I learned a great lesson about photographing landscapes the hard way. Although totally disappointed at first, it was actually a blessing in disguise. It started off with me making a three week trip to the western US from my apartment in Queens, NY. With my camera bag fully loaded, I was ready to capture glorious mountain and seascapes.  After all, how could I miss with where I was headed. I spent three weeks shooting slide film and another anxious week waiting for the boxes to be mailed from Kodak. I’ll never forget the anticipation when opening the first one, eager to see the masterpieces I created. Box after box, my disappointment grew as none of the images made me say WOW. Given the locations I photographed, how come my photos didn’t have the “look” of the pictures that made me head there in the first place? The blessing in disguise stemmed from the fact that I was now motivated to find out what I did wrong. Here are three tips to apply to your photography so you don’t make the same errors I committed.

Simplify: 

Less is more. In looking back over some of my beginner slides, I tried to include way too much in the photos. Vast amounts of image real estate was wasted with way too much sky. If the sky is not interesting, minimize it or totally eliminate it from the composition. The same holds true for uninteresting foregrounds. 

Not every landscape has to be shot with a wide angle. Quite often the scene within the scene makes a better image than if the entire environment is included yet still speaks volumes depicting the location. 

Avoid clutter and rubble. Include a strong foreground element to help make a good landscape great but if the foreground is not clean or in peak condition, look for a different one. Walk around the area and look for flowers that are in peak bloom, a rock that mimics the background, a fresh mound of pristine snow, or whatever else complements the middle and background. Avoid ones that contain debris as this will prove to be a distraction.

©Russel Burden

Backgrounds: What’s behind your subject is equally as important as the subject itself. A great subject offset against a distracting background will net an image with too many distractions. Find a great subject and move around until the background works well with it.

Create Depth: Include a foreground to give the image a three dimensional quality. With the use of a wide angle lens, the closer the foreground is to the front element, the greater you’ll exaggerate its size. Depth of field becomes more critical when a foreground object is included so be sure to stop the lens down to achieve focus throughout. If necessary, focus at the hyper-focal distance. Loosely translated, the focus point should be placed one third into the frame. Another way to create depth is to play shadows and highlights off each other. A brightly lit main subject offset against a dark background gives a three dimensional impression. Strong sidelight is a great source to convey this quality. At sunrise and sunset, this effect can be more easily applied. With midday sun directly overhead, shadows fall underneath the subject rather than to the side whereas early and late in the day, the sun is lower on the horizon which creates sidelight.

©Russel Burden

Panorama/Combine: Making panoramas has become so popular, some cameras offer a feature called Sweep Panning. This allows the photographer to hold his or her finger on the shutter while panning across the scene and the camera then stitches the pics into a pano. Many image processing programs offer stitching capability. It’s best to use manual metering, a fixed white balance, no filters, a cable release, and manual focus. The reason for this is variations among the frames can confuse the software which results in a panorama with panels that vary in exposure, tone, color or focus. Incorporating any of these tips into your repertoire will help you create better images, but don’t overlook combining all into the same image. For instance, make a panorama that has great depth, a simple composition, and no clutter in the fore or background. 

©Russel Burden

To learn more about this topic, join me on one of my Nature Photo Tours. Visit russburdenphotography.com and click on the NATURE TOURS button for more information. Also, email me to be placed on my Tip of the Week list and to receive announcements about upcoming tours specials or to pick up a copy of my book, Amphoto’s Complete Book of Photography. You can purchase a signed copy directly from me or visit your local book store or Amazon. Contact me at rburden@ecentral.com to order your signed copy.