This article was originally published in Australian Photography.
What makes a great landscape photo great?
For many years, I have been researching the topic of what makes landscape scenes compelling. It’s a topic I am still exploring.
It is not enough to consider technical considerations like a crisp focus or even exposure. The people who create the captivating scenes that keep us scrolling through social media are often responsible for their careful composition.
It is a difficult topic to codify, let alone. Most people are familiar with maxims like:
- Align your horizon using the Rule of Thirds
- Include nearby elements to create a foreground focus
- Place leading lines toward your subject
There’s a good reason why these tips are so well-known. These tips tend to work.
Have you ever thought about why they work? What other composition principles can you use? When should you defy the rules?
Leading lines are only a small part of the nebulous landscape composition world. Let’s dig a little deeper and look at a few tips you should keep in mind the next time you frame your shot.
1. Balance Your Scene by Carefully Positioning Subjects
Impressive subjects are large, bold stacks of sea stacks and giant old-growth forests. When a single element has too much weight, the photo can feel unbalanced.
What can you do to restore balance? To balance the composition, place supporting elements such as foregrounds or midgrounds in the opposite zone of the frame.
Two scenarios are provided to illustrate the concept:
- Consider adding hills or rocks below the mountain peaks to give the frame a sense of grounding.
- Look for a fallen trunk or fern to place in the bottom right if you want to position a tree boldly in the top right.
You should be aware of the interaction between all elements within your scene unless you are shooting a minimalistic scene.
It’s your job as a visual artist to balance the image. Your picture shouldn’t be a simple sea stack.
The subject positioning is not a rule. It’s more about the ‘vibe’ of the thing.
Reviewing the portfolios of photographers you admire can help you develop your eye. Examine how they use the composition of scenes to create harmony in the frame.
The first principle is woven into the second, which is controlling your image.
2. FLOW CONTROL FINESSE FOREGROUNDS (BIG TO SMALL TRANSITIONS).
“I am including these rocks as foreground interest.”
This is a phrase that you’ll hear on countless landscape photography vlogs. Have you ever stopped to think about why? Why would we want to add a foreground?
The main purpose of foreground elements on wide landscapes is to provide a sense of depth.
First? To direct attention.
Your viewer will focus on the main subject if you fill-up the entire frame.
To counteract this, place your distant subject at the top of the frame (30-40%) and fill the rest with the foreground and middle ground. Your viewer will first focus on the nearer elements of your image rather than moving through the entire frame.
This is why the rule of thirds is so effective.
What is the second purpose? To tell a more rich story.
The supporting foreground subject can provide viewers with context and a richer understanding of the scene.
Viewers can better understand the scene by dedicating the majority of the frame to environmental cues such as slippery coastal rocks or arching fern fronds. They’ll then turn their attention towards the main mountain or the waterfall further in the frame.
These transitions can be used to create a sense of depth in the scene.
Don’t just include foreground elements because you’ve seen them on YouTube. Add foreground elements to add layers to the scene.
3. Zoom in to focus on order amongst the complexity
Wild landscapes, natural scenery, and scenes of nature can be, well… fantastic.
Forests can be a chaotic place. The sea can be a raging menace. Mountains can be temperamental even at their best.
When we come across scenes of order, they catch our attention. These pockets of order stand out against the chaos and complexity surrounding them.
These more harmonious frames are difficult to a. notice and b. capture. This is especially true if you are aiming to capture epic, grand scenes.
What’s my advice? My advice? Put away the wide-angle and choose a telephoto lens. On a hike, there is little chance of a spectacular midday sky. So why not avoid it altogether?
A mid-range lens of 24-70mm will allow you to break free from the wide-angle frame. You’ll be able to place more emphasis on the calmer elements with a smaller field of view.
Order depends on your environment. Here are some examples to help you train your eyes on what to look out for in various settings.
- Compressed trunk columns or fractal branching.
- Cliffs: Contrasting colors, textures, and cracks in the rock
- Rivers: long-exposure water pattern as streams cascade downward
- Coastlines: A series of pebbles, stones, or other objects set against a distinctive backdrop
- Lakes: Golden hour reflections and smooth ripples
Some of my most striking and unique compositions are composed of smaller scenes, which consist of patterns, shapes, and textures.
Other photographers will copy these intimate compositions less than the sweeping panoramas of scenic lookouts. Focusing on the details will give you a photo that is more personal and unique.
4. SHIFT LIGHT AND NATURAL VIGNETTES (DARK TO BRIGHT TRANSITIONS).
Photographers use vignettes, where the outer edges of the image are darkened. Why?
We are attracted to brighter areas. With darker edges, viewers will gravitate towards the more colorful parts of the image.
In Lightroom, I will often use a graduated mask to lower exposure in the foreground and transition up to a more brightly lit subject in the center of the frame. It’s best to choose a topic that is lit by natural light.
