Landscape photography is very challenging and don’t think otherwise, or else you'll be quickly disappointed. For this reason, I have put together a list with the most common "secrets" for better landscapes. Believe it or not, the best landscape photographers in the world go by these "secrets" so why not you? .... enjoy!
Foreground: Including something in the foreground is one of the most important things you can do to improve your landscape photos. Without that foreground element, your photo will look exactly like a two-dimensional image. In the above image, the foreground boats are both my foreground point of interest and my converging lines leading into the image.
Background: In landscape photography, background is just as important as foreground. That distant element will give your viewer’s eye a place to stop, and the more distant that point seems, the more vast the image will seem. Usually the sky is our background so make sure its interesting! That means rich color, and clouds with character!
Overlapping objects: The position of overlapping elements is going to help give your landscapes a lot of additional depth. Between the boats in the foreground and the horizon are some more boats, these are my overlapping objects. Depth comes from perspective, and in my example a higher perspective could have helped even more, but a lower perspective would have hidden my overlapping objects reducing to a minimum the available perspective.
Converging lines: Converging lines can improve any photograph. But if you’re trying to add a three-dimensional feel to your image, converging lines will do wonders for your image.Here the boats are my converging lines, notice how they pull the eye inwards.
BASE ISO: It’s always best to shoot landscapes at low ISOs since you don’t even want a minimal amount of noise spoiling the clarity of your image. Lower ISOs also help to create vibrant colors in your image
RAW: You want to capture as much dynamic range as you can in a landscape image, so you need your camera to create files that contain as much information as possible, so that you can change the exposure or tweak the colors and tones in post processing. Today successful landscape photographers are as much photographers as they are digital "photoshop" technicians.
Tripod & Filters: Must have are a tripod and the basic set of filters. These are the neutral density filter, the circular polarizer and maybe one or two Graduated Neutral Density filters. For the above example i have used a CP and a GND.
CONCLUSION
As I have already stated, landscape photography is very challenging. You can try and try again, and still, those images wont come easy. As the great Ansel Adams once said: “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” .... if you are that lucky ;-)
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