Today i'm going to show you seven different looking landscapes
and an exercise you can do to get you thinking differently about your landscape photography
so i was going through my images recently and i noticed a trend
i also looked through a load of landscape photos online from some of the best photographers out
there and they all seem to follow a similar trend now this got me thinking if i was to
show all of you these things then you could go out with this short list which would in theory
give you ideas to get much more compelling photographs of whatever landscape you're in
also in just going through different photographs like this it has definitely got me thinking
differently and has really highlighted what i need to work on in my landscape photography so
first of all i'll explain each of the categories to you and then later on i'll go through some
photos so you know exactly what i'm talking about and the best thing is you can do this
anytime you can be on a bus on a train sitting in front of the tv you can be pretty much anywhere
now i had to start with a classic this is the foreground mid-ground and background
composition so the photographer layers up the image so it gives it more of a 3d feel
or some kind of depth to the photograph this can be something really close then part of a landscape
in the middle and then a landscape in the distance it can also be maybe a person on a rocky outcrop
with something behind them and then an interesting sky basically anything that
has a lot of layers in it it can even just be two layers just something that will show depth
this is another classic and you can use this to draw the viewer into your frame it can be a river
a road a path just anything that leads the eye to the main subject or to the focal point in the shot
sometimes there doesn't even have to be a focal point but the leading lines will almost be the
subject itself is where you go for more of a minimalist look you exclude everything else
from the shot and just have one thing in the frame or there could still be other things in
the frame but the main subject really needs to stand out and be really prominent in your frame
sometimes a landscape is just too big for a 4x3 or a 4x5 image and this is where panoramas come into
play these tend to be shots where if you had too much sky or too much foreground they just wouldn't
be as compelling so in getting a thinner longer image it really makes the landscape look huge
and grand now this one isn't a compositional technique but more of a look to a photograph
and in doing this you can sometimes draw those leading lines in maybe you blur a stream and then
the lines in the stream almost look like leading lines or you might blur some clouds in the sky
and again they kind of draw lines in the sky or on the other hand sometimes you might have a choppy
sea or some clouds that just don't look right with a short exposure and the best way to alter them in
your shot is to take a long exposure shot with an nd filter or if you were to wait for the light to
drop so you can blur them across your frame during dusk when there's a lot less ambient light about
again this is more to do with the color and the difference between the brightest and the
darkest parts of your shot but having moody contrasty landscapes is another way to make
certain parts of the image stand out and to draw the eye to those certain points
the last type of landscape photo includes reflections this can add to the symmetry
of the shot it can give a nice touch to the image or it can even make quite a well-known
landscape look very different also all you'd need in theory is a small puddle of still water
and if you get close enough to it you can really change how the landscape looks in your photograph
now it's time for the fun part take that list of layered leading lines single subject panorama
long exposure contrasty and reflections and call them out on a series of photos i'll just get my
computer and i'll show you what i mean and here's a cheat sheet press pause and take a screen grab
so you have a copy of this list so i've opened up google and what i'm going to type in here
is landscape photography so i've got all of these images up and all i'm going to do is call out one
of the names on that list for every single one of these images it actually trains your brain
into thinking a different way when it comes to landscapes and it doesn't have to come under
just one of these headings either a photograph can have many of these attributes so in this first one
leading lines dark and moody and contrasty shot second one leading lines reflections leading lines
leading lines around in this coastline reflections layered reflections and layered so you've got your
foreground mid-ground background i've layered it in this layered loads of layers in that one
reflections there layered again foreground mid-ground background and if we scroll down
a little bit again that one is kind of laid but it's almost leading lines in this valley as well
definite leading lines there layered leading lines around this point this is layered
leading lines reflections layered and so on and so forth so very quickly you can go through
a whole load of photographs and it's actually quite good fun in calling them out and spotting
things that really make those photos stand out and that's the point with this exercise you're kind of
training your brain into thinking about those seven things that do make landscapes stand out
now the one way you can use this to improve your photos is to go through your instagram page
or your personal collection of your photographs and see whether you have just one type
or if you've got lots of different types and if they don't fit into any of these types
that might be a sign that you need to work on your photographs to make them more compelling they can
still be good photos without falling into one of these categories but sometimes this will show
you what's missing from your photographs and then you can take out that knowledge
and the next time you're out in the field and the next time you're shooting a big nice landscape you
can really start to think about what you need to include in your photographs i have to be honest i
went through my instagram feed and i had lots of the foreground mid-ground and background images
but not much else in going through this exercise and going through my photographs
i know i need to work on getting more with leading lines more with reflections and more contrasty
moody kind of landscapes now there might be a few of you that are thinking that i'm trivializing
landscape photography by putting it into one of these seven categories but that's completely the
opposite to what i'm trying to do all i want to do is give you some practical tools so you can go out
and very quickly take better landscape images that you can be proud of this exercise of going through
your photos or random photos is an awesome way to get your brain and your eye trained in finding
compositions so after this video go through your landscape images and see what different types of
photos you have do you have lots of one type or do you have a good spread of these seven types let me
know in the comments below it'll be great to hear your thoughts it'll be great to hear about your
landscape photography now if you like this video and want to learn more click on this one next
or if you're a binge watcher like i am click down here and if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe for weekly tutorials in photography and videography i'll see you next time