Do you share the location of your favorite spots?

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sh1209

sh1209

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My answer to this is a definite no. I have did this a few times in the past with close friends and before you know it, they have told a few of their friends and you end up with a crowd gathered at your favorite spots. One thing I’ve learned in my 50 years on this earth is most human beings cannot keep secrets lol. I found having lived in six states in my adult life that it typically takes about two years at a spot to really get familiar with the migration times and such to really get a grasp on things. I have spent a few hundred hours at spots and a lot of times even without a camera scoping out things to find the best areas. Having said that, I don’t think a lot of people understand how much work is involved in scoping an area out. I have a couple what I consider close friends here in Missouri that I would definitely take to a spot but that’s about where it ends. I’ve had folks in the past get mad at me on social media because I wouldn’t disclose an exact location where I shot a subject, but I don’t think they understand how much works going and into finding those spots. Just curious how others feel about disclosing their favorite local locations.
 
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sh1209 said:
Just curious how others feel about disclosing their favorite local locations.
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I don't mind telling the region or park or national forest I'm in and if I shoot at one of the well known iconic landscape hotspots I'll share that as it's pretty obvious from the photos anyway. If there's some special area I go to be alone and do some photography I don't really share those especially if I scouted it out on my own.

But as I posted in your other thread that touched on this topic:

Too much information!

I wanted to get other thoughts on what they feel about posting camera and lens info whenever posting pictures online. I post images to several different sites including Facebook, but never ever disclose what camera and lens I use. It automatically puts the information in on Flickr. I normally...
bcgforums.com bcgforums.com
 
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I'll never share the exact location online. That's a recipe for disaster (e.g.: we had flamingos in my part of the world for the first time, the location where they were got out, people went out there with drones and off-road trucks and so on and they ended up scaring them away).

Sharing with people I know and go out shooting with, it's more of a case by case situation, usually driven by two factors:
1) Do I know you well enough to know you won't make a mess of things?
2) Are you open to sharing information back?
 
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It kind of depends for me. I’m not a gps however I don’t mind paying it forward to those who have helped me. Also someone who is knew who is showing an interest I’ll help them out since I figure it will encourage them.

But I won’t post any specifics around a location anywhere public.

I’m a transplant to TX and this state is rather large! I find out about places all the time I’ve never been to or heard about by others paying it forward. However they tend to be people I know or they can tell I take this hobby rather serious. With that comes with a responsibility to not ruin the spot or do anything unethical.

I’m actually on my way to a spot I’ve never been to photograph Hooded Mergansers. I found out about this spot from a fellow serious hobbies in a private message. I haven’t been since I was told about it 3 weeks ago as to not rain on her parade.
 
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If any photog (including ones I dont like) asks me for info I will give them every last detail down to the time of day and the subjects habits.

I find that a lot of secrecy has more to do with photogs wanting to protect their shots rather than protect the spot from getting busy. A mediocre shot of a difficult to shoot subject is quickly forgotten when someone who knows what they are doing shows up. There is a lot to be learned when someone else shows you the potential you may have missed. Unfortunately many photogs cant handle that.
 
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Most of my photography is at known sites, parks, wildlife refuges, etc due to ease of access and mobility limitations. I do share the general location like the park or refuge name. The Wisconsin Birding page on Facebook has a policy against sharing specific info on raptor nests, owl sitings and other info on sensitive bird species. Listing Horicon Marsh as a siting location for a Whooping Crane still leaves you with 40,000+ acres to figure out where. Or, identifying a given county park still allows long paths to find the specific site.
I keep the information to a minimum, but the better locations are well known and established photo stops. When the flamingoes visited us, it was all over the local news, so location disclosure was just a fact. Same with other rare bird sitings like the Roseate Spoonbill, Ancient Murrelet, and Long-Tailed Duck which hit the local social media and there is no way to prevent disclosure.
 
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Birders (twitchers) are the worst - and some even admitted to me outright that all they care about it seeing it.
They don't care to disturb birds just to get a sighting.
They trample all over private property - mine - several times.
They disturb birds in their nest - seen that too often
The play calls from their apps - which disturbs some species into abandoning their young in the nest. Even the so-called well informed birders.
Anything to get the numbers up for their sightings.
I don't care if I shoot a pigeon or a Vogelkop Superb bird-of-paradise. While it would be nice to shoot that rare bird - it simply isn't important enough to me. If it's not a known location - do we really want other people to get the same shots we got?
Isn't it difficult enough already to get something different?
 
