful enough blood. Shifter’s were good, as were vampires, other mages, fae and phoenix. All those beings’ blood had earth magick that blended nicely with my own. Zav’s grace, though, is a different story. Grace is empyreal, coming from the Creator of both the divine and the earth. He’d made empyreal magick and earth magick each unique in their powers, and they weren’t made to mesh. That’s why the white god had gone apeshit when the Gregori had fallen in love with humans and chosen to have children with them. The children had grace, yes, but they also had a soul and the soul is at the essence of earth magick. If one of those chosen by the Grigori had been a being of power, their children would have been a threat to the white god’s view of himself as top of the heap. So he’d had them killed. All of them. Grigori, their human mates, children, infants, babes in the womb...it hadn’t mattered so long as it was bloody and violent and sent the message to other angels what happened when you broke the white god’s rules. Not that I’d been around to see this, mind you. But Sin had, and he’d shown it to us when he formed our cadre so we would understand how dangerous an enemy the white god was. And –frowning at this thought,- once I completed the grace stone Sin was going to use it combined with his own human soul and reaper magick to bring down the Horseman. It was going to make him very, very powerful. I’ve got to wonder if that isn’t going to draw some unwelcome attention, but –mentally sighing- one disaster at a time. Zav: --snorting a laugh – You’d never hurt me. You love me and you know it. --As the iridescent blue fluid begins to flow my I turn my mind back to Truely, trying to ignore the sensation of my grace flowing down my arm. It isn’t the same as a mortal’s perception of blood flowing on their skin would be. Blood is warm and sticky, but grace is cool and slick. Everywhere it touches it tingles like sparks flaring. It was the raw magick in it, the power, the essence of life. And I can feel that essence seeping out of me. It’s like I’m falling backwards into a black velvet night. Fighting against the darkness, I twist my head to look down at her and force a cocky note in my voice— We about done here? I got a woman I need to call. Bryn: The deep bowl is nearly half full, with what I estimate is at least 2 pints. In a human I’d have stopped well before this, but I needed everything Zav could give for this to work. Glancing up at his question, I start to pop off a smartass response, but I pause. The skin under his tan is pale and he has sweat beading on his upper lip. He should have said something, dammit. His body is smarter than he is, though. The slice on his arm is already closing up on the ends, the flow of grace slowing naturally. “I think we’re done here, Romeo.” Standing, I reach my hand out and call the gauze from his counter to me. Lifting his arm, I lay it on the chair armrest and bind the wound to stop the ooze. “Gotta love reaper physiology. In a few hours that will be healed and, so long as you don’t head to the coast for an ocean dip, you won’t even have a scar.” Zav: --Swinging my legs over the edge of the reclined chair, I sit up. And almost immediately grab the edges of it as the world sways.— Bryn: “Hey, watch it big guy!” Grabbing his arm to steady him... “I really don’t think you want me to tell Sean and Adrian that you broke your nose falling on your face after losing a little grace. They’d never let you live it down. C’mon, lay back down in the chair for a while.” Carefully easing him back down on the reclined tattoo chair. Zav: --muttering as I ease back onto the chair— Fuck it. Hand my the phone in my backpack, will you? Bryn: Sighing, I grab his backpack from the floor beside his counter and rummage through the pockets until I find his cellphone. Turning back to him, I hold it up in the air. “You get this on one condition. You don’t try to leave that chair for the next two hours and if you need anything, you don’t try to materialize it yourself. You ask. I need you to be up and alert when I start on the grace stone. You taught me the magick, but I want you there if I need back up. And don’t worry, it doesn’t hold anything up. I’ll do the wards and start on the bracelets to the protect our forces from the trap. I just need you to send me the warding against angels and reapers. Demons are done already.” Zav: --raising my head in a mock glare — Tyrant. Give a person a little power and next thing you know they’re telling you what to do. -- with a sigh, I rest my head back on the padded head rest. The truth is, I probably couldn’t walk six feet right now, let alone swing a sword, so her plan’s good. Mentally I open to here and visualize the symbols in the order she’ll need them.-- Everywhere but the main doorway. I noticed there’s a place for a bar on the inside of the double doors that can be used to barricade the doors. The church must have initially served as a last ditch sanctuary against indigenous peoples when the land was being colonized and the brackets were left when the church was turned into a ballroom. Find the bar and put them on it. That way we can bar the door while we’re working and not have to be on high alert all the time. Now give me the damned phone. Bryn: Leave it to Zav to come up with that. After he’d become a reaper, the only way he’d really used his angel’s magick was to protect. He’d become an expert in defensive protocols using empyreal magicks and he’d studied strategy. Definitely our cadre’s go-to guy for this. The images he sends to me mentally are slender, and some are intricately drawn, but I’ve got an ediectic memory so I’m good to go. “Got it.” Zav: Leave no more than an arm’s span between them and repeat them in a line around the walls, on the ceiling and on the floor. And Bryn?” -- Lifting my head to look at her with a grin, because I’m about to get some of my own back.— It needs to be in blood. --laughing as she gives me a death stare and easily catching the phone she throws at my head.— Bryn: “FINE!” Zav: --Smirking as she walks off to take care of it, I settle back on the chair and Google “Truly Good Sweet Treats” in Pascoe on my phone, only to have it correct me on the spelling. Even though Sin’s pretty dismissive of technology, I’m grateful to it at the moment. The correct spelling of her name, Truely Goode, would have taken me a few minutes to puzzle out. Google had a website for Truely Goode Sweet Treats, and hallelujah, the website had a phone number! I punch it in and take a deep breath as it rings.— Hello? Can I speak to Truely, please?

