Five Advanced Landscape Photography Tips

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Five Advanced Landscape
Photography Tips
By Spencer Cox 25 Comments
Published On June 25, 2018
Often, landscape photography tips are meant for people who are just
starting out and trying to get the hang of things. That’s great in many ways,
but it does carry a problem – it says to advanced photographers that there
is nothing new to discover. But landscape photography is incredibly
complex, and there are still techniques for everyone to learn. This article
goes through some of the most important ones with regards to creativity.
Just a quick note to start: Don’t be fooled by the seemingly simple nature of
some of these tips. This article doesn’t cover technical topics like
hyperfocal distance, ISO invariance, or exposing to the right. Instead, it
focuses more on the creative side of photography, since that is what has
the greatest power to improve your photos. So, even if you have heard
some of these tips before, the best thing you can do is internalize the
concepts that resonate most with you and use them to improve your photos
in the field.
1) Make Deliberate Time for Scouting
One of the most popular ways to find good landscape photography
locations is the tried-and-true art of scouting. No doubt you’ve heard of it
before. But the importance of scouting cannot be overstated – most
photographers don’t give it the credit it deserves.
Until recently, I was the same way – I didn’t scout for locations at all.

Instead, I just showed up at a location for sunset, usually after seeing some
good pictures of it online. My photos turned out well, and I didn’t feel like I
was missing out on anything. Even today, this is the process I use when I
don’t have much time at a location, or I’m going on a hike that doesn’t offer
me time for scouting. But if you make as much time as possible to scout for
locations, your photos are likely to have a more personal and deliberate feel.
So, what does scouting entail? In landscape photography, it’s all about
visiting a location and thinking ahead to your final photo before you even
pull out the camera. It’s how you form your game plan to make the most of a
scene. Sometimes, you might go so far as to capture the exact composition
you’re hoping to use later, giving yourself time to evaluate how successful it
really is.
But the big bonus is not just planning your composition; scouting also lets
you use “bad light” in the best possible way. At midday, the light might be
too harsh to take the landscape photos you want – but it’s the ideal time to
search for new locations.
The takeaway is simple: A hike at noon can be the best way to take good
photos at sunset.

NIKON D800E + 35mm f/1.8 @ 35mm, ISO 100, 1/80, f/8.0
This is my scouted photo, taken in early afternoon.

The final image, taken the next day at sunset.
Frankly, you don’t even need to bring along your camera while you’re
scouting. You can leave all your equipment in the car and just hike around
for a while, exploring locations and moving more quickly. Just make a
mental note (or a GPS point or phone photo) of the places that you want to
revisit.
Scouting has to be done in person. You can’t just scout for locations online
– that’s really just background research. It is very difficult to get an
accurate feel for a landscape until you visit it yourself.
My top recommendation for most advanced photographers is to take a hard
look at your landscape photography habits. How much time do you spend
on different tasks? Most likely, you’ll get better results by prioritizing as

much time for scouting as possible.
2) Convey Emotions
When people look at one of your photos, they always have an emotional
response.
Perhaps they visited a similar location, and photo reminds them of a good
memory. Maybe they’re impressed by the interesting composition and
overall beauty of your shot. Or, if they don’t like the photo, their emotional
response could be negative, or disinterested – but they’ll always have one.
You can use this to your advantage.
Next time you’re out taking landscape photos, try to pin down the emotions
of your scene. Are there beautiful flowers in the foreground? Is there an
ominous storm overhead? How does the landscape make you feel?
Whatever emotional response you have, try to convey it in your photo.
There are a few ways to do that. Step one is finding the right light for your
message. The best light harmonizes with a landscape. It brings out the
moods and emotions of your scene, creating a stronger overall picture. It
doesn’t conflict with the character of the landscape itself. (For example, a
saw-toothed, intense mountain landscape wouldn’t match well with gentle,
pastel light.)

