I don’t believe in location scouting when it comes to landscape and fine art photography.

It’s not that I don’t find value in exploring a place before a planned shoot; it’s just that I don’t do it with the only purpose of “gathering information”, as it’s usually understood.

There’s only a first time for everything: you’ll only see a place with completely fresh eyes once. The second time you visit a location, you’ve already built some preconceived ideas about it. Over time, we may only be able to see a very limited amount of images in that location.

It is during that first time that our minds are most open. If we have a camera with us, we can play and experiment more freely; if we leave it at home, we prevent ourselves from even trying.

Deciding beforehand what the “right” and “wrong” time might be for a location we don’t even know can be a costly mistake.