[pauldeckerus]

Guest Blog: Landscape Photographer Ramtin Kazemi

[Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in taking a landscape photography workshop with Ramtin Kazemi and Scott Kelby next month in the Canadian Rockies, there’s a registration link and a discount code at the end of this post!]

5 Tips To Help Us All Make Some Awesome Landscape Photos This Winter

Hey Everyone,

Ramtin Kazemi here! Just wanted to share some tips with you all about making the most of your landscape photos if you have a minute.

We’re all on the go. More and more people are traveling the world because of the transportation and technology that’s available to us now. As photographers, we want to capture and share its beauty with everyone. I don’t blame us; it’s what we’re born to do. But, in order to get the photograph that is unique and has your signature on it, we must venture out.

Places like Iceland have increased their tourists and visitors by millions. The thing about these locations is that the same composition has been shot a million times. This is why I venture out to find the right spot with unique compositions and photographic opportunities. The best part about this is that some of these locations aren’t hard to get to at all. In fact, some of my best shots in my portfolio that are my personal favorites were shot literally 5 minutes from where everybody else stood. All you need to do is to put a little bit of extra effort into it with your composition which I’ll get to in a sec but, first planning is a big part of successful landscape shoots yet not enough people talks about it.

1) SCOUTING AND PLANNING BEFORE YOU SHOOT

Scouting and planning is the start of a successful landscape photograph. As landscape photographers, our main light source is the sun (or moon) and the weather has a huge impact on when and where we can shoot. I sometimes spend days walking around before I even get my camera out. It takes time, passion and patience

In order to scout a location properly, we must understand some key elements. First, we have to figure out when and where we’re going. Seasons change things dramatically, so once we figure out what our goals are, we can decide when to travel. For example, if you wanted to have wild flowers in your foreground with snow-covered mountains in the distance in Switzerland, you might want to go there late spring/early summer. Or if you wanted to photograph the Northern lights in the Yukon, the best time to travel is winter and the shoulder seasons around winter.

Let’s say that you know where and when to travel. Next step would be to understand the light and the sun/moon. Where and when does the sun rise and set? What about the moon? Wait, don’t worry, there’s an app for that! I personally use Photo Pills. It gives me all the information that I need, including the position of the Milky Way, stars and the moon at a given time. And use Google Earth! Even Google maps is a very useful tool because you can see exactly where you’ll be standing and which way you’ll be facing when it’s time to shoot.