NIKON D800E + 24mm f/1.4 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 8 seconds, f/16.0
Find light that suits your landscape’s character, like the high-contrast conditions here.
But you can’t just stop once you have good light. You also need to frame
your photo in a way that conveys the emotions you’re after, making sure
that every decision you make in the field is in service of your specific goal
for an image.

A large part of this has to do with using exclusion to your advantage. If you
want to emphasize the barrenness of a sand dune, compose around any
footprints in the foreground. If you want to show the simple beauty of a
forest scene, don’t include details that are chaotic and distracting. Even if
you want to showcase the ugliness of a scene, you should use this same
technique – eliminating anything that takes away from your message – to
capture the look you want.
In other words, you can convey emotions in a landscape by getting rid of
elements that distract from those emotions. This is a big deal. If you have a
clear emotional message, your viewers will have a clear emotional response
– but if your photo is veering off in too many directions, it will not look
cohesive.
To see what I mean, take a look at the two photos below. In this case, the
first image is a confused jumble. The second is much better, since it
excludes everything that takes away from the peaceful, gentle nature of the
forest:

This image is distracting, and it has no cohesive message. It’s too sloppy to succeed.

NIKON D7000 + 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17mm, ISO 100, 0.6 seconds, f/8.0
This photograph, on the other hand, works much better. I adjusted my composition, waited for the sunlight to
change slightly, and emphasized different elements in post-production. The result has a much clearer emotional
message.
3) Wait for Patterns
You’ve probably heard the saying that lightning doesn’t strike the same

place twice. Of course, that’s quite false. Lightning is most likely to strike
the same place twice. Otherwise, we’d have to throw out our lightning rods
after a storm, since they’d stop working. I’d be fine to swim in the local pool
next time it starts to thunder, since it’s already been struck before!
This isn’t only true of lightning. Anything that moves has a good chance of
repeating itself. The world is built on cycles and patterns. If a wave crashes
ashore, another one follows. If a cloud passes overhead, a second tends to
form behind it.
Maybe you didn’t capture a photo the first time, but you’ll almost always
have another opportunity. I’ve seen a lot of advanced landscape
photographers move along after missing a shot, not sticking around to see
if the same conditions happen again.
The key is patience. You won’t always know how long it will take before a
pattern repeats itself – maybe several minutes, and maybe several days. Are
you willing to wait a while for something that might not even occur, at least
for a long while? You’re the final judge, but, if there’s a chance you could
capture a once-in-a-lifetime photo, it could be worth the effort.
When I was at Jökulsárlón lagoon in Iceland a few years ago, I saw a bird fly
past a nearby iceberg. Since I was photographing landscapes, I didn’t have
my camera set to a fast shutter speed, so I missed the shot. Fifteen minutes
later, the same bird flew by again, and I realized it was going in circles. I set
the proper exposure, waited a short while, and captured the photo I wanted
when it passed by again.

The cyclical bird.
Almost everything in landscape photography happens in a cycle. Birds,
waves, the sun, clouds, rivers – even if some of these are not perfectly
predictable, they’re all remarkably consistent.
If you ever miss the shot of a lifetime, don’t give up hope. You might be able

to capture it again by waiting around for the pattern to repeat itself, or even
returning to the same spot at a later date.
4) Try Something New
At some point in our lives, almost everyone falls into a creative rut. Even as
an advanced photographer, this isn’t something you can avoid.
I love landscape photography, and I want to do it for the rest of my life, but
I’m the same way. If I’m exhausted after a long hike, the last thing I want to
do is wake up early the next day for sunrise photography. Or, sometimes, I’ll
drive past a beautiful landscape, but decide not to turn back because I’m
already running late for something else. If landscape photography becomes
a chore rather than a way to have fun, you just won’t feel inspired to take
good photos.
Maybe you’ve never experienced this, or perhaps you feel it all the time.
Either way, the same tip holds true:
Trying something new might be the most fun you’ll ever have.
It’s that simple. If you want to keep up your excitement for photography – or
enjoy it even more – put some effort into doing things you’ve never done
before.
That could mean you visit a particular location for the first time. Or, you
shoot a trip with a different set of lenses than you’d normally bring. Maybe
you simply take photos at a more unusual time of day. No matter what, you
won’t regret trying something new.
Before I went to Iceland on that same trip, I decided to build a custom drone
and bring it along for the ride. It was far beyond my skill level, and I didn’t

