Capturing Better Landscape Photos with Iwan Groot

All images by Iwan Groot. Used with permission.

“‘I’ll shoot it later'” usually means you won’t get shot; on the way back you might be chasing something, running from weather, too tired, the light might be worse, who knows what will make you not get the shot, but procrastinating on a small trip will usually leave it uncaptured.” says photographer Iwan Groot about his landscape photography. Indeed, he’s always been about timing and ensuring that he can get the shot. It’s the most simple explanation for the incredible work in his portfolio.

Iwan had been shooting for many years and it started when he learned to paint. He’s also been interviewed on the site before.

Editor’s Note: Iwan, as a young photographer, is eagerly looking for work. His work can be licensed here and you can order prints from him here. But more than that, he’s also available for hire to shoot. He’s also working on creating photoshop actions, brushes and tutorials.

Phoblographer: When you go about scouting for locations and shooting landscapes, you’re obviously inspired by places and get some sort of creative vision in mind that you want to achieve in your final capture. So how do you think clearly between balancing the artistic side of your brain and the technical side of your brain when you’re creating these images?

Iwan: I have installed Magic Lantern onto my Canon 550D which allows me to use the camera software as a intervalometer, HDR bracketing and much more. This allows me to stress a little less about the technical side.

I shoot in “Full Manual” I dont like relying on aperture priority or shutter priority because I have certain settings I’ve come accustomed to and like as well as I like rather working with under exposed shots and then having lots of highlights to work with and bump the exposure and shadows in post. I like working with single exposures but if there are shadows way to dark or blown-out highlights I’ll bracket to create a nice HDR using luminosity masks.

A lot of people Like focusing on infinity. And shooting with that especially for night photos. Then for day shots people often like stopping down all the way to get all in focus, however to avoid defraction I like shooting between f5-f10 normally. However my lens only stops down to f16 so defraction isn’t too much of a problem.

Shooting with a crop factor allows for more to be in focus which is a great benefit and but if I won’t a lot in focus extremely sharp Ill focus stack. Otherwise I like focusing on the foreground element most.

Phoblographer: What are some of the biggest lessons you feel you’ve learned as a landscape photographer since you’ve begun shooting?

Iwan: Timing and patience are the key. Golden hour is quite long here in Norway as well as blue hour so I’m a bit more flexible than if I were shooting in the tropics but that tiny period of time between golden hour and blue hour which I call “Pink Minutes” literally lasts a few minutes usually less than 5. So if that is the mood I want for a shot timing is crucial.

I also go out and enjoy nature for nature pleasure sake, If I don’t take time to enjoy nature without the camera I find I don’t manage to enjoy the capturing of it enough to accurately the atmosphere. So I make sure to take in the scene before I pull out the camera.

I also love the experience so sometimes I come back from a trip and don’t even got any pictures I am proud of when I come back. And that is alright, not every image needs to have amazing results, Quality counts more than quantity.

“I’ll shoot it later” usually means you won’t get shot; on the way back you might be chasing something, running from weather, too tired, the light might be worse, who knows what will make you not get the shot, but procrastinating on a small trip will usually leave it uncaptured.

One thing that nature photography has gotten me more conscience about is the environment, how fragile it is when we treat it like crap as humanity. you can always find a little piece of trash, which if I have place in my bag Ill pick it up and put it in my bag. Every bit of plastic out there might kill an animal and so much of nature is suffering because of littering even on land or in cities. So I’ve been trying to do my part of picking up trash and bringing awareness to people and using public transport. Not to mention sometimes the trash is in my shot, and I want to get rid of it =D.

Shooting outdoors a lot has also helped me understand weather, patterns, things to be careful, and being prepared for shifts in weather.

Phoblographer: You have this unique sense of symmetry between positive space and negative space in your images. As you go about composing and shooting your photos, Where did you learn this? For example,it’s present in your mountain range images and your seascape images.

Iwan: I guess it is something I’ve picked up when I painted as a child and a teenager and made paintings I always made sure to have empty spaces. if there is too much detail everywhere You loose the viewer and the image becomes to stressful and gives no relief and rest for the viewer. That is why images with less is often more. Working with Wide angles the way that can be achieved is by being so wide angle that textures and details blend together and you get more shapes and forms in the distance. And working mainly with wider angle lenses this came somewhat naturally to me through practice as I noticed my own shots.

It is interesting to hear your perspective on my compositions because I never thought about it the way you put it. Symmetry is something that I’m drawn to but not in the conventional sense, perfect symmetry is somewhat off-putting for me as it looks a bit unreal as well as cliche. Whenever that is a perfectly mirror like lake there is someone to photograph it where I will like a little bit of ripples or something to make the image not redundant and not just a flipped copy.

