How to Take Better Landscape Photographs
Some Tips on a Strategy for Improving Outdoor Camera Skills
Jan 29, 2009
Getting great landscape photographs often requires working in remote places at unsociable times of the day. It can be lonely, which for some is part of the attraction. And in the end the key technical and artistic skills of taking good shots and afterwards selecting and working on the best of them are highly personal and individual.
Landscape Photography Courses
But all photographers who want to improve will need help when they are starting out. Those unable to commit to a full time course will still find plenty of resources that will provide a good foundation and guidance for steady improvement.
Landscape photography is usually a small component of general photography courses. A specialised course will be best for those with little interest in working with portraits or weddings.
A Google search will throw up many part-time classroom, residential and on-line courses to choose from. Classroom courses offer the advantage of direct contact with an instructor and fellow students, which many will find invaluable. On-line courses such as those taught by Ireland’s School of Photography are flexible, relatively inexpensive and available to anyone with an Internet connection.
Residential courses offer intensive tuition for a handful of students with a practicing professional photographer acting as the instructor. These courses typically last a few days within an area of natural beauty and can provide a great boost with immediate feedback. Residential courses are usually not inexpensive and to get the best value from them it would be wise to gain some experience first, perhaps based on an initial on-line course.
Internet Photography Sites
A course should provide a good start, but what happens afterwards is equally important. Some courses, such as that offered by Britain’s Bureau of Freelance Photographers, provide for up to two years of mentoring beyond the framework of the course modules. This service can be a valuable guide in the early stages of building up a portfolio.
Internet based communities of photographers can be extremely helpful. Photography Corner for example has grown into one of the leading sites for professionals and serious amateurs with galleries, articles, competitions and forums where members comment on each others' work.
Books by established masters from Ansel Adams to Charlie Waite and Joe Cornish can be inspiring and instructive, as can exhibitions based on one person’s work or the results of competitions, and browsing through personal websites and stock libraries. There is no shortage of excellent material available with no more than a few mouse clicks.
The Purpose of Photography
With this wealth of resources at hand, three key components of the learning process remain. One is to scout out the local area to find places that can be visited often, at different seasons and different times of day, to identify the best shooting positions, to practice technical skills and to systematically build up a personal collection of shots and a personal style.
The second is the capacity for rigorous self-criticism and for seeking out and accepting genuine criticism from others. Beware of the comments of fawning relatives and friends.
And the third is a sense of purpose. It may be purely artistic, to establish an attractive website or a gallery at home or in the local pub. It may be for a cause, to encourage an appreciation of nature or to support local conservation campaigns. Or it may be to make money from self-publishing greetings cards or prints, commissions, magazines or the stock libraries. It is difficult to achieve much without having a goal in mind.
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