April 6, 2024 • 38 mins
When you see a professional landscape photo, usually in a gallery, a magazine cover or photobook, there is just something different...it's jumps out to you as "pro level."
In today's episode, I do a deep dive into how you can achieve this same look and vibe in your own photography. Spoiler alert, there is no shortcut. But, I do have a roadmap.
It involves a lot of the "classic" photo ingredients like timing and aperture, but the list goes well beyond that. And frankly, it's the combination of all or most of these techniques that give that pro look.
I hope you enjoy and get out there and take some extraordinary photos as a result!
Big thanks to LensRentals.com for support of this podcast. I highly recommend renting lenses from time to time, either to test out a new lens before you buy, or getting that primo lens before a big wildlife photo adventure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Court (00:00):
When you see an extraordinary landscape shot,
you just know it.
It's like less than a secondand you know it's something
special.
It's a special angle, time ofday, an awesome set of colors.
It's maybe something youhaven't quite seen before in
that way, or if you have seen itbefore, you pretty much
instantly know it's one of themost special portrayals of this
(00:20):
scene you've ever seen.
So what is it that makes thisso special?
Well, I alluded to a couple ofthe key ingredients, but there's
so much more, and how youcombine these things, how you
look for them and how youcapture them in camera is gonna
be the subject of today'spodcast.
So join me, folks.
Here we go.
Before we get into it, I wantedto give a quick shout out to an
(00:56):
awesome company that Ipartnered with to help support
this podcast, and that's LensRentals.
Lensrentalscom I've been usingLens Rentals for years now and
partcom.
I've been using Lens Rentals foryears now, and part of the
reason I'm putting them in thispromo position on the podcast is
because I genuinely believe inwhat they do.
It's an amazing resource.
I highly highly recommendrenting lenses from time to time
(01:26):
, whether it's renting somethingbefore you buy it, to see if
you really really think thatthat lens is going to be helpful
, or kind of splurging a littlebit and before your next nature
safari, renting that 400, 2.8,renting that 70 to 200 for
trekking gorillas.
And I got to say every timeI've rented it's been a pleasure
, it's been easy, the lenseshave arrived on time, if not
before.
It's just, it's kind of likethe apple of lens rental
companies because everything'sjust nicely packaged and easy.
(01:47):
They've got return shippingboxes and labels and they even
give you like tape to tape upyour boxes.
It's just, it's amazing.
It takes a lot of the thoughtout of it.
They're super professional.
So, yeah, I'm partly just doingthis because I think it's an
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Cool stuff.
(02:07):
When you initially walk up on alandscape scene you want to
photograph, you're probablythinking about focus first and
foremost.
I know I do and I think a lotof people do.
It's not wrong.
But the key thing is don'toverthink about focus, not so
much that it's not reallyimportant.
Overthink about focus, not somuch that it's not really
important.
It's huge, it's like one of themost important things in
(02:28):
photography.
But it's very, very simple forlandscape photography, and if
you think first and foremost andonly about focus, you're going
to miss out on like 10 or 11other really key ingredients
that honestly make it even moreimportant.
Obviously, if your shot's notin focus, if you don't have the
right hyper focus or the rightdepth of field, it's going to
look off.
(02:48):
But the point is is that thereare so many other things beyond
focus that this first thing thatwe usually think about is
definitely not the be all endall.
But that being said, let's talkabout focus.
So you do want to have a widedepth of field, and what I'm
talking about here is a smallaperture or a big F number.
These are all the same thingswe're talking about F8, f11,
(03:10):
maybe even F16.
But where to focus is probablyequally important.
So let's get one of the morecomplicated things right out of
the way is you've got a biglandscape scene.
It's relatively uniform.
It's a meadow, it's mountainsand it's a sunset.
Let's just say those threeelements foreground, midground,
background, right, sunset's.
The furthest mountain is themidground and then the meadow
(03:31):
with, let's just say, somewildflowers, is the foreground.