If symmetry that you see in the shots are a version of balance. I always try to balance an image as far as strong elements, weight, lights and darks, temperature color etc. Especially in my panoramas, as sometimes there might be a part of the panorama that isn’t as strong and looses the view, I will put something there, (ie, myself)

A few things to look out for I learned from Creativelive which has given me some small tips like dont have triangles in the corners. Having strong elements in the foreground is just as important as the landscape behind. But most of what I’ve learned is from experience and practice and the background in art. Various tutorials, but that is more about editing than shooting

Phoblographer: What’s your shooting preference: cloudy skies, clear skies, or bad weather? Why?

Iwan: I generally don’t go out to shoot unless there is something cool in the skies, I wouldn’t go in the middle of the day to shoot landscapes if it is was bright and sunny with clear skies. The light is too harsh in that situation as well as the sky is too boring, of course there might be exceptions to my rules. So for shots in the day time and sunrises or sunsets I look for clouds, and sometimes I like for a specific cloud formation. For example if the horizon is clear for clouds and yet clouds above the horizon or in the sky above me there is likely going to be a couple minutes with hot pink colors.

Ill go out in bad weather if I’m not scared about safety but bad weather gives some pretty nice rewarding photos. An is very exciting, the dark ominous moods give great atmospheres, the high winds allow for a lot of movement without the need of ND filters to show the movement. ND filters I find more of a pain than of a use as the extra filter often collects dust or dirt and shows up on the photos. Most of my nature shots are from when I plan a camping trip under the stars and then the landscape shots are not completely clouded over. And lead to a lot of shots at blue hour and the light isn’t so harsh.

Phoblographer: What techniques do you feel you use the most when you shoot landscapes? Long exposures seem to be one of them.

Iwan: I usually try to find an exposure with the balance of sharpness and length of exposure. So I shoot in Full Manual and start with the aperture I want and then find a the length of an exposure I want. I don’t mind going up to iso 400 for landscapes if I want it to be a shorter exposure but generally just stick with ISO 100. If I can introduce movement in a shot I try to as long as it isn’t a plant I’m trying to photograph that I want sharp. If I really like a scene that I think would look better as a longer exposure I use an intervalometer to take a long series of exposures. That in post Processing I can blend with the program Star Stax and average out the shots to make a seemingless long exposure shot Which gives the same effect as ND filters and have a lot easier control of the actual exposure brightness and light. As well as not having to worry about extra dust and dirt on the ND filters. This also provides me with several unique images of the scene I might not have captured otherwise and would have missed the coolest moment.

Occasionally I like freezing a moment and that is where the Sigma Art is perfect for landscape shots and freezing the action. with f1.8 I can take really fast shots even in darker settings.

I create a lot of HDR using luminosity masks in Photoshop, As well I like to implement a human in the nature shot to help with scale and bring the viewer into the shot. Since I also like to to have depth to a shot I usually try to get as close I can to the foreground element as well as going as low as I can without obscuring elements I wish to include in the background.

Phoblographer: You also tend to do lots of panoramic images. How do you ensure that all the elements of the images perfectly line up and that something doesn’t get out of sync? It’s easy for waves or something to end up looking botched sometimes.

Iwan: I love making panoramas, I guess it is a sort of puzzle I like solving. the Most complicated is when I have to do HDR or milky way arches.

I haven’t had too much problems when working with waves, because a lot of the main waves that come in are pretty similar so I just have to wait for a similar wave. The Trickiest I find is high contrasts from lights to darks when there is a lot of wind that can change the position or forms of clouds. This is where a several long exposures help even things out.

There are very sophisticated programs that work well for panoramas for example like PTGui, and helps with accuracy. however I found I was spending about the same amount of time doing it manually in Photoshop and with experience accuracy comes especially when working with the milky way for night time shots. Another thing about Photoshop, It usually needs around 30 or 40 percent overlap to automatically align things, so when I am out shooting I try to achieve that much overlap so the editing will be easier.

The biggest problem with panoramas is even lighting. especially when working with shots around twilight where the quality or strength of light is changing fast. in these situations I find working with vertical shots is better than having two rows of horizontal shots.

I have one panorama that comes to mind that was especially difficult. well a vectorama called “Love for Texture” where I used 5 tiles to make a square image, close to 30 images to include HDR, focus stacking and stitching to make a really sharp vectorama of things really close and far.