Help with landscapes

BrickHouse · Jan 31, 2014

I usually just take photos of my daughter but have been wanting to get into landscapes. I am, however, still limited by having an almost 2yr-old and I shoot when I can. We recently ventured up to Palomar mountain and I took a few pictures from the fire lookout. I am frustrated with how flat and boring my landscape shots are. What do I need to do to get my shots to something like the landscapes you see on 500px? Is it really all about light? I didn't have the option to stay any longer and this is the weak outcome:

DSC_0181-1 by Bolt x3, on Flickr

I played with it a bit in Lightroom and the best I could come up with is this:

DSC_0181-1-2 by Bolt x3, on Flickr

What could I do to bring more pop to this outside of shooting in the golden hour? Would a long exposure with an ND filter improve it? Help please!

JoeW · Feb 1, 2014

Okay, let me offer a few quick comments and others can chime in.

1. Welcome to the reality of trying to shoot and having a 2 y.o. It's tough. I suggest having a backpack for the kid (useful on hikes anyway) which may free your hands and make sure the young one doesn't get in to mischief. Build the kid in to some of the photos. You can crop her out for pure landscapes and speaking as a parent, you'll end up being glad you've got the photos of her in 10-20 years.

2. Put on a polarizing filter. It will get the sky to pop out, reduce glare (which shows up a lot of ways).

3. Do a little reading on composition. For instance, a general "no-no" is putting the horizon smack dab in the middle of the screen. Decide what you're going to emphasize...foreground (i.e.: land) or background (sky) and then go for it. As you read about other composition tips (perspective and distance, "S" curves, contrast, order and balance, triangles) you'll do a better job creating and composing photos that grab the viewer. Right now, I suspect you're going "wow, what a beautiful scene--let me CAPTURE it." And the human eye sees stuff differently from how the camera sees it (so we need to learn what those differences are and how to adjust the camera to more closely produce what it is our eye/mind sees).

4. Look at your camera settings. I bet you've got it set on AWB for white balance. Basically what that does is it averages color sliders (so it reduces strong colors and makes things much more bland). You may decide you want to play with WB or set up a special WB setting.

5. For golden hour shots, my advice would be to bring a tripod (or with a 2 y.o., a mini-tripod or bungee cord or bean bag or clamp), underexpose the shot and then shoot when you actually feel there isn't enough light. Looking at your photo, I wouldn't have guessed this was a golden hour shot, I'd have figured it was middle of the day and very overcast.

6. Last thought for sunrise and sunset shots: great advice I was given was...don't shoot a sunrise or sunset unless there is something else to the photo besides the colors in the sky. Nothing wrong with vibrant colors. But push yourself as a photographer. Look for a shot that would be remarkable even if it was taken at midday or on an overcast day with no sunrise/sunset. Silhouette of a tree? Layers of fog and mist that add perspective? Unique shadows? Contrast? Cloud patterns? Rays of sunbeams filtering through the clouds? Think of it as you're finding a good shot that just happens to also have a spectacular sunrise or sunset.

table1349 · Feb 1, 2014

Read these. All the information you will ever need to take stunning landscapes.

14 Essential Landscape Photography Tutorials
25 Landscape Photography Tutorials - Digital Photography School
Landscape Photography Tips -- National Geographic

BrickHouse · Feb 1, 2014

Thanks for the reply! This very much was midday, right around 1600, and that's where I was limited. I couldn't stick around another 2 hours like I wanted because the kiddo was done. Hoping to get up there again with a buddy later this spring. It was a pretty incredible spot. You stand on a lookout about 4000ft and it drops straight off the backside to the valley floor at less than 1000ft elevation. Then it slowly rolls for about 40miles to the coast. What I was thinking with this composition was that I would use the two jet trails over the sun reflection as my center, include some foreground to give a sense of the distance, and I put the horizon on the upper third to emphasize the ground (sky was boring). Not too many places where you can stand that high and see that far with nothing between you and the horizon but space. I think I'm not doing it justice. Will try to go back during the golden hour with a polarizing filter to see if I get more of the drama that I want from the shot. Thanks!