Finding the Best Photos on a Road TripJason Hahn and his family traveled 6,000 miles across the U.S. with Tamron lenses in tow. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Jason Hahn |
Photographer Jason Hahn loves taking road trips with his wife and son. "We're big believers that you should have experiences," he says. "All three of us are also into photography, so it's cool that we can share these experiences and document them together with our cameras." |
The Hahn family's most recent adventure: more than 6,000 miles through 14 states, camping all the way from their home in Florida to Moab, Utah. "We hit 10 national parks and monuments, lots of state parks, and I don't even know how many roadside attractions," he says. "Some of our favorite experiences were the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, canyoneering in Moab, exploring the Colorado backcountry by jeep, and the Puebloan ruins at Hovenweep National Monument and Mesa Verde, where we also saw the Milky Way at night." |
Jason's arsenal of Tamron lenses accompanied him on his cross-country exodus. "Both myself and my wife, Nicole, use these lenses," he says. "We love them for these trips because they're light, easy to pack and hike with, and built well to stand up to a lot of use (I'm not exactly gentle with my gear)." |
His favorite landscape lens is the AF 17-35mm. "You get that wide-angle look, but it also allows you to get really creative," he says. "Plus it's light weight and compact (space is limited when you're kayaking or hiking in caves), and it's able to stand up to whatever I put it through - I take my gear into hot, dusty, muddy, rough environments. I also like using the SP 10-24mm wide-angle for those types of landscape shots when I want to zoom in a little bit more and refine my composition." |
The 18-270mm VC lens is one of Jason and Nicole's main working lenses. "The 18-270 gives you the flexibility to go from landscapes to people to wildlife in an instant," he says. "The versatility of that lens is huge for us when we're on a road trip." For street photography, the couple rely on the SP 17-50mm VC as their "walk-around" lens. "It's got a really nice focal range for those kinds of images," Jason explains. "It's also wonderful for sports and action photography." |
The SP 180mm Macro lens also found its way into Jason's gear bag. "The 180 is one of the sharpest lenses I own," he says. "I use it often in the Everglades to get some of the crispest details I've ever seen, for pictures of everything from flowers and bugs to machinery. The 180 really gets me thinking about my compositions and what I can do with them - it gives me a chance to get a little artsy when I'm taking these small photographic splices out of the world." |
On the Road |
The weather was often a big predictor of what the Hahns would shoot on a particular day. "I have five different weather apps that track weather on my phone," Jason says. "I use that technology to get a feel for where a storm is going. We'd often look at the weather for the next day or two and say, 'OK, it's going to be great skies in this place on this day' or 'it's going to be excellent conditions for Milky Way photography on this night,' and then we'd make our plans from there." |
Talking to the locals is also a valuable way to maximize your photography potential. "You can read advice on websites or get books that tell you where you should go, but there are all these hidden gems out there," Jason says. "When we were out in Great Sand Dunes, all the folks who lived near there told us to go check out this particular waterfall. I had never seen mention of that waterfall in any book, and it turned out to be one of our favorite spots in that area: a great hike, beautiful location, really good photo op." |
During Jason's time on the road, lighting, color, and shapes and symmetry (or dissymmetry) were critical as he scouted for what would make compelling images. "The first thing that always catches my eye is the light," he says. "The light surrounding a ladder I saw going down into the ground in Mesa Verde is a great example of that. The same goes for color. Even though I've been dabbling in black and white, I'm really drawn to colors that stand out and pop." |
The geometry of a landscape also sets the scene. "I like real, organic shapes, especially repeating patterns," Jason says. "But what I'm looking for often isn't the 'perfect' scene. I don't think we like symmetry as much as we think we do. I look for things that stand out, that are different and break the pattern. When I saw a tree up against the sky, for example, the tree was so gnarled and weathered, it told a story all itself - you can tell it's been there a long time. It was such a sharp contrast to the rest of the scene." |
For Jason, the best images are the ones in which you carefully think through the composition and continue the narrative beyond the picture. "You have to think about where you're putting the elements of that image," he says. "You need to lead the viewer's eye without her even realizing what's happening. You also don't want the image to be static and end the story there. With wildlife or people photography, for instance, give your subject room to be alive in the shot so you create that sense of anticipation. That way, when a viewer looks at a picture of a bird flying from left to right, she can play out the rest of the story in her mind's eye and see where that bird is flying to next. Give people the ability to use their imaginations." |
During his cross-country travels, Jason experienced some of America's vastest landscapes and iconic landmarks, but he stresses that it's important for roving photographers to not overlook the details. "If we just take those wide shots, we'll miss out on the little things that make a place special, like cave drawings or the texture of a rock," he says. "As photographers, we do ourselves a disservice when we're always trying to take in too much instead of capturing those smaller slices. As I'm touring an area, I'm trying to tell the story of that desert or ancient village - if I were to put together a book or film about that place, I'd want all those separate parts that tell the story." |
One of the most spectacular times to take pictures while on the road is after the sun's gone down. "At the Great Sand Dunes, for example, I was able to get a really clear shot of the stars in the sky," Jason says. "The tiny bit of light pollution you see at the bottom of the image is a city in the distance. Using long exposures helped me draw out that ambient light that's just drifting up into the sky." |
Perhaps the most serendipitous image of their trip was Jason's capture of a lightning strike in Palo Duro Canyon State Park outside of Amarillo, Texas. "That shot was taken right from our campsite," he says. "The photo gods were smiling down on me - I didn't have to drive anywhere! I still had to set the scene, though. With night photography, you'll often have a cool cloud or dazzling sky, but it's hard to get a sense of scale. For this shot, the lightning was my subject, but I had to add something to the foreground. The cliff wall serves well in that regard. It anchors the shot and gives your eye a place to start and finish." |
A little bit of lighting luck helped, too. "In this particular park, a local theater group put on a play every night of the summer and use big spotlights to light up the canyon walls," he explains. "I took advantage of the lighting someone else set up. You can do that on a smaller scale, too, with a flashlight or your own light painting." |
To see more of Jason Hahn's work, go to www.outdoorphotoworkshops.com or www.jasonhahn.com. |