GETTING STARTED WITH LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY
Landscape photography should be pretty easy. Unlike street photography you don’t really need people skills; unlike wildlife you don’t need lightning quick reactions and the ability to hide in the bushes all day. Still, take a look at the finalists in this year’s Landscape Photographer of the Year and you’ll soon see that good landscape photography, as opposed to “doesn’t the beach look nice today?” photography, is an art form all its own.
So, with one eye on the fact that good landscape photography is more a lifelong calling than something you can crack in a single afternoon, here are a few tips that should see you headed in the right direction.
1. Understand the light
Several factors go into getting the right light in a good landscape photo, but the two biggest are understanding the weather forecast and making sure you get up when your alarm goes off. The best light comes in the few hours after sunrise and the hour or two before sunset. At these times, scenery will have interesting shadows cast over it, and the light from the sun will be soft and warm. Otherwise: head out on days with scattered clouds, as these can produce lovely, saturated light throughout the day.
OLYMPUS E-M1, 12-40mm f/2.8 at 40mm, 1/125th, f/22, ISO 400
The truly ambitious, of course, can head north in winter. Photo-friendly countries such as Iceland may only get a few hours’ light every day from November onwards, but the light in question will be perfect for photography – as long as the weather holds.
2. Understand the rules – and when to break them
Traditionally, you shoot with your back to the sun – this produces nice, even lighting on your subject and avoids your images having a huge over-exposed bright spot.
OLYMPUS E-M1, 12-40mm f/2.8 at 12mm, 1/50th, f/22, ISO 640
Here, though, with the sun poking through the trees, and the aperture set nice and tight to produce a visually-pleasing, pointy light source, we’ve produced an interesting shot with a foreground that still catches plenty of light.
3. Don’t ignore people
There are plenty of good arguments for landscape photos not including any people; for one thing, natural environments look a lot more pristine and untouched if it looks like you’re the only one there. Still, one of the interesting things about the natural world is how people interact with it, particularly in a nature-loving country such as the UK.
OLYMPUS E-M1, 12-40mm f/2.8 at 15mm, 1/200th, f/14, ISO 200
Here, for example, our summery subject picking her way across a coastal river gives a sense of personality to the place – lots of landscapes benefit from the addition of a carefully placed model to give them a sense of scale.
4. Be creative
Landscape photography isn’t just turning up and waving a camera in the general direction of some nice hills. This is especially true of places that are much-photographed – if you turn up at Yosemite National Park and aren’t prepared to think outside the box, you’ll struggle to make many truly original shots.
OLYMPUS E-M1, 12-40mm f/2.8 at 18mm, 1/6th, f/22, ISO 100
This shot, for example, is the result of an intentional jostle to the tripod once the long-ish exposure was under way – a good approach to getting interesting shots when the light isn’t quite doing what you’d like.
5. Compose, compose, compose
We’re not going to drill you on the rule of thirds here (look it up if you must), but careful composition, dogmatic or otherwise, is the hallmark of good landscape photographers. Place the elements of your image carefully, taking care of weird bits in the background, stray people, and where the light in your image is coming from.
OLYMPUS E-M1, 12-40mm f/2.8 at 21mm, 1/500th, f/7.1, ISO 200
Here, for instance, we’ve got a classic instance of leading lines, drawing the viewer’s eye towards the horizon.
6. Shoot, shoot, shoot
Pick places near you, far from you, early in the day, late in the day, at night – whenever. Go and shoot them until you’re bored of them, then try varying your shutter speed until you get more interesting results. Explore – improvement in landscape photography, as with most other branches, comes from practice. And, when you find a decent shot or two, let us see it – head to our Facebook page or tag us on Instagram so we can see how you’re getting on.