You want it all in focus Ifthose wildflowers are, you know,
blurred, mildly blurred or wayblurred, not going to look good.
Same thing with a mountain andthe sunset less consequential,
but we still want definition inthose clouds.
If it was blurred it wouldn'tlook quite right.
So where do you focus?
Well, in comes this terminology,this concept of hyper focus,
(03:55):
and if you Google this online,you're going to see some really,
really complicated equationsabout how to calculate hyper
focus, and it takes into accountthe focal length of your lens,
about how to calculatehyperfocus, and it takes into
account the focal length of yourlens, how distant you are to
the foreground, mid, ground andbackground, and a few other
things as well, like goshaperture, even shutter speed,
just crazy stuff.
You can see where I'm gettingat.
Don't think about all thatstuff, don't worry about it.
(04:17):
I'm gonna give you a really,really simple trick right here
is to achieve hyperfocus.
Even if you did all thosecalculations, pretty much each
and every time, you're going toland on this focus about one
third of the way into the scene.
Okay, I'm gonna say it againfocus for landscape photography,
about one third of the way intothe scene to get maximum depth
(04:37):
of field and to get just abouteverything intact, sharp focus
that you could possibly hope for.
Now.
There's a mild exception if youhave a very strong foreground
element and you're doing somecreative artsy stuff here.
But the point is, for the vastmajority of landscape shots, we
just want everything in focusand this is the way, in
combination with a greataperture of F8, f11, or F16,
(05:00):
that you're going to get as muchin focus as possible.
Now, since we broached the topicof camera settings and we're
talking about aperture, I'd beremiss if I didn't also mention
shutter speed and ISO at thispoint.
So when you are getting thosebig F numbers, as you may or may
not know, you're going to befaced with light limitation
because as you go higher andhigher in number, your aperture
(05:22):
closes down more and more andlimits the amount of light
getting into your camera sensor.
So this is where we usually seepeople with tripods.
Right, because what happens isyou, you do want a low ISO.
This is going to give you thebest clarity, definition,
quality of shot.
So, like ISO 100, iso 200 is ispretty important for the best,
(05:42):
like best, best landscape shots.
Not only is it going to lookbetter, but it's also going to
be the most editable.
We'll get to that at the end ofthis talk about how to process
and edit these shots.
But what does that leave you?
Well, in this golden triangleof aperture, iso and shutter
speed, if you know you want twoof the three at very specific
settings, it's your shutterspeed that usually just is a
(06:03):
consequence of the other,meaning you don't want to have
to worry about your shutterspeeds.
This is why we usually seetripods, especially in lower
light, like sunrise, sunset,landscape photography, because
you may.
If you're setting your cameraon F16 and ISO 100, you may find
that your shutter speed is onesecond or one tenth of a second,
(06:24):
even one twentieth of a second.
I really don't advocatehandholding.
So, as a result, tripod isreally quite a nice tool to have
for great landscape photography, and I can almost promise you,
if you're marveling at alandscape photo as your desktop
background, that youautomatically got populated by
your, by your computer'soperating system, or if you're
(06:44):
seeing a screensaver that'sautomatically on there, or all
of these stock photos of thebest landscape shots in the
world, I'm pretty sureeverybody's shooting on a tripod
.
Because you just don't want toworry about being handheld, you
want to prioritize ISO 100 or200, aperture of F8, f11 or F16,
and then just deal withwhatever shutter speed comes
your way.
(07:05):
Okay, now we're moving on fromcamera settings.
We're going to talk about moreof the je ne sais quoi, more of
like the gosh, you really had tobe there, sort of element of
things, and this does come downto finding a fantastic time of
day.
I think that a huge part of thebest and again we're not
talking about good landscapephotography or great landscape
photography you can makelemonade out of anything in
(07:27):
front of you, and you'veprobably listened to other
episodes I have on just maintenets of great landscape
photography.
