5 Tips To Enhance Your Landscape Photography Skills

What makes the difference between a snapper and a landscape photographer? Here are some tips to bring out the best of your landscape photos.

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During the day the light is often too harsh and you lose details and texture in burned out highlights or too dark shadows. As a landscape photographer you should be up early for the morning light and stay outside till late for the evening sun. Easier in Winter of course. But there is nothing more magical then a sunny early summer morning, so if you want to capture a specific location, it might be worth to get up at 4 am and capture the light.
Photo copyright: Joana Kruse (www.joanaimages.com)

We all know those bright and colourful photos of landscapes during sunset, the foreground only a silhouette and the sky a bright and too colourful cacophony of pink, orange, yellow. This is a typical mistake a lot of photographers-to-be do, amazed by the colours of the sky. My advice: turn around! Cherish the soft evening or morning sun while it will illuminate your subject. And the sky will have enough colour to be interesting but won't look tacky.
Photo copyright: Joana Kruse (www.joanaimages.com)

Research the area you want to take photos of. It is actually one of the biggest part of landscape photography. Thanks to the internet this is these days easy enough. Do some image research to get an idea which point of view you'd like to take. And inform yourself about the sun. When is the best time to photograph your subject? When will it be illuminated by the sun and is not in the shade? There are several apps and websites to tell you the sun movement, the exact sun position for a certain time and the end of daylight, civil twilight and nautical twilight. And what is the best season to go there and take photos? In summer or spring it might look totally different than in autumn.
Photo copyright: Joana Kruse (www.joanaimages.com)

If you are going to take a photo of a very often photographed subject, try to think out of the box and look for unusual point of views and perspectives. Go down on your knees and take a very low angle shot with a super wide angle. The world will look all of a sudden differently. Or climb up a tree, a rock, go on the balcony of a house, to take the photo from a higher POV. Take something in the foreground. Either a stone, a fountain, a tree, some flowers - whatever you find on location. Don't focus only on the main subject but compose your photo with some elements. Use negative space to make your photo more impressive and don't fill the whole frame with the main subject.
Photo copyright: Joana Kruse (www.joanaimages.com)

Good photography is not done in minutes. That is snapping. Wait until the sun breaks through a cloud. Wait until the fog is lighten up and reveals just one interesting aspect of your subject. Wait until the sun set for the afterglow which is much nicer usually than the actual sunset. Wait until a deer comes in the foreground to make your shot of the lake in the forest more interesting. Wait until the bus full of tourists made their snaps and the view to the subject is undisturbed again. Have patience. Sometimes I am waiting several hours to get my photo. It might be worth it.
Photo copyright: Joana Kruse (www.joanaimages.com)