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How to find the best landscape composition in small steps


Landscape photography is easy. After all, scenery is everywhere. Choosing a good layout is often much more difficult. It can be helpful to take small steps, slowly building up the most compelling composition. Let me show you how I usually work for my landscapes.

There are a lot of composition rules and useful insights to create a compelling photo. But learning this from examples, books or YouTube videos doesn’t mean it will be easy in real life. The location you are in will look much different from what you saw.

For the best landscape photos, you need to enjoy where you are and let the landscape evolve with you. Do not start shooting the minute you have arrived. Keep the camera in your pocket or place it on a tripod and let it rest for a moment. Just look around and see every detail, no matter how small.

After seeing every detail in the landscape, the next step can be some sort of task. Explore all possible perspectives. This can be done with your eyes, or you can hold your camera and walk around, looking through the viewfinder. Try different focal lengths, vary the height and distance, and see if one or more of the details you’ve discovered fit into the composition.

Also, look at the relative position of the foreground elements relative to the background. How do these relate to each other and bring into play the possibilities your available focal length offers? I wrote an article about four methods of using your lens focal length. You may find it interesting with look at.

The before-after example below is an example of how combining focal length, depth of field, and distance to the subject can make a dramatic change in appearance.

You can’t always go back

Visiting a place multiple times is a good way to learn the possibilities it has to offer. This way you can learn from your previous mistakes just by looking at the results on your calculator. It can also be a way to get ideas for another composition. If you come up with another creative idea, just go back and try it.

Unfortunately, not every landscape can be toured from time to time. If you go on vacation to a remote location, that might be the only occasion you have. In that case, take your time and try everything. It not only allows you to enjoy the place more, but it also improves the photos you take.

Test shot many times

It can help if you take a test shot from every angle you’ve looked at. I often do this as an example of the photography lessons I teach. But I’ve also discovered how it can provide insight into how I view the landscape for myself. In a way, it is a step-by-step process that will lead to the best possible way to register the landscape. Sometimes the steps will improve the layout and path or even give a completely different perspective that I never thought of in the first place. Trying everything can also lead to less interesting compositions. Then you know you did it right the first time.

I’ve put together a few examples of my step-by-step approach that can provide some insight into finding a good composition or finding navigation in a landscape. These examples were taken while scouting. The funny thing is that when a daytime situation doesn’t look too appealing at first, a good composition turns the ordinary into a stunning photograph.

example 1

Example 2

Example 3

If you don’t have time

There are cases where there is no time to explore the many possibilities of the landscape you are in. Light can change very quickly at dawn or dusk. Or the light changes continuously due to moving clouds. In those cases, you need to be quick and act almost immediately. It requires a good understanding of camera settings and exposure settings, but you also have to be quick to figure out the best possible position.

Just remember practice makes perfect. This is why I also find the step-by-step process instructive for myself. The more I try this, the more second nature it becomes. The idea of ​​practicing this method is to make it automatic, so you can end up finding the most compelling composition possible just by looking at the landscape around you.

Of course, this is not the only method to find a good composition. If you were a landscape photographer, how would you work? Do you use a similar method or do you have another way to get the best possible shot at that location? Please share it in the comments section below.





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