We're talking today about howto get the best, how to get the
pro level shots, and reallycomes down to finding a time of
day that is really quite special.
The time of day may be specialbecause nobody else is seeing
that landscape at that time ofday.
So even if someone's seeingthat mountain scene that they've
(07:49):
seen a thousand times before,they're going to look at it as
really special because you shotat an arduous time of day at the
blue hour, at twilight, at thegolden hour.
You know, when I say arduous, Ijust mean you're going the
extra mile.
So what are those times of day.
Let's rattle them off, listthem off right here, right now.
So the no brainer is sunriseand sunset.
(08:11):
It's when the light is lowestangle.
That low angle also filtersthrough a little bit more
atmosphere and usually you getmore of a golden angular light.
It just looks really darn good.
So sunrise, sunset, you know,the first we're talking about
like first, minutes after thesun rises or minutes at just
before the sun sets.
Obviously it's subjective.
(08:32):
You might find that you have 20minutes or even an hour um
before, after, et cetera, etcetera, but that that
technically gets into slightlydifferent times of day.
So this category is sunrise andsunset.
But that does beg the questionwhat about just after sunset or
before sunrise, like the dawnand dusk time?
So we call this in photographythe blue hour.
(08:52):
I've done a whole episode onnothing but photographing the
blue hour, so I definitelyrecommend checking that out.
But it's essentially the 20 or30 minutes after the sun has
literally gone down below thehorizon and what this does is it
sets a really really nice bluehue in the sky.
This is definitely tripodterritory, but it's an
extraordinary time to get somereally really cool sky color
(09:16):
which then translates to reallythe overall color palette of
your scene.
So blue hour is awesome.
We normally think of blue hourafter sun sets because it's like
more convenient, you can getblue hour on awesome.
We normally think of blue hourafter sun sets because it's like
more convenient, um you, youcan get blue hour.
On the flip side, like an hourbefore or, let's say, the 20 or
30 minutes before sunrise, alittle bit more difficult to be
there and time it a little moredifficult to hike out to the
(09:37):
spot or set up your shot in thedark.
So usually after sunset is morecommon blue hour.
But let me take that as amoment to say you know what, if
it's more common, more peoplehave seen it, more people have
photographed it and it's goingto be less special, it's going
to be less pro worthy.
So you know, if you have thechutzpah, get out there before
sunrise, an hour before sunriseto scout out, set up your shot
(09:58):
and get that dawn blue hour,because it's those difference
makers that well, gosh makes thedifference.
So blue hour awesome time.
Now, uh, an easier time of dayand this is a time that a lot of
portrait photographers like touse, maybe if you are doing a
slight portraiture element ofyour landscape photography,
meaning if you do have a reallycool subject or feature like a
(10:20):
tree or a rock or a waterfall,and it's the golden hour.
The golden hour, again, wetypically think of it as the
hour or so before sunset.
As that sun goes down an angle,it definitely turns more yellow
, more golden, more orange, onthe warmer tone.
You're going to get this at theflip side of the day, so in the
morning as well, but again,that evening hour is probably
(10:41):
most common and the golden houris fantastic.
It casts this really, reallynice golden light on everything
that you can capture in yourcamera and do nothing with, and
it gives this beautiful warmtone.
In addition, as we'll learnlater in the episode, is as you
start editing these colors andboosting the warm with a little
bit of a warming filter or likea warming white balance, and it
(11:01):
just makes it that much moredreamy, that much more
captivating.
When you increase thesaturation of an already
saturated scene or increase thewarming white balance of an
already warm scene, you get alot of room to play with is the
basic gist I'm getting at.
So these are really good timesof day.
Let's talk about a time that isa little bit more stochastic, a
(11:22):
little bit more just capture inthe moment, and it's like storms
and weather.
So storms bring in amazingclouds, big billowy cumulonimbus
and all sorts of really coolwispy cirrus clouds.
