Improve your Landscapes

My first love in photography was and probably still is Landscapes, it is such a pure form of photography and I love stillness and quiet of the moment and the challenge of trying to capture a replicate of what you see before you ! Of course these days I get less and less time to get out early morning and capture the stunning scenes that lay all around us here in beautiful Sydney. Something I aim to remedy very soon as it is a fundamental part of who I am as a photographer.


Anyhoo, thought I would jot down a few of the lessons I have learned over the years and share them with you as more and more people are falling in love with this genre.


1. Shoot during the "Golden Hours"
These are small windows of opportunity at the start and the end of the day when the sun is so low in the sky its presents us with a golden hue to work with. Also the angle of light is so low that it creates lots of interesting shapes, shadows and silhouettes.

Early "Golden Light" and the silhouette effect

2. Use of lead in Lines
One of the questions a photographer asks him or herself when setting up a shot is how am I going to lead the eye of the viewer into the photograph - having interesting foregrounds is one , but another is to make use of naturally occuring ( or manmade) lead in line to lead the viewer into and around the image.

Lead in Lines bring the viewer "into" the image

3. Foreground Interest

As mentioned above one of the other ways of creating interest and leading an eye into an image is to create some foreground interest, this doesn't need to be anything out of the ordinary ( that might be a little jarring to the eye anyway) but just something to bring the eye into the shot and then lead it on to the main area of interest - a sort of visual stepping stone if you will !

The grass verge creates a foreground interest and leads the eye into the frame

4.Consider the Sky

In a lot of Landscapes - as the name indictaes the land seems to be the main subject but sometimes, espescially if you shoot at either end of the day, the sky lights up in some unbelievable colours and you just let this take its righful place as the main event in your photograph. you can either do this by spacially commititng a greater proportion fo the image to the sky or by composing it in such a way that the sky becomes the star !

The Sky is given prominence and enhances the overall image

5.Work with the weather

One of the biggest mistakes I used to make was to open the curtains if it wasnt a great morning then just roll over in bed - I have since learned that I missed so many great opportunites to capture some dramatic skies and amazing scenes. Just because the weather isn't "perfect" doesnt mean that great shots can't be had - quite the opposite sometimes - ( is there anything more boring from a photographic point of view than a clear blue sky !) - give me clouds and a bit of drama any day ! 

Cloudy Skies add the drama of an impending storm 

These are but a few of the lessons I have learned over the years, there are many more and even more opinions on which are the most valuable.  If you take just some of the advice out there and apply it to your photography then Im sure you will see a monumental shift in the quality of your images - but the important thing is to just get out there and enjoy it  - I intend to a lot more ! Happy Shooting !