Location Scouting: method (madness)?

Hi All,<br>

I'm at a point where I need to do some location scouting for shoots, and I'm wondering if you could share

what the method is to this madness? How do you tend to organize the locations that you know of? How

do you catalog it all? How do you go about getting permission from the powers that be for a location?

What kinds of fees do you generally run into for using a location for a shoot? Are there any resources on

the internet that you find generally useful? Maybe it's because I've never done it before, but looking at this

task seems rather monumental (and thus the reason that some people make a living from it). I'm in the

Cleveland/Akron Ohio area, and there doesn't seem to be any real location scouts like there are in some of

the other major cities like NYC and LA.<br><br>

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

I'm not a pro, I wouldn't think of using someone else to find a location for me. If a place requires permission (i.e., private property), I contact the owner directly.

 

As for how do I organize the locations I know of, I use a notebook, mostly categorized by region (i.e., Central Oregon, Northern California, Southern Washington). Local locations, I just make loose notes about places I want to return to.

 

I try to previsualize my pictures, so if I see something interesting, I'll go scout the area, making notes of how things are oriented in terms of compass directions. Then I do some research into where the sun will rise/set and try to figure if I can make the picture I see in my head. If the elements don't line up, for example a gravestone that I want to shoot at sunrise is shaded by a building in the morning, I'll make a note and try to find another picture that works.

 

My $0.02 worth

 

<Chas>

I know a lot of locations in Bristol and Bath in the UK. This is the result of years and hundreds of miles walked. There's no easy route.

I'm in a rural area and do mostly nature shots so locations usually don't require permission and there is no charge but there are many hundreds of miles of private (paper company owned) roads and finding a location again is pretty tough so I resorted to using a GPS and recording the latitude and longitude. I usually enter a waypoint and when I get home, just upload the data onto a topographical map with a note about why I wanted to go back. Another advantage of GPS is that it will project sun and moon rise and set times for that location and any date and will actually run a trajectory on the screen so you can tell if the lighting will be right. That has been invaluable. Accuracy is usually within 20-40 feet maximum so even with no road signs and a thirty mile drive into the woods, finding the place again is a snap.