Zach Doehler Photography Tips for Creating Color Rich Landscapes
For those of us who don’t know who Zach Doehler is, tell us a little bit about yourself.
ZACH: I’m Zach, I’m a 21-year-old photographer from an island in British Columbia, Canada. I’ve been doing Photography for 5 years and Full Time for about 2 years now. I love the outdoors, I’m obsessed with editing and color!
Do you have any formal training? Did you go to school for photography or are you self-taught?
ZACH: Pretty much self-taught. I did the majority of my learning through YouTube and online resources. I also spent a lot of time developing my style through experimentation, messing around, and trying different techniques.
I originally went to college for plumbing because my Dad had a plumbing business and I was apprenticing with him. I was not a very good plumber! I didn’t like it. I remember my second level of photography when I was in University. That’s when my photography career started to really take off. I decided at that point to make the transition over and go from there!
Tell us, what kind of gear are you using, what are you shooting with right now, and what’s your favorite lens?
ZACH: I shoot with the Sony A7R II with Tamron 17-28mm F2.8. With that setup, I basically shoot about 90% of my images. I also have the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8, the Sony G 70-300 F4-5.6, and the DJI Mavic PRO 2. That’s my gear bag.
I use to have the Sony Zeiss 16-35mm F4 before, which is a really good lens! I shot a lot of my images with it for about a year and a half. I just love that the Tamron 17-28mm though! It’s probably my favorite lens since I use it the most. It’s a faster lens with an F2.8 aperture and it’s also lighter in weight too.
I would like to pick up more of an ultrawide. Sometimes 17mm just isn’t wide enough. I recently had the opportunity to shoot with the Lawao 10-18mm F4.5-5.6 wide-angle zoom lens. Lawao sent me a copy last year to do some testing with. It was pretty sweet to use! Just being able to shoot that wide at 10mm on a full-frame is wild! It was pretty impressive given how crazy-wide it is.
Was that Laowa lens an auto-focus lens or was it like an old school manual lens?
ZACH: Yes, It was a manual focus lens. Speaking of old school, from 2017-2019 I actually shot with just manual film lenses on my Sony A7R II. One of my most popular photos to date, that I haven’t been able to do better than, as far as popularity on Instagram, is an image called “Fire & Ice”. It’s this shot of a road going off into the sunset with snow-covered spruce trees lining the road. That image was captured with my Sony A7R II and a Pentax 28mm F3.5 film lens from probably 40 years ago. I mounted that on my Sony A7R II digital camera using a K & F concept adapter and shot a lot of my photos with that lens, including that image. It was such a good budget setup. I bought it from a friend for $40 bucks, an adapter for $20, and put it on the Sony that I bought used for $900 at the time. Old film lenses are a good way to go if you’re looking for a budget setup and with going for an old-school look.
Who are some of your photographic influences?
ZACH: I have a lot of different people that I looked up to with their photography, lots of different influences. I think when I was starting out, one of the main names that comes to mind is definitely Michael Shainblum. He’s just an incredible photographer, time-lapse photographer, videographer, cinematographer, he’s too good! Definitely one of my favorites, his work just always blows me away and continues to. Another one would definitely be Benjamin Everett. His work blends photography with editing and creates these really unique images and landscapes. His work is phenomenal and has a very masterful look to his work, definitely a big inspiration for me. Another one is Jackson Poleman. He’s the first photographer on Instagram I ever followed. He has this amazing style of blending landscapes with stars and sunsets and creates amazing images. I remember when I saw his photos when I was just getting into photography back in 2016, I thought, “Wow, it’s crazy to think this kind of stuff is possible with photography!” and the list goes on.
You have a unique color-rich style. How did you develop your photographic style?
ZACH: 2017, when I started to take photography seriously, so many of the big photographers and artists talked about finding your style and having a unique look to your images, something that’s consistent throughout your feed, so that it attracts people to hit that “Follow” button when they look at your feed for the first time.
In 2017 a lot of landscape and nature photographers I saw had the same type of editing style. At the time it was really popular to have a desaturated faded look to your images. It looked great with a lot of photos, but I could look at photos from one photographer and look at photos from another and I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, they all looked the same.
I remember thinking that I didn’t want to copy what was popular. I wanted to find and create something that was unique. It took experimenting and determining what I wanted to focus on. I drew a lot of inspiration from other artists that I looked up to; looking at their images, what it was about those images that appealed to me and try to draw out those specific elements and implement them into my style. It’s was quite a process! I couldn’t suddenly look at someone’s image and transform my photography. So when it came to my own style I know I wanted one specific thing to focus on. Since so many photos I saw were very desaturated, I figured I’ll go for a more saturated look. I’ll just focus on color. Obviously, I was going to experiment and try different things but I’ll try to keep color my main theme that ties all my images together. It’s was a process that took many months, even years to develop. That’s how it all came together.
What special projects have you been working on?
ZACH: I’ve been selling courses and presets for the past three years now. The first course I ever introduced was a pre-recorded course on Mastering Lightroom and Photoshop. People loved it and I got a lot of great reviews, but it was missing interaction and the personal connection with me. With my most recent course, Colorspace Masterclass, I focused on creating colorful landscapes through editing. I spent a lot of time working with a marketing team to perfect the course offering and execute my biggest launch to date. Which we only opened up for a week’s time. The cool thing with the new course; we created an entire website dedicated to the coarse content, added a bunch of RAW files and extra bonuses, a Facebook group chat, live calls on a weekly/bi-weekly basis, more of that personal interaction with my students that I didn’t have before. It’s been a lot of fun and really awesome for everyone.
Did you ever think at the age of 21 that you’d be educating people in the art of photography?
ZACH: Probably not, When I was 17 it was simply a dream of mine just to make a living on photography alone. I never thought that I’d one day be an educator. Especially since I hadn’t seen anyone else doing what I’m doing now at that time.
In closing, what’s some advice you can give to help people improve their photography?
ZACH: The number one piece of advice I can offer is to simply create what you want to create. I think editing is a fantastic tool to help you be unique and creative. Sometimes with photography, there’s this stereotype or stigma that comes with editing your photo. That somehow it’s not allowed with photography. I believe editing can enhance your photography. Don’t let other people affect your art. Focus on yourself and create what you want to create.
