The Adventurers of Photography #1 | Philip Slotte

How much time in a year do you spend outdoors and photographing?

Not as much as I would like to. I can sometimes go weeks without photographing. To me, the fun part about landscape photography is exploring and seeing new places. I usually don’t go outdoors that much when I’m at home, instead I spend my time editing pictures and planning future travels.

How do you plan your adventures?

There is a lot of planning that goes into my photography. I make sure to travel to places that have many great photo opportunities. I make an itinerary and schedule for every day so I know where to shoot the sunsets and sunrises. I also try to have at least 1 or 2 days with no plans at all, which I dedicate to find completely unique and not so famous places to shoot at. I use different apps to know where the sun is going to be at a specific time of the day. Having a great plan for your adventures is important to be able to fully focus on the photography.

What was the most unexpected moment in your journeys?

One time I was hiking to a famous glacier called Briksdalsbreen in Olden, Norway. After about 30-40 minutes of hiking I realized that there was almost no other people around, it was very strange since this is supposed to be one of the most touristy places in the area, I was clearly on the wrong track. Luckily this hike turned out to be way more beautiful than the one I was supposed to go. I found an old little cabin in a valley of two huge mountains with a glacier in the background. The photo I captured turned out to be one of my most successful on social media so far, and it’s one of my personal favorites because of the story behind it.

What is your favorite photo project so far?

I haven’t had any photo projects so far. I simply travel to beautiful places with the intent to capture beautiful images, that’s it. I think however that I would learn a lot from having photo projects, and it would be nice to create a set of images with the same theme and then make a book out of it.

As a landscape / nature photographer you travel a lot, wake up early to reach your desired location. How do you keep yourself motivated?

Early mornings, hard work and a lot of travels does not affect my motivation. I do however start to feel unmotivated when I haven’t traveled for a while. To avoid this, I always try to have a photo trip booked so I have something to look forward to. I recently built a tiny camper van so I can easily go on a short photo trip when I feel the need to fill up my motivation.

How would you describe your photographic work with only one word?

I would say ”Quality”, or maybe the word ”Meticulous” is more correct. I have always had a mindset of ”Quality before quantity”. What I mean by quality is in the way I work, I’m very selective and meticulous when it comes to my photography, I prefer to produce a few good images a year rather than many decent images.

Would you change your lifestyle for anything?

Not for now, but I wish I could spend even more time traveling and doing photography. I have some part-time jobs outside of my photography business that takes up a lot of my time, I wish I could spend all of my time doing photography instead.

What is your dream location to shoot?

There are many places I have yet to visit, Patagonia and the Faroe Islands are two of them. I would also love to explore more of my home country, more specific the Swedish Lapland.

By photographing the nature, you are not controlling the scene which you chose to be your subject. How do you deal with the given situations? Are you more like the photographer who imagine an image and visit the same location until gets the image or you visit a location and regarding the actual condition you make the best out of it?

I do most of my photography on photo trips, which means I have limited time to capture my images. I wish I could re-visit the same locations multiple times but that’s not always possible. I have learned to always adjust and make the best out of given conditions, for example: If I have clear blue skies, I might not shoot the sunset but the blue hour instead. If the sky is completely overcast I’ll focus more on the foreground. There are many ways to work around bad conditions.

Why did you choose outdoor photography? What is your mission with it?

I was experimenting with different genres of photography when I got my first Digital Camera back in 2012, but it didn’t take long until I realized I was more drawn to photographing landscapes. I’m an introverted person, I like being by myself and not dependent by others. I feel like landscape photography is the perfect genre for me since it allows me to be myself.

My mission at the beginning was simply to have fun, but I am now more focused on bringing people value by both inspire and help people to become better photographers. I hope to offer workshops in the near future, and create more educational videos online.