If you think your landscape photography can use some improvement, we bring five tips to help you achieve stronger compositions.
The most effective landscape photographs are the ones with the strongest composition. There’s more to it than simply standing before a postcard-perfect scene and pressing the shutter button. If you’re getting into shooting landscapes and want to improve your composition, we have five useful tips you can study and try out for your next practice.
In his quick video tutorial below, Alex Schult of PhotographyTalk shares what he considers to be five surefire tips you can implement today to improve your landscape photography. The most compelling snaps will require time, lots of practice, and an eye for great composition, but you can get a head start with this handful of tips.
Use Leading Lines
Leading lines work great for many types of photography, but especially for landscape photography. Incorporating leading lines allows viewers’ eyes to move around the photo and ultimately end up at the focal point in your photo. This technique, as Alex mentioned above, also maximizes depth and improves the visual flow by bringing the eyes from the foreground, to the midground, and the background.
Strive for Visual Balance
As the term suggests, visual balance refers to a photo not appearing too “heavy” on one side. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a photo has to be symmetrical. You can also create the impression of visual balance in a creative way. To start with, you can play on the scale of your focal point against the vastness of the background or surroundings, as the examples demonstrate.
Give the Scene Some “Breathing Room”
Similar to making sure there’s enough space around your portrait subject so their heads aren’t cut off in your shots, your landscape scene should have “breathing room” around the subject and the supporting elements. However, it’s also important not to put too much space, as the so-called dead space will lose the interest of the viewer.
Look for Patterns
Because they’re naturally eye-catching, incorporating patterns into your landscape photos have the ability to make the shots extra interesting and give the viewers’ eyes a place to rest. In Alex’s examples, we see how the repeating patterns show a mix of light and dark areas, and create a sense of consistency throughout the frame.
Surround the Subject with Light
Similar to how leading lines draw the eyes to your subject, you can use the contrast of a subject against a bright area of your frame to command attention. Silhouettes often work great with this technique, as the examples above show.
Want more photography tips from Alex Schult? Head to the PhotographyTalk YoutTube channel for more helpful videos like this!
Cover image from the video