So anytime storms, wind, comethrough, if you want to elevate
your landscape photography, it'sa really, really good time to
(11:43):
get out and go check places out.
Now the thing is is thatusually in a storm A, you're
going to, you know, be in thestorm yourself, so scouting out
a place is going to be really,really helpful ahead of time.
And then, when you know that,oh gosh, if a storm comes in,
this is the shot I want, becausethis landscape is going to lend
itself to amazing clouds Getout there during storms.
Be safe.
(12:04):
Of course, you know, on therims of canyons like Grand
Canyon and Bryce Canyon, it'squite dangerous because these
lightning storms come throughand you're at a high point.
So, goodness gracious, becareful when you're out there.
But also realize that stormsprovide some amazing, amazing
atmosphere and helps elevateyour landscape photography to
that pro level.
A common theme you're going tohear throughout the day is that
(12:26):
the more of these things youcombine, the more pro level it
is.
So I'm going to continue withthis list.
We've got a lot more things totalk about.
So keep in mind that time ofday and some sort of moodiness
whether it's that bright goldenhour or it's moody from, uh,
ominous clouds that's a checkboxyou want to put on your list
(12:48):
with everything else I'm aboutto talk about here.
Composition is super critical.
Well, to all photography, butespecially to landscape
photography, because thereusually isn't a real dominant
subject, or if there is, it'snot as dominant as, like,
wildlife portraiture.
Another thing that I've talkedat length about on this podcast
composition.
You know you can read books oncomposition.
(13:08):
I'm going to distill this downinto sort of my three favorite
composition techniques.
The first, of course, is ruleof thirds.
You probably heard this azillion times, but I've got to
mention it here because it'sit's always my starting point, a
hundred percent of the time mystarting point and, I would say,
for the vast majority ofphotographers out there, 90% of
the time their ending point too.
There, there isn't a need to gotoo much beyond this, but of
(13:31):
course I'll give some examplesas to how and when.
But rule of thirds basically,you break your scene down in the
thirds instead of halves orquarters.
Uh, the human eye, human brain,really likes these thirds.
Imagine a tic-tac-toe boardover your scene and break your
scene with the sky, mountainsand foreground into thirds, top
to bottom.
Break it left to right as well.
Again, a common theme forlandscape photography is the
(13:54):
more layers you can add on withcomplexity, meaning if you have
a great top to bottom rulethirds going on in your scene,
then also, look, how can I alsomake this a left to right rule
of thirds, or right to left.
You know how can I break itinto vertical components too.
Maybe the tallest mountain ison the left and then there's a
valley in the middle and then amidsize mountain on the right.
You know, break it into as manyways to employ the rule of
(14:17):
thirds as possible.
Also, think about thoseintersecting points.
This is a really really commonstrategy for wildlife
photography or portraitphotography, where there's a
single dominant character in thescene.
You want to put that personoff-center.
So the main focal point, likethat person or that animal's
eyes, is right over one of thefour intersecting points.
(14:38):
What do I mean by intersectingpoints?
Well, if you have thattic-tac-toe board, there are
four places where those linescross one another.
That's where you're going towant to have something of
significance.
So one of the tricks I'm aboutto tell you about is, with
landscape photography, is tochoose some sort of focal point
or some sort of foregroundelement.
That is a really, really greatplace to put that foreground
(15:00):
element is at one of thoseintersecting points.
So if you're using andemploying the rule of thirds in
every which way, it's just goingto be more and more layers,
more stacking the deck in yourfavor to get a bodacious
landscape shot.
Now the next thing is aniteration of the rule of thirds
that I've learned aboutrelatively recently, the last
few years, and it's called thephi grid, p-h-i, the phi grid,
(15:22):
and it's basically the rule ofthirds, but it's actually a
little bit more attuned to theFibonacci sequence or the golden
ratio, which is something thatI'm not actually going to talk
about here.
You can tune into mycomposition podcast to learn
more about that.
But basically what it does isit breaks the rule of thirds.