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Wes Peterson said:
If any photog (including ones I dont like) asks me for info I will give them every last detail down to the time of day and the subjects habits.

I find that a lot of secrecy has more to do with photogs wanting to protect their shots rather than protect the spot from getting busy. A mediocre shot of a difficult to shoot subject is quickly forgotten when someone who knows what they are doing shows up. There is a lot to be learned when someone else shows you the potential you may have missed. Unfortunately many photogs cant handle that.
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I can give you an example. In the spring I spend lots of time scouting out pileated woodpecker nests because I like filming the chicks as they emerge. Two years ago a lady approached me to ask what I was doing and I proceeded to show her the chicks and mother emerging from the tree. I asked politely if she’d keep it to herself and she said no problem. Two days later I hiked to the area and sure enough she was there with her sister and her sisters small children. As you know time is very limited to film these guys once they start emerging. I continued to set up and took some stills. Came back the next day, sure enough she was there again and I asked directly if she could be quiet so I could film them. That lasted about 30 seconds and lo and behold she starts talking again on her phone lol. This is the situation I try to avoid because it is very time consuming to find these spots. I would certainly take most members on here directly to the area but I have found out the hard way a few times that giving exact locations can leave you searching for new locations. As Winston Churchill said earlier in this posts I’ve had bird watchers purposely try to disturb me when photographing birds. I can’t for the like if me understand why someone would do that but to each their own.
 
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I guess the point to that last message was it’s typically not photographers that ruin the area. It is on lookers that flood the area trying to see what you are photographing or at least that’s been my experience. I also do the same in return with other photographers. If I go to a spot that is new to me and see someone set up I will drive as far as I can away from them before I set up, just out of consideration and kindness.
 
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Most of my spots are national parks or national recreation areas, so there is nothing secret about them. So yes I usually post location and often tag the park in my public Facebook post, which sometimes gets me a repost by them and additional followers (this happened recently when I visited Garden of the Gods). The one exception was a couple years ago there was a locally run nature park with a couple of acclimated bobcats (sadly now deceased) that several of us local photographers followed. We had an agreement amongst ourselves not to post the location of our bobcat photos, since the park is small and could be easily overrun (and disturb the cats' hunting). We posted the location when we had bird photos (most visitors are birders), but not bobcats.
 
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sh1209 said:
I can give you an example. In the spring I spend lots of time scouting out pileated woodpecker nests because I like filming the chicks as they emerge. Two years ago a lady approached me to ask what I was doing and I proceeded to show her the chicks and mother emerging from the tree. I asked politely if she’d keep it to herself and she said no problem. Two days later I hiked to the area and sure enough she was there with her sister and her sisters small children. As you know time is very limited to film these guys once they start emerging. I continued to set up and took some stills. Came back the next day, sure enough she was there again and I asked directly if she could be quiet so I could film them. That lasted about 30 seconds and lo and behold she starts talking again on her phone lol. This is the situation I try to avoid because it is very time consuming to find these spots. I would certainly take most members on here directly to the area but I have found out the hard way a few times that giving exact locations can leave you searching for new locations. As Winston Churchill said earlier in this posts I’ve had bird watchers purposely try to disturb me when photographing birds. I can’t for the like if me understand why someone would do that but to each their own.
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Was she a photog?
 
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MrFotoFool said:
Most of my spots are national parks or national recreation areas, so there is nothing secret about them. So yes I usually post location and often tag the park in my public Facebook post, which sometimes gets me a repost by them and additional followers (this happened recently when I visited Garden of the Gods). The one exception was a couple years ago there was a locally run nature park with a couple of acclimated bobcats (sadly now deceased) that several of us local photographers followed. We had an agreement amongst ourselves not to post the location of our bobcat photos, since the park is small and could be easily overrun (and disturb the cats' hunting). We posted the location when we had bird photos (most visitors are birders), but not bobcats.
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I would’ve done the same thing in your situation because if you would’ve made that publicly known, the area would’ve been flooded with people trying to see them.
 
