10 Ways to Improve Your Landscape Photography

Some important tips that will improve your landscape photography.

Generally I'm not a huge fan of lists. My wife loves them but I'm more of a "just in time" kinda guy. On the internet lists abound. Yet they are often obvious, superficial and difficult to put into practice.  I'm a little loathe to create a "list" blog post however I wanted to start this site by sharing some foundational material that will hopefully prove useful whilst leaving a deeper exploration of the topics to another time.

With a subject as big as "improving landscape photography", where do you start? Choosing 10 feels like a good way to make this managable both to write and to read. When thinking of the things that I have found most useful in my progression as a landscape photographer these are the things that kept coming to the top of my list. I hope they prove useful to you also.

1. Shoot at the right Time of Day.
2. Use a Tripod.
3. Use Filters.
4. Appropriate Focal Length.
5. Improved Focusing technique.
6. Thinking about Composition.
7. Including Water & Sky.
8. Doing your Research.
9. Post-processing your images.
10. Conveying Emotion & Reaction.

Some of the 10 you may already be doing which is great! I think by adopting and being mindful of these in the field we are certain to create better images.

Are these 10 things helpful to you? Is there something you think is missing? What would your 10 look like? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

10 Ways to Improve: Water & Sky

This post is one of ten appearing in the series 10 Ways To Improve Your Landscape Photography.

Whilst the landscape certainly changes over the relatively short shutter speeds we use in photography it appears very static. Two key elements that help bring an image to life are water and skies. Both of these add dynamism and are ever changing such that even with the same position no two images will be the same.

They provide an interesting counterpoint to the stasis apparently present in the landscape. They also provide strong compositional elements in their own right. Rivers often give us strong leading lines and curves to draw the eye through an image. The sky can provide us with dramatic cloud formations and the interesting light that they can bring.

Most of my images will involve water to some extent, quite often being the main subject. When combined with a longer exposure it can provide a sometimes mesmerising impression of the passage of time. I love to experiment with these long exposures to reveal the behaviour of the water and its patterns that just aren't apparent with shorter shutter speeds.

I consider a clear blue sky to be a boring sky to the point that I often won't shoot. While the blue can provide an interesting contrast as a background to a highly graphic foreground, it is when the sky is filled with cloud that has the most interest. At Golden Hour it can pick up some wonderful hues that make an image come to life. During the day it can make shooting worthwhile when otherwise the high contrast associated with bright sunlight would make conditions unfavourable.

I'm always looking at the sky for interesting clouds and hints of what the weather will do when I'm out shooting. Of course lots of cloud in the sky means I'm often dealing with bad weather so if I'm not already wet I'm probably about to be! My wife thinks I'm mad and can't understand why my idea of good weather is her idea of bad but it's often a neccesary evil.

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10 Ways to Improve: Research and Planning

This post is one of ten appearing in the series 10 Ways To Improve Your Landscape Photography. Whilst it's possible to leave our photography and its results to serendipity, to produce consistently good results (and avoid the increased frustration of putting the time in and not enjoying the results) it's important to do some research and planning.

That isn't to overstate it and turn it into a project management exercise, but a bit of preparation will go a long way. I've got up early and gone out for sunrise more than once where I hadn't done any prep and even with a glorious sunrise I've been ill prepared and so end up making random and hurried images to make sure I get something. I kick myself that I've gone to the effort of the early start without making sure I know the location, have a vision for my shots, direction of sun, times, etc to maximise my chances.

There are a number of tools I rely on when planning my shoots.

The Photographer's Ephemeris

This is a brilliant application that will give you sun and moon directions at any time of day, shown on a map. I use this to know where the sun is going to be and plan to be in a good position relative to it. There are a whole range of functions that are available, such as twilight times, using relative heights between your location and another to determine if the sun will be visible above a mountain and to find the next date that the sun will be in a certain position and elevation. It really is a good bit of kit, and available on iOS so I take it with me on my iPhone.

Good Quality Maps

I love good quality mapping! Not only do I find them interesting in their own right, they help me understand and predict the terrain. Ordnance Survey (OS)  maps here in the UK are available in 1:50k and 1:25k, with the 1:25k maps providing some great detail. I use these to plan routes in and out, look at the lay of the land and interesting formations within it. I use MemoryMap which provides electronic OS maps which again I carry on my iPhone.

Google Earth

I don't use this as much as I probably should, but it allows you to virtualise the landscape and get a feel for the lay of the land and what your view or obstacles may be. If you've not been to a location and need to familiarise yourself with it then this is a good backup if you can't go there in person ahead of time.

Weather Forecasts

I'm often shooting when the weather is "not brilliant". I'll keep an eye on the weather forecast to give me an idea of what I can expect in a few days' time. I use WeatherPro on my iPhone which has proven itself to be relatively reliable over the last year.

Tide Times

As I've mentioned I like to shoot near water. The coast can change radically between low tide and high tide. Depending on location I find that it can be quite "messy" at low tide with lots of boulders and seaweed to contend with so I generally favour high tide for shooting. I use an iPhone app called UKTides that provides me with tide times so I can plan to be in the right place at the right time with the right tide.

