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7 Principles

Lesson 3 from: Landscape Photography: Capturing Adventure

Ryan Resatka

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Lesson Info

3. 7 Principles

Next Lesson: Gear Considerations

Lesson Info

7 Principles

I just wanna go over the seven principles of Leave No Trace. These are really important when you're visiting the outdoors or shooting in the outdoors, sharing the outdoors with other people in general. There are gonna be your guideline and your go-to to know if what you're doing is right, and/or ethical. So the first one is Plan Ahead and Prepare. Of course, as I just mentioned, no matter where you're gonna go, you're gonna want to plan ahead. You're gonna want to know the conditions of where you're going. You're gonna want to know what kind of gear and equipment you're gonna need. And you're gonna need to know pretty much anything else to make that sort of trek happen. But at the same time, make sure that it's gonna be in a safe and ethical manner. The second principle is Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces. So, again, if there's things like meadows, or you know, wildflowers that are blooming everywhere, you want to make sure that you're not stepping on them, or you're not in a protec...

ted area that could be fragile. The durable surfaces is basically a guideline so that you're staying on surfaces that aren't gonna be damaged by you walking on it. Over time, even if you walk on just simple grass, more people might be able to see that you walked there, and it might create what's called a social trail. By creating a social trail, you're disrupting the ecosystem, and disrupting the vegetation of that area. So again, make sure you're just staying on trail, and that you're not going off-trail at all to get any photos. And in addition to that, make sure that you're following these guidelines to keep the outdoors protected. The next principle is Properly Dispose of Waste. We wanna make sure that any waste that we pack in, we're also packing out. Don't bring more than you can fit back in your bag, of course. This means bringing drinks, beverages, extra food, et. cetera, and having it in a container or a bag on the way back out with you, and not leaving it there. Next principle is Leave What You Find. We definitely have a habit of maybe wanting to grab things on our hikes or our adventures, whether it's a rock or a flower. This general principle is that we wanna leave things that the way that they are. Even by moving a simple rock, you could disturb the erosion of the area where there's, you know, different types of animals, insects that live in that area, whether it's the water or on a trail. Wildflowers in general, you don't want to pick just because you won't be able to allow them to reseed. There's a million examples of this, but you want to leave things as you left them when you visit them. The next principle is Minimizing Campfire Impacts. First of all, when you're visiting a place, you wanna make sure that you can even be allowed to create a campfire or set up a campfire ring. A lot of places do have fire bans certain times of year or just in general, just because there's dry debris and vegetation that could easily ignite or light on fire. So, if you are gonna make a fire, you need to make sure you can even get a permit or do it in the first place, and if you can make it, make sure that it's contained and not near anything that is flammable. And you wanna make sure you're keeping yourself a safe distance from those fires that you're creating. You also wanna make sure that the fires that you're creating are not near any bodies of water as well. The next principle is Respect Wildlife. While we love seeing animals out in the outdoors, whether we're on a trail or driving by, we want to give it the proper space. They are wild animals, and we should keep them that way. If you do see an animal, you need to stay several hundred feet away from it, and let it pass through. You don't want to agitate it. You don't want to go up to it, and you definitely don't want to feed it food. So again, give these animals the space that they deserve. The last principle is Be Considerate of Others. When you're visiting the outdoors and places like this, you're gonna have people that are walking by you, camping near you, or maybe just sharing a view. So, don't do anything that would disrupt their ability to enjoy the same view that you're enjoying at the same time. This means not being loud, not being disruptive, not flying drones while other people are around, things of that nature. So when you're sharing the outdoors with others, be considerate of them too. One more thing that I want to add to this is geotagging in general. So, if you're going to visit a place with family, with friends, I would definitely err on the side of caution with sharing the location with too many people or just others in general. A number of places have received an incredible increase in traffic, and it has impacted the ecosystems of those places. So, again, when you're visiting places, I would advise not to share the geotag, and let others discover it for themselves.

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user-b87872
 

This is actually a question....regarding "park guidelines". Will you cover what permits are needed, costs; and most of all "insurance". I'd like to take my photography "pro", but these "hoops" appear to be confusing and expensive. Is there any way around them? Or to get the cost down to reasonable? I live in Nevada near Death Valley and travel to California often.

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