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I think in general, most photographers are respectful of the fact of the work that goes into finding a good location and like I said, I will always try my best to go to another location if I see someone set up but it’s usually not the photographers you have to worry about or at least that’s been my experience. There are certainly some exceptions to that such as some local, lock and dams on the Mississippi river that people flock to to photograph eagles in the winter time. I mean you pretty much have to squeeze into an area at those places in order to photograph the birds.
 
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sh1209 said:
I mean you pretty much have to squeeze into an area at those places in order to photograph the birds.
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Sorry for the off-topic, but as an EU citizen, that's something I never understood about the USA. For a country that large, is the wildlife too spread out? Is it that hard to get to it? Are there too many wildlife photographers? How come you often see those throngs of photogs gathered at the same spot?

I mean, the past 4 days there has been a national holiday here and most people where off work. I went to a few of the more popular wildlife spots around my area and saw a grand total of 7 other photographers. And almost 4 million people live in or around my city....
 
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sh1209 said:
I can give you an example. In the spring I spend lots of time scouting out pileated woodpecker nests because I like filming the chicks as they emerge. Two years ago a lady approached me to ask what I was doing and I proceeded to show her the chicks and mother emerging from the tree. I asked politely if she’d keep it to herself and she said no problem. Two days later I hiked to the area and sure enough she was there with her sister and her sisters small children. As you know time is very limited to film these guys once they start emerging. I continued to set up and took some stills. Came back the next day, sure enough she was there again and I asked directly if she could be quiet so I could film them. That lasted about 30 seconds and lo and behold she starts talking again on her phone lol. This is the situation I try to avoid because it is very time consuming to find these spots. I would certainly take most members on here directly to the area but I have found out the hard way a few times that giving exact locations can leave you searching for new locations. As Winston Churchill said earlier in this posts I’ve had bird watchers purposely try to disturb me when photographing birds. I can’t for the like if me understand why someone would do that but to each their own.
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Most of my shooting is on state/national wildlife areas and parks where access is restricted to boardwalks and trails so it usually isn't something will have to yourself anyway. If I'm shooting something and someone comes up and asks what I'm photographing I always tell them and the same is true for anyone else when asked (either photographer or birder). I've never seen anyone refuse to say what they were actively photographing or viewing.

Locations online are a different story and vary depending on situation. Nesting sites are not shared for example, also locations of owls are not shared... really only because it attracts so many people that things become an issue. Other than that I'll tend to share general locations of things (part of the refuge for example) but don't get all that specific.

If I had a private spot that I liked to photograph that had something interesting I wouldn't share that. Mostly because if that was the case it would probably something that shouldn't be shared (nesting site, den etc) anyway.
 
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StefanSC said:
Sorry for the off-topic, but as an EU citizen, that's something I never understood about the USA. For a country that large, is the wildlife too spread out? Is it that hard to get to it? Are there too many wildlife photographers? How come you often see those throngs of photogs gathered at the same spot?

I mean, the past 4 days there has been a national holiday here and most people where off work. I went to a few of the more popular wildlife spots around my area and saw a grand total of 7 other photographers. And almost 4 minion people live in my city....
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Not in most locations but if you go to large national parks it can certainly be elbow to elbow but a lot are not us citizens in these locations. I am really referring to onlookers more so than photographers.
 
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Online, typically not. In person, typically yes.

Exceptions abound, both geographically and personally. First of all, if someone has shared their location with me, and it is not well known, I absolutely will not. And if it is a sensitive or restricted area I'm granted access to, I will not. If I know the person or they have favorable references, say from another photographer I know and respect, I may in some respects.

Either way, in today's internet world, there are very few secret places where really good photo opportunities exist. And for the most part, we're all utilizing them.
 
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My sharing is between rarely and never, closer to the latter. Years ago I was one of a group of 6-10 naturalist/photographers who traveled far and wide to photograph anything and everything, especially rarities, we shared information and locations with no problems, but now I'm one of only two of the group that are still alive and I never see or hear from the other fellow. I learned my lesson years ago when I took the local Audubon group to see a rare orchid, its flower wasn't fully open and when I went back a couple of days later there was a hole in the ground where the orchid had been. So I adopted a motto from my childhood -- "Never borrow, never loan and never share". Selfish? you bet!
 
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