You know similar ratios, butit's actually as if you squeezed
(15:43):
the lines a little bit moretowards the center of the frame,
meaning it's not exactly equal.
From left to right it's alittle bit bigger, on the left.
It's a little bit skinnier inthe middle and a little bit
bigger on the right, such thatthe left and the right are equal
, but that middle column is alittle bit more reduced.
Same thing from top to bottom.
So again, it's as if you tookthat tic-tac-toe, those two
(16:04):
lines left and right, those twolines top and bottom, and just
squishing towards the middle.
Now, the reason to think aboutthis isn't because you now need
to go affix a five grid on topof your, your camera's
viewfinder, but when you aresetting up that scene and you
put that subject in the deadmiddle of one of those
intersecting points of the gridof the actual rule of thirds
(16:25):
grid, play around with maybeputting it slightly inside, a
little bit more towards themiddle, because there are some
laws of aesthetics.
With this Fibonacci sequence, avery common mathematical
principle, there's a laws ofaesthetics.
With this Fibonacci sequence, avery common mathematical
principle, there's a rule ofaesthetics that says it might
look a little bit better towardsthe middle of the scene.
I'm going to end there and notsay much more, because that's
(16:46):
really all you need to know inthis big overview episode, but
there's something to it.
Now.
The next one is again, if we'retalking about layers, we're
talking about multiple ways youcan make your landscape shots
better and better and better.
Try to incorporate leadinglines.
Now, the thing here is thatthey work really well on their
own and they work really reallywell in concert with the rule of
(17:08):
thirds or the five grid, andthe leading line is basically
some sort of dominant line inthe scene.
Since we're talking aboutlandscape shots, we're usually
thinking about something innature a curving river, a branch
of a tree, the triangle outlineof a mountain, and just think
about how those lines, thoseedges of natural features, are
(17:28):
leading your eyes in a certaindirection.
So you know, and a greatexample could be, if there's a
tree on the left hand side andthere's lateral branches,
horizontal branches, like, let'ssay, a fir tree extending out
to the right, completely flat,those could be leading lines
into a meadow to the right.
If you're really trying to drawthe eye towards a certain part
(17:49):
of the scene, leading lines area very, very good way to do it.
Now, leading lines withoutanything to point to aren't all
that powerful, but you'd besurprised the artistic
impression you can reallyconjure up with leading lines,
meaning that they're going tolead to something in the scene.
But the more you can put theseleading lines, the more you can
find leading lines in naturethat really direct the viewer's
(18:12):
eye towards a dominant part ofthe scene a river that snakes
around and points to a mountain,a mountain that points in a
triangle like an arrow up to thesun or up to a really amazing
colorful cloud.
These lines are gonna reallyagain just pump steroids into
all these different elementswe're talking about to make your
landscape shot better andbetter and better.
(18:33):
So leading lines are reallyreally great thing to think
about.
Now, one thing I'm going to kindof throw around here is that so
many of the best landscapescenes do not have real flat
horizon lines.
Even if you are adhering to therule of thirds really nicely
and you're putting that horizonline at the bottom third and
(18:53):
leaving two thirds of sky,usually, especially with
mountain scenes, meadow scenes,pretty much anything but beach
scenes you're probably going toget some blending right, like
that mid ground is going to, isgoing to jag into the background
or the foreground, like you're.
You're not going to have asmooth line between each section
(19:14):
, but I want you to think abouthow much sky, how much
mid-ground and how muchforeground you have in those
rule thirds.
But also look for elements thatmesh those thirds together,
meaning maybe the mountain sceneis indeed in that middle third,
but there's a huge mountain ora big tree that breaks into that
sky third.
Those things are gonna reallybring the scene together and
(19:37):
make it less exact.
I don't see a lot of sceneswhere you could put a rule of
thirds grid over and everysingle thing has its own
delineation, its own separationin that scene.
A lot of times the elements ofthe landscape mix a little bit.
