Frames in Focus
Photography Tips & Tricks
A Column by Owen D.
Frames in Focus:
Photography Tips & Tricks
A Column by Owen Duncan
How to Take Landscapes
Anyone who’s ever taken any photos has probably taken a landscape photo at some point. Everyone has definitely at least seen photos of sprawling mountains, lucious forests, or shimmering lakes. It’s a very common style of photography, so how can you take landscape photos that stand out from all the rest?
Angles
One simple trick that can be applied to most styles of photography is changing the angle at which you’re taking the photo. People are pretty used to seeing things from eye level, because unless you’re sitting down that’s how you always see things. If you physically raise or lower the level from which you’re taking a photo by standing on a bench or crouching down you’ve already made the shot more interesting by providing a new perspective. This change of perspective can also be used to play with people’s perception; taking a shot from the bottom of trees looking up will make them look much taller than looking at them straight on. This is a useful trick for landscapes when you want to make something large and impressive like a mountain seem even bigger. Landscapes taken from an unexpected angle will be much more interesting photos.
Lower angle
Another lower angle
Higher angle
Different layers in a photo
Depth
Another way to create interest in photos is by creating depth and layers. Your first instinct with landscapes might be to take a picture of just the most interesting thing with nothing else in the frame, but by creating different layers you can guide a viewer’s eyes throughout the whole photo. Rather than just taking a photo of say, just a mountain, include the field or forest in front of it, some of the surroundings, and better yet something in the foreground. As someone looks at your photo they’ll be drawn from the foreground, through the midground, and eventually to the background of the photo, taking in details all along the way and spending more time with the image.
Depth of Field
An important technical consideration when taking landscapes is depth of field. Phones might have a landscape mode, or account for this on their own, and most cameras will have a landscape setting somewhere in the automatic modes, but if you’re using a camera on manual settings this is something you’ll have to set on your own. Depth of field is fairly simple to understand; it refers to how much of your photo is sharply in focus.
Shallow depth of field
A photo with a shallow depth of field will have a narrow range of the image in focus; photos with blurry, out-of-focus backgrounds have a shallow depth of field. This is good for making the subject of the photo stand out, which is desirable in portrait photography, wildlife or sport photography, product photography, macro photography, or any style where one object is the clear focus of the image.
In landscape photography a much deeper depth of field is typically used so that the entire image is clearly in focus, as there isn’t often one specific point that is the focus of the photo.
Deep depth of field
Depth of field is controlled by aperture, or how widely open the camera’s lens is. A wide aperture, which will have a low f-stop number, results in a narrow depth of field, and a narrow aperture, which will have a high f-stop number, results in a deep depth of field. Narrow apertures are used for landscape photography so that the whole image is in focus. Since a narrow aperture lets less light into the camera, landscapes usually require a slower shutter speed, which is why tripods are often used for landscapes. Mounting the camera on a stable tripod can reduce camera shake from the longer shutter speed.
Scale
Providing a reference point in an image can help to create a better sense of scale and size. If you want a cliff to look even higher, have someone stand (at a safe distance) near the edge; viewers will have a pretty good idea of how tall a person is so they’ll be able to better judge the height of the cliff than if it was just on its own. If you want to make a lake look bigger, put a small boat in the middle of it. In general, including something for comparison in a photo will help people looking at it better understand the size of objects in it, and if you carefully control what that reference is you can control how people perceive the size of everything else in the image.
Golden hour
Timing
Time of day is very important to landscape photography. The best natural lighting is golden hour, which is right after sunrise and right before sunset, and shooting during this time will give you stunning results. If you’re shooting in the middle of a sunny day you might run into difficulty with overexposure because of the long shutter speeds used. This is where a neutral density filter, which is kind of like sunglasses for a lens, can come in handy (or actual sunglasses if your lens is narrow enough). Combining nighttime low light photography with landscapes can lead to phenomenal results, but also combines the unique difficulties of both styles. If you’re taking nighttime landscapes you better get comfortable, because it will require long exposures.
Landscape photography is a beautiful style of photography, and can be done in countless creative ways. Hopefully these tips can help you find new ways to showcase some stunning scenery. A lot of these suggestions, as with most photography advice, can also be applied to any other style of photo, so keep them in mind for more than just landscapes. Happy photography!
A Note from Owen, Frames in Focus Columnist:
Complete beginner looking to try a new hobby, amateur photographer looking for some tips, or total pro in need of something new to experiment with? This is the column for you! Every issue will feature a new batch of tips and tricks, with something interesting for every skill level, as well as a submissions section for you to share your work.