Landscape skills
With lockdown easing, it’s time to get out there and tame wild craggy worlds with our comprehensive guide
The landscape genre is a brilliant photographic avenue to explore, and whether you’re well versed or are yet to turn your hand to it, post-lockdown is the perfect time to get out there and expand your portfolio. The UK is full of scenic mountains, forests, gardens, and coasts that are never far away, and many other countries are spoilt for choice when it comes to stunning vistas too. All these locations make for strong photos, whether dappled in sunlight or drenched in a torrential downpour, so you can be sure to capture something exciting all year round. Composition is key to a great landscape, and there will usually be a main element you can place in your frame to make it the focal point you want the viewer to be drawn to. Classic examples include a tree, mountain peak, the sun setting over the horizon, or even a lighthouse towering out of the sea. However, it can be a juggling act to position this key point in relation to the other elements in your scene, such as the horizon, sky and lead-in lines. Even with minimalist landscapes you’ll have to contend with these compositional cues, though you’ll have fewer elements to position in the shot, so framing will be a little easier if you go down this route.
In this feature we’re going to delve deeper into how the placing of these elements can be changed or repositioned to make them work as strongly as possible, to achieve a visually arresting and engaging image. We’ll be looking at classic approaches to framing your landscapes – tried-and-tested methods such as the timeless rule of thirds or golden ratio – but we’ll also explain when it’s okay to break away from these rules, if they simply aren’t working with the scene in front of you. We’ll reveal how different lenses and focal lengths can have a dramatic effect on the overall look of your landscape, as a wide-angle or fisheye lens will deliver a very different look and style compared to, say, a telephoto lens. Let’s get started!