Comparing My Adventures to Somebody Else’s Photoshoot

There was a moment I had a few years ago that completely reversed the way I looked at outdoor photography and my own adventures too.

I followed a photographer at the time who had a YouTube channel I watched regularly because I liked seeing how he worked. One day, he posted a behind-the-scenes video of a shoot he was doing for an outdoor brand, and because I found it interesting, I watched it. And what I saw that day, I could never unsee.

Image courtesy of NEOM.

Watching the Adventure Get Built

They were somewhere in Europe at one of those epic alpine locations, and everyone involved in the shoot met up at a lodge or mountain hut. The photographer was there. The talent was there. The brand people were there. And they all sat down and planned the adventure they were going to photograph the next morning.

The next morning they got up, went outside, started their climb, and stopped when the sun came up to start shooting.

As it turns out, I thought they were documenting a climb because everyone was wearing climbing gear and helmets, but I was clearly on a different page.

They pretended to hike. Pretended to climb. And walked back and forth through the same scene over and over again.

Everything was shot in a way that made it look like these people were out having this incredible adventure in the mountains, when in reality, they were within spitting distance of the lodge.

Once the sun was up and the lighting changed, the “adventure” was over.

Everyone went back down to the lodge for breakfast, and the photographer sat down at his computer and started editing. Eventually, those photographs became part of an outdoor advertising campaign with epic mountains, perfect light, beautiful people, and perfect gear. Not to mention carefully curated compositions, thanks in part to nothing actually happening in real time.

Everything looked exactly like what you imagine an outdoor adventure should look like, and I remember watching that video and getting this weird feeling in my stomach.

I Was Comparing My Life to an Advertisement

I suddenly realized that I had been comparing my own photography from real adventures to somebody else’s photoshoot. And those are two completely different things.

I think I understood intellectually that advertising photography was staged. Of course it is. Companies have products to sell, and photographers are hired to create beautiful images. 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a photoshoot, but I don’t think I had ever fully connected the dots between how those images were created and how much they influenced how I thought the outdoors was supposed to look. My backpacking trips didn’t look like that.

My trips had flat gray skies, bugs, sweat, smoke, bad campsites, harsh midday light, wet clothes, and clouds covering the mountain I had driven hours to see.

Sometimes I’d go on an entire trip and barely take a photograph I liked, and without realizing it, I had started using these professionally created images as a measuring stick.

The Difference Between a Photoshoot and an Adventure

A commercial shoot is controlled.

Someone selected the location, the clothes, the colors, the gear, and time of day. Then someone waited for the light, told a model where to stand to “get the shot,” and took hundreds or maybe thousands of photographs so they could select the handful that told the story they wanted.

When you actually go backpacking, you get whatever happens.

You get the weather you get. You get the campsite that’s available. You get whatever light exists when you happen to walk through a particular place.

You might reach the viewpoint at noon. You might wake up to fog. You might spend the entire trip walking through trees.

None of that means the trip was bad. It just means it was real.

I actually did take this picture, but don’t let it fool you. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time!

We’re Surrounded by the Perfect Version

I think this matters even more now because we’re exposed to so much outdoor imagery.

It isn’t just magazines anymore. It’s Instagram, YouTube, short films, brand campaigns, and advertisements. Every day we see this highly refined version of outdoor life and after seeing enough of it, you can start to think that’s what being outside is supposed to feel like.

But some of my favorite moments out there would make terrible advertisements.

It could just be me, but my morning coffee never makes me look like a hero. My lunch is never worthy of a photo, and when I get to camp, my tent is rarely in a spot that would land it on the cover of a magazine (though I do get lucky from time to time.

Nothing dramatic is ever happening. No one is topless on the side of a cliff. And no one is the hero.

I’m usually just existing in the moment, making camp, eating food, and if I’m with someone else, I’m probably having a private conversation, but those are the moments I remember most.

When Adventure Becomes Something to Perform

I think there’s a massive downside to letting the produced version of the outdoors become the standard we compare the real thing against because eventually you start experiencing your own adventures from the outside rather than the inside.

Instead of asking whether you’re enjoying it, you start asking whether it looks like an adventure. Is this worth taking a picture of? Posting about? Is the campsite good enough? Is the trip epic enough?

And now the thing that was supposed to pull us away from all of that comparing in the first place starts becoming yet another place where we compare ourselves to others. That’s the part that bothers me most.

The behind-the-scenes video broke something for me in a good way.

Once I saw how the sausage was made, I couldn’t really unsee it, and it gave me permission to stop expecting my adventures to look like advertisements. Some trips are beautiful. Sometimes you get the perfect sunset. Sometimes everything lines up, and it genuinely does look like a magazine photograph.

And when it does, that’s great. But most of the time, it doesn’t.

Most of the time it just looks like being outside. And I’ve come to appreciate that a lot more

Your Adventure Doesn’t Need to Look Like Anything

I’m not here to teach you a lesson, but if I were, it would be this: Be careful what images you let define what an adventure is supposed to look like.

Keep on enjoying outdoor photography, films, and all the skills that go into making the final product, but just keep in mind what you’re actually looking at. Your actual adventure will be messier; the weather and light won’t always cooperate, and you might not get a single shot worth hanging on your wall.

That doesn’t make your adventure less meaningful. It just means you were actually there. And with that in mind, it’s totally possible that the best moments of the entire trip might just happen while you’re sitting on a non-photogenic log eating chips out of a plastic bag.

All this time I had been comparing my real adventures to somebody else’s photoshoot and once I realized that, I stopped wondering why my time outside didn’t always look like the magazines.

It isn’t supposed to.

Those are photographs, marketing materials, and brand propadanda carefully curated in a petri dish that is nowhere near representing what actually happens out there.

What I bring home is a reflection of a real life.

Emory, By Land

If you have any questions for me or want to connect, leave a comment below or shoot me a note at emory@byland.co.