While vignettes tend to be left for post-processing, you can achieve the same effect on the spot. You can achieve this effect by carefully observing the light and framing.
Consider my compositional thought process for this photograph of Mackenzie Falls, Grampians.
- Decide the details. Then, I’ll focus on the waterfall itself: the water trails that spilled over the wall and the rocks. So, I chose a telephoto to concentrate on the water. The bright sky and the muddy river in the background were eliminated.
- Second, center on the scene. The section you are looking at is an isolated section amongst much larger falls. I snapped a few vertical cascades in portrait mode. After reviewing my images, I felt that they were too crowded, with the bright white water filling up the entire frame.
- Third, fine-tune the frame. Next, I rotated my lens to landscape orientation. I chose the best cross-sectional view of the cascade. The horizontal frame included the black rocks on the left and the right, which acted as a darker vignette for the brighter waterfalls.
You might want to exclude any bright rocks that glow in direct sunlight when you are out in nature. You could also try to find ferns that are in shadow and point at a midground tree.
You may decide to ignore this rule. Use a lighter peripheral to frame a dark central subject, such as bright leaves preparing dark branches on a beautiful tree.
Be aware of how the brightness changes across your image to harness this composition technique. Use these variations to highlight and frame your main subject.
5. Turn away from the sunrise to harness directional light
Sunrises and sunsets have dominated my Photography for many years.
This meant that I had to shoot into a source of (very) intense lighting. While this can produce brilliant colors when the clouds are aligned, it also creates many harsh shadows as well as dim landscapes.
I still look for bold skies, but I now pay attention to the quality and quantity of light that falls across the whole landscape, not just the colors of the sky.
My tip? Turn around instead of shooting straight into the sunrise and search for frames with the sun shining perpendicularly onto the landscape.
Compositionally, the directional lighting will give your composition a three-dimensional feel. Even softer lighting will bring out the contours of the land. In fact, diffused light is my preferred lighting because it doesn’t have white-hot highlights or pitch-black shadows.
The use of directional light can give a flat image a vivid life and add depth to your composition.
Take a look at this photo of (former Lake Pedder) in Tasmania’s remote Southwest.
Sunrise was to the east. After observing the way the light fell across the landscape, I turned northwest. I am so glad that I did.
The sidelight highlighted the forms and shapes in the hills. It brought attention to the layers and gave a dimensionality to a static image.
6. AVOID (MOSTLY) THESE ELEMENTS
We’ve already discussed what you should include or do. The most powerful compositional decisions are often the ones you don’t make.
It’s been said that Photography is the art of exclusion. Painters add light and color to their canvas with each stroke. Photographers often try to eliminate or hide distractions.
Here are some tips to avoid when writing:
- Centered subjects: A centered subject is processed too quickly by the viewer unless you are intentionally aiming for perfect symmetry. The viewer’s journey is over before it even begins. Recognize that tension, such as a sweet-and-sour sauce or a sudden bridge in the middle of a song, can be beneficial. By balancing the subjects within the frame and utilizing some of your earlier compositional decisions, viewers will be able to process the image for a longer time.
- Overlapping Zones: You may want to get low in order to send your sea stack flying above the horizon. Alternatively, bushes poking up from a peaceful river can create a distraction and interrupt the flow of a scene. What is the solution? You can move your tripod to a higher elevation or hide the element in question behind a rock or tree trunk. It is important to keep the zones clearly separated.
- Borders that are too busy: Open, clean borders give your subjects breathing space. Avoid harsh shadows and lines running parallel to borders. Look out for any lines (such as overhead branches) that cut through the corner of a frame. What’s the fix? Change the cropping to make it appear less precise. We’re showing imperfect landscapes and not perfect geometric renderings.
FINAL CONCLUSIONS
Earlier, I mentioned the idea that Photography is storytelling. You’ve probably heard this phrase many times. It’s true, and it is the basis of most compositional theory.
You can take some beautiful pictures of a waterfall or a sunset. But most often, it’s just an image.
The design is nice, but it rarely holds attention. It would be best if you told an interesting story. To use (or hide) the surrounding elements to give the scene a deeper meaning.
Your work will stand out from the crowd if you use strong compositions. It stands out amongst millions of images of Bombo Quarry and famous waterfalls.
Time is the most important factor in creating compelling compositions.
Memorable landscape photos are not taken on a whim. These photos require a lot of thought. You’ll be more aware of concepts in the field if you take the time to learn composition techniques and apply them (like those explored here).
You can work on a scene to create the most pleasing composition that will tell a more rich story about your experience.
Last note: I have never been a big fan of theories for the sake of theories.
Please be aware that not all concepts are applicable at all times. A high-key luminous image, like a tree in the snow, is visually processed quite differently than a sunrise seascape.
