Learning A New Skill: Landscape Photography and Finding Your Composition

Landscape photography is the first type of photography that really drew my interest. Like most new photographers I made a lot of the most common mistakes new photographers make. I spent quite a few years not really understanding why I couldn't take the awe that I felt looking at the world in front of me and capture that with my camera. Every now and then I would get a photo I could be really proud of, but I couldn't tell you why that one was better than all the others. The problem was I didn't know the basics of good composition for landscape photos! In this post, I will discuss the basics of composition for landscape photography and what I have learned that has helped me improve my photos.

Early on, the biggest obstacle I faced was not knowing how to set up a good composition. For those who haven't heard of this before, the composition of the photograph is the objects you choose to include in your photo as well as the lighting and angle. Deciding what to include and what to leave out is often one of the biggest challenges new landscape photographers will face. Picking the right composition is equal parts technical process and tapping into your feelings to get something that will speak to others. The technical side is actually the easy part. This involves things like getting your camera settings correct, picking a subject, using the rule of thirds, and looking for things like leading lines to guide the viewer's eyes to the subject. While this can sound like a lot to consider every time you take a photo, practice will help this to become second nature. Additionally, you can work on as little as one of these technical aspects at a time. If you focus on one thing at a time you can avoid feeling overwhelmed and hone each skill by itself.

Above I mentioned the rule of thirds and leading lines. The rule of thirds is the idea that when you divide your picture into 9 rectangles, three wide and three tall, you get guides which you can use to place objects or your subject in your photo. Many cameras will allow you to superimpose a 3x3 grid on top of your photo, giving you a visual guide right on your screen. The theory is that objects look best when placed on these lines, and even better at intersections. Here is an example:

This picture is divided with the foreground in the bottom third and the mountains and sky in the top 2/3 of the picture.

Now, does every picture need to follow the rule of thirds? Of course not! There are many times a centered subject is the ideal, especially when symmetry is an important aspect of your photo, but the rule of thirds is also a great way to ensure the spacing around the edges of your photo are sufficient to ensure your subject doesn't feel crowded. For example:

The sides of the moon are approximately 1/3 in from the sides. The top and bottom of the moon further divide the top and bottom thirds roughly in half. These spacings ensure there is enough room at the edges of the photo to not make the moon feel crowded.

Practicing the rule of thirds and learning how and when to use it will improve your compositions. Here are some additional examples using the rule of thirds:

Notice how each of the flowers lies on or near a line. Though the moon, the main subject, is centered in the picture, the other picture elements follow the lines of the thirds.

The darkest portion of the cloud is contained within the middle third of the picture. The highest part of the cloud and the ground further divide the top and bottom thirds in half.

Next we need to discuss leading lines. Leading lines are objects in the photo that naturally lead the eye to the subject. Things like a river, a walkway or road, a fence or hedgerow, or even just a convenient line of rocks can provide a leading line for viewers to naturally follow to your subject. Finding leading lines can help make your composition more impactful. Leading lines aren't even especially obvious. That line of rocks could just be three rocks that if you follow one to the next they guide you gently to the mountain in the background. Lines don't need to be straight either. The road, path, or river can meander through your picture, leading this way and that until ending at the farmhouse, tree, or waterfall that you want to be the focus of your photo. If one or more of those leading lines starts at an intersection of thirds, even better! Here are some examples of leading lines:

The lines created by the road and the clouds lead the viewer's eye to the light source.

Each of the elements in this picture create lines that lead the eye to the water source and the base of the tree it is flowing out from.

Photography Practice: Go on a landscape photography outing and focus solely on picking your subject. Spend the entire time picking one subject after another, each time making sure you are focusing in on your subject enough that nothing is distracting from it. Choose a distant mountain, a nearby tree, and anything in between. Whenever possible, use other objects like trees, rocks, etc. to frame your subject, just don't let those things overwhelm the subject. Once you feel more comfortable with picking subjects, move on to the rule of thirds or leading lines. Then, on the next outing, focus on that next skill. Each time you add a technical skill to practice, the other skills you have already been working on will require less and less effort. Before you know it, you will be able to set up a composition with relative ease and be able to think more about the feeling you are trying to get across through your photography.

Now the last main portion of getting a great composition is getting the right feeling. This is more difficult because things like lighting and environmental factors which heavily influence the feel of a photo cannot be easily controlled. The light from a sunrise or sunset, or the moody feeling given by a rainy day is exactly what will give your photos feeling. On the shore of the ocean, a morning sunrise with smooth water and soft light will produce a feeling of calm, while an afternoon storm with crashing waves will leave the viewer with a sense of power and awe. Looming storm clouds can produce a sense of foreboding while a sunny sky is cheerful. These lighting and environmental conditions are vital for conveying the feeling you want, but as I said, they are not easily controlled, they can only be compensated for and planned around. Planning ahead is the key to ensure you don't miss out on the correct weather as well as allow you to be in the right place at the right time to get the light you want on your subject.

There are a huge number of apps and websites that can help you plan your photography outing. One of the most used that I know if is called PhotoPills. It is an app for your phone that can show you the time that the sun and moon rise and set as well as give you the direction they will be in when they rise and set. Additionally there are a host of tools for calculating exposure, depth of field, field of view, hyperfocal length and more. Lastly there is even a nighttime augmented reality view that can help you locate the Milky Way and other important astrological features. PhotoPills is a paid app but it is a one-time purchase and is well worth the low cost. To be clear, I am in no way affiliated with PhotoPills nor have I received anything to promote the app, I am just a very satisfied user and want this fantastic resource to continue to thrive. For weather, cloud cover, or aurora forecast, I just type what I want into my web browser and use free available websites. There are additional paid and free apps for these too, so use whatever you can find that works best for you.

Getting to the right place on the trail to get this sunset picture required knowing when sunset was going to happen, how long the trail was and timing things just right.

To get the right feeling for your picture, the important thing is to plan your outing and give yourself the highest chance possible to get the shot you want. Should you take every chance you can find to get out and take photos? Sure, so long as you aren't burning yourself out. Failing to get the shot because of bad weather or a boring sky again and again can be discouraging. For this reason, it can actually be more beneficial to go on a few well planned outings than go day after day trying to get a specific set of conditions but going away without the shot you wanted. Just keep in mind, every photographer has bum outings, so don't get discouraged if you don't get the shot you want. Just keep planning and keep trying and use the days that the lighting and weather don't cooperate to practice the technical skills, thus ensuring you never have a wasted day of photography.

As with any type of photography, you don't have to try and master every aspect of landscape photography at once. Taking it one skill at a time will allow you to see more progress with each outing and that progress will encourage you to keep going. Landscape photography is a rewarding way to share your love of the outdoors with others and express your view of the world.