Next, I need to talk about dressing appropriately for weather. It might sound silly, but these details are very important and, believe it or not, some of the most common mistakes are silly ones. So, understanding the location, position of the moon, sun and stars, understanding weather and cloud formations at a given time of year, preparing both your body and your soul, and finally studying your composition and your spot before you put your tripod down.

Once all is set and you are on location in the field, then it’s time to figure out where you’re going to position your tripod. Use your camera’s viewfinder and walk around until you’re happy with a composition using the tips that I’m going to give you below. 

2) COMPOSITION IS KEY

While planning is important, I’m gonna share the secret to a great landscape. It really is the most, and I mean the MOST, important and the foundation of a good photograph; Composition. While composition in landscape photography can be very intimidating and confusing at first, especially when using ultra-wide lenses on a full frame sensor, there are tricks you can do to help. The mistake that most of my students make 90%+ of the time is including too much. When first learning about composition, I mastered that you have to keep it simple. The only way to keep the foreground with less clutter is to get close to your subjects. There are lots of things to keep in mind when it comes to composition like leading lines, patterns, shapes, transitions, etc. This doesn’t mean that your photograph must have all of those elements in it. All you need is a strong leading line that leads your eyes to the subject in the background.

For example, you can see in the shot above, that I kept the foreground very clean, I only used the snow bank as my leading line which is kind of an “S” curve. “S” curves are VERY effective, as long as you don’t have too many distracting elements around them.

The frozen lakes in the Rockies in winter are PERFECT for this because they are usually very clean, but there are tons of lines that can be found. I’ve also highlighted all the leading lines that I could find in the composition so you can see what I had in mind when framing this shot.

Moving on to the next image, “The Chase.” I don’t think I need to highlight anything for you because you can see that it is full of lines not only from the bottom of the frame, but also from the top and the clouds.

Notice, I always keep my main subject (which usually is the background) away from the edges of the frame. You have to give the viewer enough room around the subject so if you keep your subjects in the corner, it breaks your whole story.

We’re trying to tell a story with a photograph and a landscape shot will always have foreground, mid-ground and background which most of the time is your main subject. You also want to keep your background the brightest. More contrast and darkness in foreground so that your eyes automatically will be focused on your main subject. 

3) POST PROCESSING TO FINISH YOUR WORK

Of course, posts processing the RAW files that you capture are very important as well. The amount of work you do on location dictates how much post processing you have to do later on. However, no photograph is completed without a good amount of adjustments. Cameras turn a three-dimensional world into 2D, and as photographers, we must understand imagery and be willing to adjust our photos to create the illusion of a third dimension. Post processing is always a big part of what I teach because I believe that it goes hand in hand. In fact, I have a two-hour class on KelbyOne on all my post processing techniques I use for landscapes.

In post processing, there are lots of techniques you can use to improve your composition. The one thing that I always do is bringing down the exposure and darkening the areas that are not important. That will make your important lines and shapes shine through easier. If you look closely at all of my images in my portfolio, I use the dodging and burning technique a lot. Every single element that is not contributing to the shot gets darkened. Here’s a quick example:

Before:

   After:

Remember that you are responsible for everything that is in the frame, so try and be careful when shooting. Certain things can be removed in Photoshop later, but you want to keep it as clean as possible in order to make the processing easier later on. Use your brush tool. Repeat after me: use your brush tool! Most of my adjustments are done using brush strokes. Even if you’re not comfortable with Photoshop, using the brush tool in Lightroom will get you very far. Luminosity masking and all of those advanced techniques are fine and dandy, but I don’t see many people using the brush tool in Lightroom. You can make lots of adjustments in Lightroom using the brush tool, and you can add as many adjustments as you need. It’s the same as Photoshop, but without seeing the layers panel that could be confusing to a lot of people. Very understandably so! 