Flickr

Flickr has billions of images in its database. Whilst many/most aren't tagged and geocoded, it is still a gold mine for location inspiration and information. The aim here isn't to see a shot you like and head out to copy it, but to see what potential there is and build up a better picture of the place ahead of time. When I'm planning a trip somewhere new I like to see what's on Flickr to whet my appetite. This is similar to looking at postcards or photo books for inspiration.

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10 Ways to Improve: Composition

This post is one of ten appearing in the series 10 Ways To Improve Your Landscape Photography. Composition concerns the placement of objects within the frame, and indeed the frame relative to the scene itself. It's a massive subject area that I just can't do justice to here. It really is worth spending time to study it - reading books on theory, viewing others' images and practicing.

For now it's worth considering a few things that will benefit your images if you aren't already making considered compositional choices.

Rule of thirds

Most photographers will have heard of this. Whilst it's quite common at the moment to berate its limitations and lack of creativity, if you are generally unfamiliar with the language of composition it serves as a useful starting point (though it should serve as no more than a guideline rather than a "rule").

The concept is to split an image into 9, basically by drawing a noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) board on top of the image. The intention is then to place key elements on one of the crosses where the lines intersect. If it's an object that takes up the height or width of the image, such as a tree or the horizon, you would place it along one of the lines.

The principle is that by using the lines along the third you create more tension and drama in the image than placing the subject in the middle of the image otherwise would to make it more engaging for the viewer.

Foreground interest

It's common for beginning photographers to see a scene that moves them and attempt to take it as they see it. The reality is that what our eyes see does not translate well into a photograph, and the sense of wonder at a large expansive landscape is often lost in the process of image creation leaving the viewer asking "so what?" The inclusion of an interesting foreground object such as a rock or a tree will help to create more depth and interest within the image.

Make sure that the object is prominent enough so that it doesn't look like a random inclusion. It's common to stand too far back and the effect of a wide angle lens can make the foreground object become small and look like clutter, so make sure to get close (within a foot to a yard or two depending on the object itself).

Simplicity

Our instinct is to include everything in the scene in front of us. However the result can lack focus and appear cluttered. To make a clearer, more cohesive image try to remove objects from the image that aren't important to your vision. There are various ways of doing that, perhaps using a longer focal length, changing position or a smaller aperture. The most important thing is to be intentional in what you include.

Avoid random tree branches, unwanted farm buildings, fence lines, telepgraph poles, ugly rocks, etc creeping into your frame if you can help it. Often we only see these at home when reviewing images so it's important to really consider what's in your frame whilst in the field.

Depth

The process of turning our 3D vision into a 2D image completely transforms a scene. Where we have a concept of depth and spatial separation, the camera only sees different tones. What can look to us as quite separate and distinct elements, the camera will turn them into indistinguishable clutter.

A common problem I face is I see a lovely lone tree that looks very stark to me, but in my photograph it merges into the grass and heather behind such that it is completely lost in a sea of similar tones. There are various ways to overcome this, and essentially it comes down to providing contrast - a tree against a blue sky won't get lost as the brown and the blue contrast with each other.

Leading lines and curves

We can use lines and curvers to give a path for our eyes follow on a journey through the image. Common leading lines would be a path, a fence or a river but there are so many that we just have to keep our eye out for them! We want them to direct the viewer to our subject or to lead us through the image. It's common to start a line running from a corner of the image running to or through the centre of the image.

Because the draw on the eye is so strong, we want to avoid lines that draw us out of the frame - a fence that runs in the opposite direction to our subject and off the side of the image is going to unbalance the image and lose the viewer's eye. It's important to either change position to better lead the eye, or remove it from the composition.

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10 Ways to Improve: Emotion & Reaction

This post is one of ten appearing in the series 10 Ways To Improve Your Landscape Photography. The majority of us are photographers because we want to share what we see and feel with others. The things that we see when we are in the field move us and make us want to capture some of that magic. At all times I think it's important to hang onto that thought and that feeling. To produce our best work we need to shoot what we love.

When shooting, be mindful of what it is that has moved you to take the shot. This will help guide the choices you make, in particular with composition. The magic of photography is taking that wonderful scene, or even just that intangible uplifting feeling of freedom that you sense, and translating it into a 2-dimensional image that people react to in hopefully a similar way.

Being mindful lets us draw on the experiences, learning and instinct to understand and work around the problems that occur in that "flattening" and time-stopping process. Shooting with little thought (or worse, "spray and pray") is unlikely to capture the emotion and the reaction you had to the scene. So be mindful.

Related to this I think is that often we're told something like "there's a great image right in front of you". Whilst a part of me understands this and that the world really is full of opportunity and wonder, we also need to realise that a great image is in many ways reflective of ourselves and how we feel. Yes, somebody else may be moved to make a great shot from the very place that you are standing, but if you don't experience a reaction you're not likely to.

That's not an excuse to be lazy; we should be exploring and trying things from different positions and perspectives and that's what that mantra is encouraging. But we shouldn't take it to heart and beat ourselves up if we're doing that and don't have an emotional reaction. Doing so makes it more like work than a creative expression of yourself.

Stay true to yourself, be mindful and constantly explore for the things that move you and you're on the right track to creating images that you and hopefully others will love.

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