Top tips for success

BE PERSISTENT

It’s very rare that you get a fantastic – or even a good – image of a location on your first visit. You’ll almost certainly have to visit multiple times, tweaking your composition and waiting for the right conditions.

BE EARLY

Arrive on location a good 30 minutes before you think you need to be there. You can then set up without rushing and be properly prepared for the light when it happens.

WORK ON THE EDGE

For the most dramatic pictures, go out in times of transition – when a weather front is coming in, as day transitions into night, when a storm is clearing and so on.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

The most powerful compositions are usually the simplest. Try not to overcomplicate things; exclude anything from the frame that does not directly contribute to what you are trying to achieve with the image.

EMBRACE BAD WEATHER

Landscape photographers can get fixated on shooting in golden light, but with the right techniques, you can create stunning images in any light. Try abstracts, long exposures and monochrome for starters.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Time is precious, so don’t waste it by going out unprepared. Use tools such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris to work out the best time of day and year to shoot your location and scout it for the best viewpoints.

TRY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Experiment with different camera heights to see how it affects your composition. Getting down low can add impact to foregrounds, but higher viewpoints can help separate the planes in an image. See which works best.

USE LIVE VIEW

When we view a scene with our eyes (or through a viewfinder) we see three dimensions – which may not be conveyed in our image. Looking at the Live View screen shows if depth will be shown in two dimensions.

ASPECT RATIOS

Don’t be constrained by your camera’s native aspect ratio. Learn to see beyond this and compose with a view to cropping the image to a square, or 2:1 or whatever ratio you think will suit the composition.

CREATE A JOURNEY

Arrange the elements in your composition so that they lead the viewer on a journey around the frame, taking in the key points. Try to find ways of directing attention into the scene and highlighting your subjects.