have a clue how difficult it would be. Leading up to the trip, I spent every
hour of free time for three weeks working on the drone, and I didn’t even
manage to get it off the ground until a few days before leaving.
In the end, though, it worked, and this crazy experience was one of the
defining moments of my Iceland trip. It added to the fun. I felt happier and
more creative, even when I wasn’t using the drone – and I have no doubt
that I got better photos because of it.

COOLPIX A @ 18.5mm, ISO 320, 1/1000, f/3.5
Jökulsárlón beach, taken from above
You don’t need to do something this bizarre. Rent a supertelephoto for the
weekend, or try light painting for Milky Way photography. Do studio
photography, and learn a new Photoshop skill. The specifics hardly matter.
If you do something you haven’t tried before, you’ll trick yourself out of a

creative rut and improve your images along the way.
5) Form a Vision
The last tip on this list is one thing I’m always trying to improve: forming a
vision.
This is different from scouting or searching for a location to take pictures.
It’s more fundamental than that. Forming a vision is about deciding what
you want your photo to say, and then making conscious choices to get
there.
Do you want an image that showcases the gentle beauty of nature, or the
harsh power of a storm? Are you trying to raise awareness for an
environmental or humanitarian issue?
Whatever your goal is, here’s the kicker: Every single decision you make in
the field should keep that goal in mind.
Should you pick a 14mm lens, or a 35mm? Is your composition balanced or
imbalanced? Will your final image be bright, dark, or somewhere in
between? What height will you place your tripod, and which elements – say,
the foreground or the background – are you prioritizing in the frame?
It’s not about just what choices look the best; it’s about what choices
service your vision as well as possible. The questions above might seem
small and arbitrary, but they’re not. Each decision is a tiny checkmark in the
“yes” or “no” column of one underlying question: Does the photo meet your
goal?

NIKON D800E + 70-200mm f/4 @ 200mm, ISO 100, 1/160, f/11.0
Define a goal for your photo. Then, make deliberate and conscious choices to turn it into reality.
Say that you want to capture the sad, solemn aftermath of a clear-cut
forest. How would you proceed? You have a number of decisions to make –
black and white versus color; balance versus imbalance; light versus dark;
wide angle versus normal or telephoto; harsh versus subdued light; high

versus low contrast; a single subject versus a pattern of several subjects; a
wide aperture versus a small aperture; realism versus impressionism.
The list goes on.
If your goal is a photo that tells a cohesive story and carries a message, it
helps tremendously to make all these decisions consciously. If you’re a
good photographer, chances are high that you’d get a lot of it right by
instinct, but there’s something to be said for slowing down and making ever
step as intentional as possible. By rooting out every instance of randomness
and each case of that’s-just-how-it-was, your photo will tell its story and
carry its emotions with far more power. If you make the wrong decision
about one variable of an image, it’s not the end of the world, but it does
have the potential to make your work less powerful.
Think about the best possible photograph of a scene – the one that carries
your message perfectly – and do everything in your power to make it a
reality.
Conclusion
As an advanced photographer, it’s likely that you’re following many of these
suggestions already, at least at a subconscious level. But reading about
them, practicing each one, and putting deliberate effort into improving your
creative skills will take your photos farther than any technical tip ever could.
The most important point of all is to keep an open mind and continue to
learn new things. It doesn’t matter how advanced you are – if you have a
drive to improve, you’ll improve. It can’t get any simpler than that.

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