CAPTURE BUSY SCENES

Find order amid the natural chaos of detail-rich landscape locations such as woodlands

Woodlands and forests are wonderful locations to explore in search of landscape images. They are highly atmospheric places, due largely to the micro-climates you’ll commonly find when surrounded by respiring trees. Mist, carpets of flowers and vibrant colour, especially in the autumn months, mean there’s always some reason to take out your camera.

With lots of detail comes the risk of overly ‘busy’ images, however.

One of the staples of a landscape image is a clear subject, which can be difficult to define amongst the tangle of branches, shrubs and colourful mosses and lichens, all of which compete for attention. A mistake you’ll often see in forest photography is a focal length that’s too wide, and which includes excess detail around the edges of the frame. The regimented trees will also feel static when shot straight-on; there’s no symmetry, yet no identifiably unique elements suggested as the main focus.

The goal should be to create a sense of false isolation. We need to find a detail that represents the colour and texture of the location, decide on this as the main actor on our stage, and then use camera elevation, focal length and background to exclude most other details. Think ‘within the frame’, concentrating on how each object within the viewfinder complements the others. If something doesn’t add colour contrast, juxtapose the main subject in texture, or act as a form of leading line, it should be removed, either by shifting the frame or zooming in.

If you can’t remove an element through re-composition, either because you don’t have an appropriate lens or because there’s simply not enough room in the scene to shift your framing, try making it a secondary element. Background leaves might have to be within the frame boundary for practical reasons, but you can change how they are represented through depth-of-field control. Not all landscapes require front-to-back sharpness; indeed, it’s become something of a trend on social media to limit focus in scenic shots.

The professional approach to busy landscape photography is: if you can’t move a detail, make an asset of it.

NATURAL FRAMES Woodlands are the home of natural lines and arcs. Use foliage or branches to isolate your subject in a field of diffused colour EASIER COLOUR CONTRAST In the absence of texture, we can bring areas of different colour together. This would not be possible if these areas were equally in focus LIGHT GRADIENT By reducing texture, we can use gradients of brightness to lead the viewer through the frame without the risk of distracting patterns DISCERNIBLE SHAPES Set an aperture that reveals enough of the shape of background objects to suggest the wider environment