In the world of landscape photography, nature’s beauty meets your artistic vision. And like any genre, mastering the art of landscape photography is a journey that never ends. In this video, Nigel Danson shares seven super-helpful tips that will help you transform your landscape photography. And as always, he also shows some great examples to illustrate each one of them.
Spacing is important: proper spacing in your composition is crucial. Nigel highlights and shows examples of spacing between elements, like trees or rocks, which can significantly enhance the appeal of your image. In the video, you’ll see a great example of well-spaced trees vs. a poorly-spaced rock at the edge of an image.
Lead the viewer’s eye: You can use different elements to guide the viewer’s eye through your image. To achieve this, you can rely on leading lines, diagonals, foreground elements, contrast, repetition, or curved lines. It all depends on the scene you’re shooting and where your main subject is.
You don’t need wide-angle lenses to include foregrounds: experiment with different focal lengths to capture foreground elements effectively. And don’t be fooled, you don’t need a super-wide lens for this. You can go with longer focal lengths (e.g., 35mm, 40mm, even 50mm) to emphasize foreground and background relationships.
Matching shapes in images: look for shapes within your composition that can create harmony and balance in your image. This is one of those things that will make your viewers look at the photo a bit longer. Nigel gives examples of matching shapes in his images, all with the goal of creating visually pleasing compositions.
Balance is really important: balancing your composition is another key point to making it visually pleasing. Consider visual weight: make sure elements don’t dominate one side. To understand this point better, yup, you guessed it: check out Nigel’s video and see how visual weight affects the composition.
Light changes: keep in mind that the light changes throughout the day. It’s not only due to the sun’s position in the sky, but also because of the weather, which affects the light’s intensity and diffusion. Pay attention to how light changes based on your location and the direction you’re shooting.
Simplicity always wins: landscape photographers might be tempted to overcomplicate the composition. I still do it to this day, especially when looking at a truly breathtaking scene. I want to include everything. However, try not to get overwhelmed. Remember that simplicity often leads to more powerful and visually appealing images. So, remove unnecessary elements and focus on the essentials.
These seven tips from Nigel Danson serve as a roadmap for raising your landscape photography to a higher level. So, keep them in mind for your next photo session – and I’m sure your photos will be even better than before.
[The 7 PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS that TRANSFORMED my photos | Nigel Danson]
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