Landscape photography tips

Landscape photography tips

One might think of a beautiful beach scene or of Ansel Adams’ Yosemite photos when thinking of landscape photography. Yet, landscape photography is not limited to only natural settings. Strip malls, train yards, and cityscapes are all possible subjects for landscape photography. Taking good landscape photos requires just a few extra pieces of equipment and lots of practice working with techniques that help make effective landscape photos.

Equipment. Some special equipment is helpful when photographing landscapes: a wide angle or wide-to-short telephoto lens, and a tripod.

Technique Tips:

• Subject selection. The first and most important consideration is your subject. What is it that you want to convey in the photograph? What is your subject? What is the mood?
• Off-center subject. Do not put your subject directly in the center of the photograph as this gives the eye nowhere to travel. A good landscape photograph invites the viewer to explore the landscape.
• Fill the frame. Avoid meaningless and empty foreground – move closer or use a telephoto lens.
• Lighting. Lighting conveys mood and tone in a photograph. Watch the landscape scene throughout the day to determine when the light is best.
• Time of day.  Many photographers use the slanted light of early morning or late afternoon for landscape photos. Angled light will help to create dimension in your photograph.
• Weather. Interesting weather conditions often make spectacular landscape photos. Lightning, fog, snow – the weather itself is the subject.
• Clouds and Sky. Work quickly with cloud shots as they change quickly. Underexpose cloud shots for slightly darker images. Include a horizon in sky photos.
• Sunsets. Try sunset shots over a body of water. Underexpose these shots and photograph rapidly as the sun dips quickly into the horizon. Try focusing on a subject in front of the sun and keeping the sun out of focus for different results.
• Snow. Sunlight is required to give definition to snow shots. Use shadows for drama.
• Forest. Avoid using wide-angle lens for forest photos. Move in closer and single out a few trees for the shot.
• Waterfalls. Move in close and capture the water moving. Try using a slower shutter speed to capture the sense of movement by blurring the water.
• Shorelines. Keep camera parallel to horizon to avoid sense of water flowing downhill. Move in close to capture waves and wave spray in mid-air.
• Try different lenses. A wide-angle lens is good for creating a sense of spaciousness or extreme depth-of-field. .
• Try different distances. Explore the perspective that different distance from the subject gives.
• Try different angles. Instead of shooting the scene head-on, move around and look at the difference that a different angle can make to the photo.
• Try adding scale. To give perspective to a distance shot, add a car, a person, or some identifiable object that a sense of perspective.
• Vertical or panoramic. These two views give very different renderings of the same scene.