The ultra wide lens is the single most effective tool in the Landscape photographer’s kit to bring a huge swath of earth and sky into a single image. It is also one of the most difficult to use effectively, as it is not forgiving of poor composition skills, demanding more out of the photographer with every shot. Get it right and you’ll be rewarded with a dramatic sweeping view that pulls the viewer in from the near by blade of grass and throw them all the way to the tallest …
Landscapes 201 – Composition
There are two things that need to come together to achieve a striking Landscape photo. The first, and ultimately most important is the light. But coming in at a very close second is composition. You can have the most glorious light filling the scene in front of you, but without a strong composition it is simply just that – light. It won’t engage the viewer beyond the color, and no amount of editing will fix a bad composition that wasn’t thoroughly considered and thought about while in the field. Composition …
Landscapes 201 – The Magic Hours
“Noon” – a four letter word to a landscape photographer. There is nothing more important to the quality of our landscape images than the quality of light entering the front element of the lens and ultimately onto the sensor or film. There are two distinct times of day when the light of the world is at its best; sunrise and sunset. These two times are known as the Magic Hours and each is split into two halves. The Blue Hour and the Golden Hour. Blue Hour occurs in the period …
Landscapes 301 – Long Exposures
Photographs have the ability to not only show the world as it is, but also how we perceive it, and with the right tools, far beyond how the human eye can interpret it. In some ways the camera is inferior to the human eye (which in the wide natural world is far from being all that impressive), but in other ways the camera can be manipulated to capture views of the world that the human eye never could. Examples range from capturing the Milky Way in all of its detail, …
Landscapes 201 – Adjust and Adapt
You’ve planned your photography trip for weeks, maybe even months, you’ve picked the best time of year for the location, or the skies, or the tides, or whatever it is you want to capture at some far away location. Taking time away from most likely both work and family, you have a list of ‘must have’ photos in your mind of what you want to shoot when you get there for the trip to be a success. There is, however, one thing you can’t control, one variable that will, almost …
Landscapes 201 – Preparing for the Shoot
In Landscapes 101, I discussed 10 top tips to kick start your thinking on how to improve your landscape photography regardless if your subject is your local park or Arches National Park in Utah. In Landscapes 201 will break this down further by diving into much more detail on a number of these tips. This series is geared towards preparing for a major photography trip to a landscape photography destination, be it Olympic National Park, the beaches of Mexico, dark skies of West Texas, or deep in the Smokey Mountains. In …
Landscapes 101 – Beyond the pretty snapshot
Every photography site out there seems to have one, the “How to improve your Landscape Photography” article. Usually they have 5, or 10, or even 12 bullet points that cover the same general set of tips to taking better landscape photos. And this is mine. Why should you read it? Well, for starters, you’re already here, so you might as well. Additionally, I’m not so far removed from ‘before I knew these tips’ that I’ll assume you already know why they are important. I’m going to take the time to say …
Cleburne State Park – Spring Trip Review
On April 9th I departed on my spring photo tour which I discussed in a number of my earlier posts. During the following 9 days, I visited a half-dozen different State Parks and numerous other photographic locations through the state. To make the ensure that the review of the trip is as helpful to those who may read it, I’ll be covering them by location instead of by the timeline of the trip. I will however start with the first park I visited – Cleburne State Park. Overview My first …