BONUS: USE A PEN Another tip when it comes to post processing is using pen tablets instead of your mouse. For many years, the expensive Wacom tablets have been the industry leaders. However, today, great companies like XP-PEN are introducing tablets with lots of features like over 8,000 pressure levels and knobs that you can use to control Photoshop and Lightroom. My style of post processing involves lots of brush strokes which is very time consuming and hard to do with a traditional mouse. These pen tablets make life a lot easier while making the entire experience a pleasing one. With pressure sensitivity on, you don’t even have to change your brush opacity as it automatically changes it depending on how hard you press the pen on the tablet. XP-PEN makes some of the best tablets around the $100 mark that include all features of the Wacom tablets. 

4) Don’t Forget: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

All that said, in Landscape Photography the same adage applies as with most of life; Location, Location, Location. Canada has no shortage of RAW beauty, especially the Canadian Rockies in the winter. Most of the country is wilderness but some of these gems are accessible by maintained roads.

The image you see above was taken at sunrise, and I was only 400 meters away from the parking lot. Why was this a successful photo? Because I knew when to get there, how to get there, what composition to shoot, and at the end of it all, how to post process it, which can be all taught in a single day. My goal is to inspire people and show them how easy it can be to take some unique photographs with minimal effort. For most of these shots, the only thing we have to deal with is a little bit of cold weather, which is nothing that can’t be fixed with clothing.

Why do I shoot in the Canadian Rockies only in winter? Because the mountains are majestically white, lakes are frozen and there are TONS of foreground options to make your composition interesting. The landscape is forever changing in the winter. Methane bubbles, drifting snow, rivers and streams that produce mist, cracks on the ice, fresh powder on trees, you name it, we have it all…

  The best part is that it is not crowded in winter. You can shoot all by yourself sometimes, which is one of the most pleasing parts of landscape photography for me. Shooting some of the most photogenic places on earth with nobody around? Come on! The Canadian Rockies in winter is without a doubt one of the most beautiful sights you’ll ever see in winter. The drive up the Icefield Parkway is stunning. You’ll get to see peak after peak and it just doesn’t end. From Banff all the way to Jasper and beyond, there are tons of spots along the highway that you can stop and take photos that involves very little to no hiking. If you can walk on snow for 15 minutes, you can get any of these locations that are included in this post. All the photographs you see here were taken during my workshops up in Banff. Another location in most of my Portfolio, the Yukon, involves a chopper ride and backpacking, and it’s only designed for the true adventurer. But most of the places I shoot are not like that at all.

5) HAVE FUN

At the end, remember, the goal is to have fun. The journey itself is the most important part of it all. A landscape photographer must never forget that. Enjoying the landscape and listening to mother nature is really what it’s all about. That is what you’re trying to portray as a photograph; the beauty of our planet earth. We as humans have landed on the Moon, but believe me; you don’t have to go that far to see beauty. This planet is full of wonderful locations, and the most beautiful, despite what people say and where most people go, are found at the most random and unthinkable spots.

If this sounds like something you’d like to experience, put on your down jackets, get your snow shoes on and join me to capture the beauty of Canada this winter at one of my workshops! We’ll have fun and make some great photos.

(And don’t worry if Canada in the winter seems intimidating, I’ll work with you what you need to bring. I’ve been doing this for years, and I’m here to help you get out there and make some unique photos without having to go through the struggles I did when I started shooting in the Rockies.)

I’ve added a workshop this winter and Scott will be there with me on it. It’s designed for anyone and everyone. So join us for some fun. I’ve created a code (“kelby”) exclusively for fans of Scott to save $800, because who doesn’t want to hang out in the Canadian Rockies with the living legend of Photoshop, photography and spray cheese, Scott Kelby.

I also want to thank Scott for the opportunity to share this with you guys and I look forward to being able to share the beauty of the Rockies with you and Scott this winter at my workshop.

-Rammy

Check out Ramtin’s workshops here to book your spot for the January 23-27 workshop with Scott Kelby! Use special code “kelby” to access the discount.

You can see more of Ramtin’s work at RamtinKazemi.com, watch his KelbyOne class, and keep up with him on Instagram, 500px, and Facebook.

The post Guest Blog: Landscape Photographer Ramtin Kazemi appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

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