a1 Photo Tips

One of my favorite subjects is landscapes. I guess it has to do with my interest in being outdoors, in nature. It makes me feel good. And since I like being there, it feels natural to make pictures also.

Now, the problem with landscape shots is they very often fail to communicate the qualities of the actual scene. In my experience, landscape pictures often turn out dull, flat, and disappointing. And why is this? Well, for starters: an image is two-dimensional while your experience was three-dimensional. It is tricky to translate your real experience into a flat picture surface. Tricky, yes - but there are also tricks for overcoming the problem. Here I will talk about some of the most obvious ones.

1. Simplify!

See the picture above? It is a neat example of how to add impact to an image by getting rid of all clutter. Clutter is the enemy of any picture, and especially landscape shots. The natural landscape is full of details. There are trees, shrubs, clumps of grass, dead leaves and so on… The problem is turning all these items into a simple and coherent composition. If the image is full of details while lacking an overall strong structure, the result is a boring mess. Actually, you are always striving to get as few and as strong elements as possible into an image.

2. Note the Foreground!

Another shortcoming of many landscape pictures is that they lack a foreground. If you make a panoramic shot of a serene landscape scene with, say dramatic mountains in the distance, then there is a need to include something in the foreground also. The reason is, again, that the finished picture is a flat object; and to get a sense of depth when looking at it we need to see an obvious contrast between what is “near” and what is “far away”. The beach picture here is a beautiful example of how you can add interest to a scene by including objects close to the camera when making a landscape shot. Note also how the rocks form a diagonal line which leads the eye into the scene; and how a very slow shutter speed was used to get the little waves lapping the rocks to show some motion blur - making the water come alive!

3. Bold the Sky!

In many cases you don’t need to include the sky at all in a picture, but in a landscape shot it is often an inevitable part of the scene. To take the picture of distant mountains as example - those mountains will of course be seen with the sky as backdrop. It is then very important to make this sky as interesting as possible. (Advanced users of image processing software solve this by simply putting in a nice sky afterwards; there is even special software that generates various sky types digitally!) A dramatic sky with bold and colorful cloud formations will add enormous interest to a landscape scene.

The photograph here shows a famous landscape scene made by Ansel Adams in 1942. Back in his day there was no easy way of putting in cloud formations in pictures - you had to be there when they showed up. (Since Ansel was then working for the Government, this picture is legally in the Public Domain.)

Also, to enhance a blue sky you can use a polarizing filter. This filter, if properly used, can make a clear sky show a deeper and more intense blue. Without a polarizing filter, the blue sky will often look washed-out. The reason is that the sky is so much brighter than the ground, and if you expose to get the ground right the sky will be over-exposed. A polarizing filter blocks out some of the light from the sky, thus solving this problem.

4. Depth of Field!

Typically, in a landscape image you want every part of the scene to be in focus. This means you need to set your digicam to get the largest possible depth of field. And how do you get that? Remember: small aperture equals great depth of field! A small aperture, that is, a small opening for the light to enter the camera, is then what you need to use in most landscape shots. You may want to set the camera to Aperture Priority, to get control over this feature.

This may mean that the shutter speed needs to be so slow that you can’t hand-hold the camera - you have to use a tripod. You may have things against tripods - heavy, clumsy and so on - but if you are serious about making great landscape shots I think you are likely to need one. Also see my photo tip number 2. “Note the Foreground”. If you follow that advice, you absolutely need to use those small apertures.

5. See the Light!

Do you see the light? What I mean is: Do you make very conscious observations of how the light shapes everything around us? For instance, things look very different if the light that illuminates them comes from behind us, as opposed to from the side, or if the light comes from behind the subject (”backlight”).

Usually, you like to avoid the first situation - light from behind you - when making landscape pictures. The reason is that then the shadows will fall away from where the camera is, making the features of the scene look flat. Your chances of getting a great-looking result are much better if the light comes in from either side. Shadows will then be clearly visible, bringing out the three-dimensional shapes of the landscape features.

Backlit scenes, as in the beach shot here, are trickier. The light is coming straight at you, so that objects show their dark side. The result tends to be silhouettes, like we see in this example. The effect can be very interesting IF we manage to SIMPLIFY (see point number 1. above) the composition - as is successfully done here. Otherwise, the result is again a boring mess.

You may get truly great pictures by experimenting with special light conditions like fog. Fog makes everything gradually disappear into a mysterious haze - as in the fine example shown here.

Photo Credits: Green field by helmet13; beach with rocks by Chris Gin; backlit beach by Ortiz Q.; misty slope by helmet13.