Capturing epic landscape images involves thinking beyond the ordinary and being creative in your approach. Expanding your techniques is a surefire way to master landscape photography and improve your results.
The key aspects pros focus on when capturing awe-inspiring landscapes include composition, framing, lighting, and balance – making use of natural focal points, such as a lone tree, an interesting building, mountains, rivers or a wide-open sweeping landscape.
A pro landscape photographer's approach comes from experience in the field, where specific exposure, color and composition techniques help separate their images from the rest.
The methods highlighted here are tried and tested tools drawn from a pro's perspective: they can be applied to any location, so give them a try and elevate your images.
10 techniques for better landscapes
1. Use bold colors
There are many ways you can introduce bold colors into your images. Strong individual colours can be used to change the ambience of a photo.
For example, the orange glow of a sunset can add warmth to an image. Alternatively, capturing the blue hues that appear after the sun has set, during the blue hour, can change the mood of an image. Adding a cool cast makes your image look atmospheric and works particularly well for seascapes.
2. Capture the fog
Fog adds another dimension to your landscapes. It can elevate overcast scenes, provide an ethereal quality to woodlands or add drama to seascapes. How you expose for the scene depends on the overall effect you want to achieve.
Setting a fast shutter speed will help you freeze the fog, while a longer exposure time will enable you to create a dreamy scene with smoother fog.
It is also a good idea to review your histogram and overexpose if required, by dialling in positive exposure compensation to brighten a foggy scene, as the camera usually underexposes for fog.
3. Seek out 'fogbows'
'Fogbows' are one of the Holy Grails of landscape photography – and I have been fortunate to witness two. These amazing white rainbows are a rare, natural phenomenon formed by water droplets inside fog.
When the conditions are right, they can suddenly appear in the sky as the sunlight interacts with these water droplets, forming a wide arc.
To capture them, you need to be in the right place at the right time and have a clear view of the fog with the sun positioned behind you. Overexpose the image to capture the beauty of this wonder of nature.
4. Apply specific shutter speeds
Extending your shutter speed is a great way to slow water movement. Setting specific shutter speeds can work well for certain subjects.
I find using an intermediate shutter speed of one second works brilliantly to portray some motion and flow in the water, while retaining details in the surface of a stream and the ocean.
Experiment with shutter speeds to get the balance right – and use a tripod to stabilize your shots.
5. Shoot vivid skies
Capturing colorful skies makes for dramatic scenes by adding mood and drama. When the sky ignites, it is a wonderful element that can make your images stand out.
Harnessing these conditions helps to create magical landscapes, where wonderful light can elevate a scene. Compose the sky to cover a third of the scene or even position it over two-thirds of the image. When an intriguing sky presents itself, use it to provide a more expansive vista that frames your subject.
6. Capture long exposures
When it comes to long-exposure photography for landscapes,
you will want to capture a single image over an extended period.
In terms of timings, shooting long exposures of five seconds or more can elevate a scene, particularly when capturing moving clouds or the water’s motion. Waterfalls are a great subject to shoot, where long exposures help the roaring cascades come alive.
7. Use composition creatively
The way you arrange elements of a beautiful scene within a frame doesn’t have to be limited to the rule of thirds or leading lines. Harness your imagination and seek out new ways to compose compelling images.
You could use patterns, find interesting frames for your main subject, or play with depth and perspective by applying a wide aperture for blurred foregrounds, for example. Here, the horizon line was placed just below the centre of the image.
8. Color contrast
Understanding how different colors interact with each other is a great way to improve your landscape imagery. Whether you are looking to add contrasting colors in your images or complementary colors, they will enhance your composition.
Red and green, green and blue, or blue and yellow are reliably great color schemes that can look fantastic when they’re paired together, so be sure to look for these combinations and incorporate their varied hues into your shots.
Oranges and blues are also available during the golden hour and complement each other beautifully.
9. Crop your images
How you frame a landscape can make or break an image. Ultimately, landscape vistas usually lend themselves to be composed in landscape format – although, on occasion, cropping into a scene with a format like a square can generate a visually interesting narrative and surprise the viewer.
Alternatively, choosing a panoramic format like 16:9 – which can be achieved in-camera on most bodies – can work wonders to emphasize a wider format and show off the landscape at its best.
10. Balance and symmetry
Landscape images reflecting two equal sides in the frame can make an eye-catching image. A symmetrically composed image, such as mirror-like reflections of mountains in a lake or river, can evoke a sense of harmony.
An avenue of trees of similar proportions on either side is another great subject, particularly in the autumn. Alternatively, composing for two different subjects that hold the same weight, where the elements are balanced, such as a pair of trees, can be a great technique.
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