How To Take The Perfect Photo On Your Mobile Phone With Photographer Victor Aerden
All travelers are different, but one thing we share alike is our desire to savor the magic of what we experience during our travels. Travel photography is all about bringing the world to people and exposing to them what else is out there. It challenges our minds and perspectives in new and extraordinary ways, and helps us to remember the little memories from our wandering.
To take a perfect photo, you don’t need to be an expert and you don’t need the perfect camera. The only thing you need is a fresh approach.
Photographer, Victor Aerden, took a trip with his girlfriend to the Yukon and helped share the magic of an Overland Yukon experience through his photographs. In this interview, Victor reflects on the moments of his trip and shares tips on how to capture the perfect photo on your mobile phone during your explorations in the Yukon this summer.
Q: What inspired you to first visit the Yukon?
“I’m from Belgium originally, I moved to Canada about six years ago. When I was about ten years old, I had to give an oral presentation to the class about a certain part of the world, what it was like in that region, and why I wanted to visit that area. Oddly enough, I ended up choosing the Yukon. There was a photo book my family had at home about the region. It was full of grizzly bears, moose, beautiful mountains, and I would just go through it all the time since it was laying on the coffee table.”
“The Yukon immediately kind of struck me even back then, and when we moved to Canada, I always had that little thing in my mind of, ‘I have to go there’.”
Q: During what season did you visit the Yukon? Did you photograph any wildlife on your trip?
“My girlfriend and I visited the Yukon for two weeks, sometime in September. We set out on Overland Yukon’s Golden Circle itinerary at the start of our trip, and within just an hour of driving, we’d already spotted our first black bear. Then, not even about an hour later, we spotted another group of black bears. So within two hours of our trip, we’d already seen two groups of these beautiful animals. I couldn’t believe it.”
Q: What was so special about the time you visited?
“We were there at one of the best times for picture taking. It was autumn, so all the colors were out. The southern lakes are crazy for fall colors. You’re literally driving through this valley and hitting these clear bodies of water, like Bennet Lake - the lake is sandwiched between a series of valleys and mountains on either side, and there are points where the hillsides are just painted entirely yellow.”
“It isn’t like Toronto or other parts of Canada, where you have the reds and the oranges and the yellows, it’s literally just all one color and so much of it everywhere - it was spectacular. When you experience that kind of stuff - that’s when you realize just how wild of a place you’re in.”
Q: What are the go-to items in your camera bag when visiting a place like the Yukon?
“Absolutely lots of car chargers. It was so great traveling with an Overland Yukon vehicle because we had the option to purchase goal zero charging batteries as a part of our package, which enabled us to charge all our gear along the way.”
“You’ll be without service or power quite a bit in some of these places so obviously you’ve got your car which is a source of power, but to have that extra battery and that solar panel is just amazing. I think you can even take those goal-zero batteries on your hikes so if you’re doing a multi-night backpacking trip, being able to bring that solar panel and charging battery along the way is all the more helpful. I shot the whole trip with just a few batteries from my camera but the drone needed lots of charging, so the Overland Yukon vehicle really helped in accommodating all of this.”
Q: How did traveling with an Overland Yukon vehicle enhance your trip experience?
“Hands down amazing. It’s the best way to explore the Yukon in my opinion. There’s so many things that you wouldn’t be able to access with a regular vehicle because it is still so wild. Many of the roads and highways aren’t even paved so you need a vehicle that’s capable of going out on all these different roads to find all those magical places and it provided that for us.”
“On top of this, the Overland Yukon vehicles just look amazing too so it also just makes for excellent subject matter in your photos. They’re these big tough vehicles that can travel basically any terrain and just make the pictures look way more interesting when you include them. Shooting those alone would be incredible. That vehicle was a big part of what made our experience what it was.”
“Especially, there was this one hike we completed in the southern lakes called Patty Peak. If you didn’t have the Overland Yukon vehicle you would probably have to hike like fourteen kilometers extra on a really steep road, but having the vehicle, we were able to go straight up and save ourselves all of this extra walking time. Times like that you really appreciate having the vehicle.”
Q: What’s a photography moment that stands out to you from that trip?
“The border crossing to get into the Yukon from the U.S. is White Pass - it’s the quietest border crossing I’ve ever seen. It’s just there in the middle of a mountain meadow with lakes all around. Eventually you’ll reach the Kluane region at the end of the Golden Circle, which has Canada’s highest mountains, including Mount Logan which stands at almost 6000 m. We took a flight through Kluane Park, which is home to the world’s largest ice field outside the North and South Pole. We’re flying over the ice cap, and just the scale of that place is just insane.”