That river kind of goes betweenone and two of the thirds, or
(19:58):
the upper third and lower third.
The tree kind of breaks intolike a jagged line, into the
upper third even though itstarts in the bottom third.
So look for elements to helpbring things together and make
that line a little bit lessexact between your composition
of your photo.
A really good way to start outtaking landscape shots is to
center them around some sort offoreground element.
A really good way to start outtaking landscape shots is to
(20:19):
center them around some sort offoreground element.
A foreground element could bejust about anything you find in
nature, whether it's a largerock or boulder, it could be a
specific wildflower, it could bea tree, it could be even a
smaller mountain range of a verybig mountain range in the
background.
But I find it really, reallyhelps to have something that the
(20:39):
eyes of the viewer can affix toright away, and usually that's
the thing closest to them.
So if I'm looking at a photo,my eyes are naturally going to
go towards the thing that isclosest to me, which is going to
be that meadow in front of themountain, it's going to be that
seashell in front of the beach.
So if you find a dominantforeground element, I really do
like to make it quite prominentin my scene.
(21:01):
But what this does is this thiskind of flips the page a little
bit on how to focus and whereto focus.
Because if you do have adominant foreground element like
a boulder right in front of you, you can't not have that in
focus, like that needs to be infocus.
So if you focus on that even atF8 or F11, if you're really
close to that rock or that tree,the background might get a
(21:23):
little bit blurred.
So what do you do?
Well, you want to do your bestto give yourself space between
you and the foreground element.
In other words, you want thatthing to be in the scene but you
don't want it to be rightunderneath your nose.
You want to give it 10, 20, 30feet of distance.
This might even require you usea telephoto lens we're going to
get to that in a second as areally, really good strategy for
(21:45):
next level pro landscape shots.
But you do want to give alittle bit of space.
Because of this ratio, if youare right next to your subject
and then your subject is way inthe background, it's gonna be
blurred.
The background's gonna beblurred no matter what F number
you have.
You can go all the way to F22,it's still gonna be blurred.
So you wanna give a little bitof space.
Exactly how much space is apretty complicated equation.
(22:06):
This is a great time toexperiment a little bit.
But again, you do wanna give itmany, many feet.
Step back quite a ways.
Put that foreground element inthe frame as that bottom third.
You know like we're talkingabout with foreground, but just
give it so that there's a littlebit more distance between you
and the subject, so that subjectis a little bit closer to the
background, and that's going tohelp tremendously with the depth
(22:28):
of field issue we're talkingabout.
It's going to make it soeverything is indeed in focus.
Okay now, the penultimate thingwe're going to talk about here,
before we get into a little bitdeeper dive into post-processing
and editing of pro landscapeshots, is we're going to talk
about thinking outside the box.
What are the things that youcan be doing that you possible?
Because this is gonna be whatgets your landscape shot to look
(23:01):
different and jump out of thepage and be something that
people have never seen before,and really stop scrolling and
pay attention to what you have.
Stop navigating websites, stopflipping the magazine and really
take a look at your art.
So the first thing I alluded toalready is something I use very
, very often for my next levellandscape shots is a look at
your art.
So the first thing I alluded toalready is something I use very
, very often for my next levellandscape shots is a telephoto
(23:22):
lens.
So many people right out thebox think, oh, if I wanna make
my landscape shot even better,I'm not gonna use my normal lens
, my wide angle, I'm gonna go toan ultra wide, because it's
gonna get way more of thelandscape in the scene.
Yeah, there's totally astrategy here and I'm not going
to discourage you.
But I will tell you that atelephoto lens can work absolute
(23:45):
wonders for your landscapeshots.
If you don't believe me, go tryit out.
When I'm talking about atelephoto, I mean something
between like a one and 300millimeter.
You can, of course, use a 400,500 millimeter.
These are comparable to like asix to 10 times zoom, more or
less.
You can use those bigger zooms,but really what I'm talking
about is like two to six timeszoom.
