Some basic landscape photography tips:
If you are a beginner in Landscape Photography you need to follow some basic rules in order to produce sharp, vivid and striking photos.
- Get up early – The low-angle early morning or late afternoon light is usually the best for landscape photography. It creates warm colors and contrasting shadows. It is usually called the "golden hour". Midday sun casts hard light causing the photos to look flat and colors to be washed-out.
- Look around – try to find and interesting foreground object (a bush, a flower, a rock or a person) to establish a sense of scale.
- Simplify – do not try to include everything what you see into one photo. Eliminating some parts of the landscape around you and emphasizing only the most important features will usually produce more interesting results.
- Compose wisely – do not just divide your photo in half to place an interesting objects in the center. Try visually dividing the image into thirds with 2 vertical and 2 horizontal lines, and place the objects where the lines intersect.
- Use a tripod – it’s essential for sharp results, especially when shooting in low-light situations just before the sunrise or after the sunset.
- Use filters - in my opinion neutral density graduated filters are an absolute must for a landscape photographer. It will, for example, allow you to "hold back" bright sky at sunset or sunrise while preserving details in the much darker foreground. A circular polarizing filter is also nice to have.
- Bracket the exposure - especially when not sure of the correct exposure for shooting on film.
- Learn from the masters – this is what I am continually doing. Check my Library section for a selection of recommended books.