“Once you cross into this little valley, you turn and it opens up to this gigantic field of ice as far as you can see with mountain peaks just sticking out of the ice. That place is insane. The scale of it is incomprehensible and probably the best flight you could ever take as a photographer.”
Q: How do you better showcase the scale of a big landscape on your mobile phone?
“To better show the scale of nature landscapes in the background, it always helps to include a subject in the photo. When you're shooting from an airplane, it's harder to do this, but if you're standing before a mountain, for example, have someone stand in front of it for the picture or place an object in the foreground.”
“This will emphasize the size of the mountain, but you don't want to place your subject right in front of the camera, because that will make the mountain look smaller. The goal is to have some distance in between you and the subject. The further you go from it, the smaller your subject becomes. Because the mountain is so big, it won’t be affected and this will help showcase the scale of the landscape.”
“Compression is another photography technique you can use. Zooming in on your mobile phone, you have that 1x zoom, 2x zoom feature. Try the 2x zoom while going further away, and you’ll see the difference that if you switch between the two settings, the 2x zoom will actually pull the mountains in closer, so then you can put your subject a little bit further and the mountains will look even bigger if you zoom in. It makes that distance between the subject and the mountains feel smaller.”
Q: What is your advice for new photographers taking wildlife photos on their mobile phones of animals?
“Keep safe, keep your distance from the animals, be respectful. There’s a few things you can do, but your iPhone will usually have a mode that recognizes whatever you’re shooting and try to implement the best settings for it. Use your zoom lens, stay at a safe distance, and don’t be lazy. I think that a lot of people when they’re taking photos, they’re very lazy. They take the photo from one angle head on. Instead, try to get low to the same height as the animal’s face, try different angles, put some leaves in the foreground - get creative. If you’re shooting smaller animals, it’s always good to go low and get to their level. The same goes for capturing pictures of your children. You’ll want to be head on as it will make for a much nicer and cleaner looking photo.”
The Creative Process
Q: How do you gain inspiration for new shots on your travels?
“The goal is obviously to showcase the beauty of the area in your pictures. You’ll obviously want to show a few things when visiting a place like the Yukon - you’ll want to show that it’s rugged, you want to show the scale of it, and you want to capture the memories from your travels. It isn’t a trip where you just hop off a bus, see a familiar sight, get back on the bus and keep moving. You want to tell more of a story through the pictures you take.”
Framing Your Shots
“A good way to start capturing your trips well, is focusing on your wide frame, your tight frame, and your medium frame. This is frequently used in journalism, and helps tell a better story of the moments you’re capturing.”
Tight Framing
“A tight framing shot will put a frame very close around your subject. This kind of frame is completely tied into something, something like a portrait of an animal or a close-up of someone in the Overland Yukon vehicle’s driver seat.”
Wide Framing
“A wide framing shot will instead move away the edges of the photo from the subject. Your wide frame shots capture the entire landscape and is the standard frame that most travelers go to when taking landscape or wilderness pictures. An example of this would be something like your Overland Yukon vehicle driving down the Dempster Highway taken from a wide frame to showcase the scale of the surrounding area.”
Medium Framing
“Then, there is the medium framing. Where the tight framing shot focuses on just the face, the medium close-up includes the upper half of a person’s body. Your medium scene would be something like, someone stepping out of an Overland Yukon jeep, capturing them from their shoulders up with their face in awe as they look out at the mountains. It helps you focus more on facial expressions and things like that while still being able to capture other elements like landscape.”
Q: Why are all three frame techniques crucial for capturing strong photos of your travels?
“Wide landscape angles are great, but only capturing shots from this one frame - it doesn’t tell the full story. It’s not personal, it’s not true to your experience. When you include the landscape, then capture your friend’s reaction to the landscape, those silly moments, that’s when you have a story going. Even thinking back to flying over Kluane National Park - don’t just take a hundred pictures of the landscape from the same angle. Obviously you’ve got to get that photo, but turn around after and capture your friends' reactions in awe of the mountains, get them laughing, and have fun with it. Capture that moment because that’s what’s going to tell a story. These are the images that you’re going to sit back on and reminisce about years down the road, not just the singular wide landscape photo because that’s what everyone has - it's not distinctive to you and it doesn't tell the whole story.”