Here is like a 100 millimeter.
(24:07):
A 300 millimeter, um, like my70 to 200 is one of my favorite
landscape lenses out therebecause, well, it allows me to
do a few things.
One is it allows me to see thescene differently and again, I
keep hampering on this, but it'ssuper important is you have to
see and portray scenesdifferently to get them to
really stand out and get peopleto pay attention and say, ooh
(24:28):
huh, look at that.
I've seen maroon bells before,but I've never seen it that way.
You know that's what we'retalking about here.
So something like a little bitof telephoto can be a different
look, a different way of seeinga landscape scene.
This is not a requisite forevery time you use a telephoto
in landscape.
But it also allows you to dowhat's called zoom compression,
(24:49):
and this is a really awesometechnique.
Probably the most well-knownand famous way to use zoom
compression is anytime you seethose scenes with a huge moon in
the background and like theAcropolis on a hill or some sort
of you know a temple or abuilding, and then that huge
moon is behind it and you say,golly, that is that looks fake,
it's Photoshopped.
(25:09):
Well, it might be, but youactually can do it in camera
quite well, and what you'redoing is you're standing quite
far away from that building,from that temple, from that tree
, with the moon behind it, butthen as you zoom in with a big
beefy telephoto, it's makingeverything big.
It's making the temple big, soit looks as if you're standing
right in front of it, and makesthe moon big as if you're
(25:32):
standing right in front of it.
So basically, what it does isit brings the background and
foreground a little bit closerin size and it just makes this
really, really interesting lookwhere something behind your
foreground element can take onan otherworldly size and appeal.
This works really well formountains.
You can make a mountainsidelook like Mount Everest.
(25:55):
Basically, you can fill theframe with just part of the
mountainside, with a wildflowerin the foreground, or with a
meadow in the foreground or ariver in the foreground, and
this is all done by standingquite a bit far away from the
scene you're photographing butthen using that telephoto to
zoom into it and cropping it,basically composing it just like
you would a wide angle, but youuse a telephoto and get
(26:15):
yourself away from that verysame seam.
It's a really, really awesometechnique.
And then other things you knowwe've already mentioned this,
but an exquisite sunrise, youknow, adding this in for
something outside the box, awildflower bloom, doing your
research and figuring out whenare interesting phenomena going
on, when is this desert bloomgoing to happen?
You know, when is the AuroraBorealis going to happen?
(26:37):
All that sort of stuff.
These are things that are reallynext level awesomeness that if
you can get them in yourlandscape scene, it's just going
to send them over the top.
A waterfall in a sensationallandscape, a crazy perspective,
like getting half in the waterand half out of the water, or
getting your tripod just abovethe water's edge, so you're
actually photographing a littlebit of the hazy water on top,
(26:59):
maybe a supreme aerial shot, youknow, just an incredible top
down.
You're in a plane you're in abush plane across Alaska or
across Africa and you're gettingjust a perspective that people
don't see before.
Now, again, with any of thesethings I just rattled off, if
you do them without any of theseother tactics, without thinking
about composition, withoutthinking about the lighting,
(27:21):
without thinking about theaperture, you're probably not
going to get a pro level shot.
But if you create check boxesof all of these things, you're
going to start noticing thatwhen you layer them on top of
one another and incorporate themall, you're going to get that
pro level look.
So we've now come to the timewhere we talk about
post-processing, the editing ofyour photos.
This is getting more and moreimportant in today's day and age
(27:43):
.
Ironically, in some ways it'sgetting less important because
cameras and lenses are gettingso dang good.
We don't really have to sharpenanything, we don't really have
to add contrast, because if youhave really good equipment, it's
just looking so good out of thecamera.
The reason it's more importantto do this is because sounds
(28:05):
weird to say it's becauseeverybody's doing it, when you
see the exquisite landscapephotos of Iceland or of auroras
or whatever.
You're photographing mountainscenes and you're comparing your
shots with pros.
