1. CREATE BALANCE

A fundamental principle of good landscape photography is creating balanced compositions. Follow the age-old rule of thirds and you won’t go far wrong

If you are aiming to create compositions that are both easy on the eye and hold the attention, you could do a lot worse than follow the age-old ‘rule of thirds’.

To use this rule, divide your camera’s viewfinder into a grid using two imaginary horizontal and vertical lines – some DSLRs have a viewfinder grid that does this for you. The lines and intersection points of the grid can then be used to aid the position of important features in the scene.

If your composition has a focal point, such as a barn in a field, a boat on a lake, a tree on a hilltop, you can place it on one of the four intersection points created by the grid.

With landscapes, the best intersection point to use is usually the top right one, because the eye tends to scan a scene from bottom left to top right. If you position the focal point off to the right and towards the top of the frame, the eye will take in most of the scene before reaching the focal point.

The lines of the grid can also be used to help you divide up the composition. You can place the horizon a third from the top so you’re emphasising the landscape, or a third from the bottom to focus on the sky. The two vertical lines serve a similar purpose. If there’s a tree in the foreground of the scene, place it on the right-hand vertical line so the eye scans across the image to it. You should never force your compositions to comply with this rule (or any other), but it does work, so give it a try.