by YWguide on Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:21 pm
Paul,
The technique I teach my clients is to trust your eyes. Get to an area that catches your eye, set up the tripod, step away from it, close your eyes, open them and see where your eyes go. That place is usually the most interesting aspect in the scene. Try to use that element to produce your image. Also note that grand landscapes have 3 aspects, background, foreground, and middle. Once you find your background element that catches your eye then you need to try to find a foreground element that adds to the scene. That element can be as simple as a rock or flower, but the lines used should help point through your scene to your background. The middle ground you have less control over, just try to make it less ugly.
You need to simply the world to get it to be interesting, by that I mean, zooming in, getting closer, and taking out the elements you can that your eyes aren't attracted to. This single aspect is in my opinon the hardest to learn when the shot is not smacking you in the face.
Another kind of landscape would be the more intimate scene, being from central PA, and living in Michigan for a bit, there were rarely grand scenics at hand, but the smaller scenes can really grab people. That can be things like old cars or tractors in a meadow, or the pattern of the trees through the forest. These take some work to really see easily.
Using the best light the area has can really improve images, sunset/rise, pre-dawn colors, can all make a bland scene come alive with something that people aren't used to seeing. Great landscape shots have colors or sky drama that you don't see in your everyday travels, thats what makes those images special and attractive.
Do what you can to have a element in the picture be the focus and try to isolate it if possible, much like in wildlife. Move around to make sure what blends and merges with it compliments.
The major aspect of landscape photography I see most people being challenged with is shooting in a way people see. Photographs are for people, and imitating the way people see the world through photography can really give a photograph gravity and a sense of place like you can walk right into that. If you think about it, people walking around generally see the ground about 3 ft in front of them, and look out toward the horizon all in one view. So trying to reproduce that will add to the scene. More basically, point your camera down.
Being a guide and instructor in Rocky Mountain National Park I see the worst problem everyday, people being tourists. Don't be a tourist, by that I mean, be patient with your landscapes, think about them, and before you click that shutter make sure you have checked all the edges of your frame to make sure there isn't something small but really distracting in the shot. This is why tripods are so important. Set up the shot, and again close your eyes but this time look in the viewfinder. See where your eye goes, does it go where you want people to look, or does it go to a distracting element. If so, take it out.
Other than that, take about 10,000 shots and re-evaluate.
