A tip for shooting painting reference photos while traveling

Here is a picture I shot in Yellowstone National Park yesterday. It was a gray day so I didn't shoot panoramic views. I don't usually like them as well on gray days. I usually try to shoot "mood' pieces on cloudy days. I was able to shoot half a dozen series of photos. Here is how I usually approach that.

There is not much reason to limit how many photos I take with a digital camera, but I do want to be effective. I don't avoid shooting the random shots that look good, but what I spend my time doing is shooting as if I were set up and painting. So I shot about six different locations only. But I documented them really well. I do a little photo essay on a selected view.

I went in and stomped around as if I was setting up my easel. Then I pretended that I had already painted there. So I shot closeups of complex areas and I got some closeups of the distance too, besides the usual "total" shot. I am shooting "packages" of a single view. Often as many as ten different snaps of the same scene, including closeups and a few variant viewing points.

I don't often paint from photos. I made perhaps two paintings that way last year. But I don't have my easel with me and so if I really do want to make a painting I now have all the material for about half a dozen different paintings.I didn't just wildly shoot anything that looked cool, I carefully gathered everything I would need to make individual paintings that I already knew how I wanted designed. I need to get to bed early as I have a plane to catch at a ridiculous hour in the morning.