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WILD CAMPING
f youve ever tried to climb a mountain before
sunrise you will know that its not so easy.
Imagine planning a hike before dawn, waking
up to a 4am alarm, looking out of the window,
deciding the weather isnt good enough, and
going back to sleep, only to miss a fantastic
sky. Spending the night on location allows you
not only to capture sunset and sunrise from
a high vantage point, but also enables you to
photograph the twilight hours and the night
sky. Once youre committed youll be at the
mercy of whatever weather comes your way.
This can be hugely benecial if you are there
in place for that momentary burst of light on
an otherwise miserable day. If youre really
lucky, the conditions will be so good that by the
following morning youll be wondering whether
its worth reshooting scenes you captured
perfectly the night before!
Aside from being on the mountain in a range
of weather conditions, wild camping also
opens up the number of locations you can
feasibly visit to photograph. Many landscape
photographers recognise the benets of
shooting during the golden hours and twilight,
but if you have a big walk in, of perhaps ve
hours, then you will probably end up ruling out
the most remote locations. If you can make it
to those hard to reach places then you will nd
yourself alone, often in areas that have hardly
been photographed at all.
10 STEPS TO SUCCESS
saved costs of accommodation. A good starter
setup for one person summer camping will
cost around 300, roughly split into: 100 for
a sleeping bag, 40 for an inatable mat, 100
for a tent and 60 for a backpack. If youre
willing to buy secondhand then you can get
started for under 200. Once you have a little
bit of experience in the warmer months then
you can buy better sleeping kit and head out in
the autumn, winter and spring. In England (with
the exception of Dartmoor), wild camping is
not allowed, but if you camp responsibly above
500m with leave no trace principles you will
not have any problems.
TAKE PART!
Enter our mountain photography competition
turn to page 111 for details.
08/08/2014 14:56