I Found Lord Of The Rings Filming Locations And Photographed What They Look Like In Real Life (27 Pics)

Because of my work as an engineer, I am able to live and work in various countries and travel from there during holidays. When I was living in Australia, the filming locations in New Zealand were relatively nearby. In 2016 I visited the Hobbiton Movie Set for the first time. By that time this set was rebuilt for the Hobbit trilogy. Seeing the site you know so well (from watching the films over and over) made a big impression on me and made me even more interested in the other locations. So much, that I returned to New Zealand a couple of times to visit several other filming locations.

In order to find the locations, I purchased the Location Guidebook by Ian Brodie. Though this certainly helps, some locations are missing in this guide. Among the various other sources I used to find additional filming locations, I find the YouTube video by Niki Topgaard one of the most informative. In cases where only a rough description of the filming location was available, I used Google Earth to find the exact location.

The films relied on digital colour-grading to change the ambience of the scenes. The prologue, for example, has a very antiquated look whereas Hobbiton had a warm and welcoming look. I have recreated the ambience in Photoshop by applying a gradient map with sampled colours of the original screenshot. The success of this process depends on how similar the lighting conditions were.

There is a nice colour grading tutorial by PiXimperfect on youtube if you're interested.

I am most proud of finding locations that are not that well-known. For example, I knew the backdrop of the location where Legolas shoots down an Oliphaunt was somewhere near Mount Cook. By studying the scene frame-by-frame and comparing this with my own photos, I found the exact location.

Currently, I am making plans to visit the Game of Thrones locations in Croatia and Iceland.