Even if you do all these checkboxes, the reason that their
photos are going to look moreeye popping, more dramatic, more
special than yours is becausethey have edited their photo.
So what are they doing withtheir editing?
(28:26):
Well, this is by no means anextensive editing course, but I
do want to give you a few ideas.
Mainly, they're always going tobe using masks with gradients
and ellipses, meaning thatthey're probably not going to be
changing the sharpness or thecontrast of the whole scene.
They're not going to increaseor decrease the exposure of the
entire scene.
(28:47):
You kind of want to, you know,make light coming from a certain
direction left to right or thetop corner to the bottom corner.
I've seen other photographersmake a little bit of a sandwich
with some of their contrast,with some of their darkness,
meaning the top of the scene isa little bit darker, the bottom
of the scene is a little bitdarker, and that actually has
its own way of leading your eyesinto the middle of the scene.
(29:08):
So these masks with gradientsare hugely helpful in Photoshop
and Lightroom primarilyLightroom, but I use Adobe
Camera Raw, which is kind oflike an intermediary program
between Adobe Bridge andPhotoshop, but it's the same as
Lightroom.
But I use Adobe Camera Raw,which is kind of like an
intermediary program betweenAdobe Bridge and Photoshop, but
it's the same as Lightroom.
But gradients are huge.
And then what you're going tobe changing with the gradient
gradient is really just a way ofapplying a very specific amount
(29:30):
of your editing technique in agradient.
The editing technique you'regoing to be using, I would say
exposure, is always one to thinkabout.
A lot of photographers willbarely touch exposure because
it's a very dramatic, heavyhanded way of editing a photo,
and they'll touch more on thewhites and the blacks and the
contrast.
Contrast is really justincreasing lights and decreasing
(29:52):
darks at the same time.
But then also, you're going towant to think about the color of
your shot, and white balance issomething I've talked about at
length on this podcast and otherplatforms, and you really want
to think about changing thecolor temperature of your shot.
You know, if you arephotographing at the blue hour,
you can add a little more of acool white balance, like a
daylight effect, and that willadd more blue in your shot If
(30:14):
you're photographing a greatsunset or a sunrise, and it's
already inherently quite yellow.
Like I said earlier, is itboosting that via a little bit
more warming filter, ie a cloudyor a shady white balance?
It's just gonna.
It's gonna be able to hold itmuch better, like the photo will
not start to look fake becauseyou're already shooting on a
really, really nice, warm tone.
(30:35):
So, yeah, white balance is huge, but then also, sometimes you
might wanna saturate your colors.
I will say that, betweensaturation and vibrance, like
every color slider, whetheryou're on like a Mac photo
program or one of the free onesonline for PCs, or all the way
up to a proper Photoshop andLightroom, you're gonna have
these two options right next toone another, and you're probably
(30:58):
gonna to want to touch one orthe other a little bit.
Generally, saturation is theheavy-handed one.
It's just going to saturateevery color more.
Vibrance, though, is kind of asmart saturation, so it
saturates the colors, but itgoes easy on those colors that
are most likely to make thephoto look fake, and, frankly,
those are the greens, kind oflike the yellow side of greens
(31:19):
and oranges.
So if you saturate everythingwith saturation slider, you're
gonna notice if you have a lotof greens in your shot, it's
gonna look really messed up.
So I almost never touch fullsaturation like the actual
saturation slider in place.
I'll just uptick the vibrance alittle bit.
And then two of the more newsliders that are kind of like
(31:40):
these meta or combinationsliders that take into multiple
edits all at once is clarity andD haze.
Clarity is really really goodfor kind of bringing more
definition and more pop and more, more chutzpah to to your shot.
People use it for the rippleson water.
You might want to use it forthe edgesipples on water.
You might want to use it forthe edges of a mountain.
(32:00):
And then de-haze does reallyreally well with cutting some of
that atmospheric haze that maybe distracting Sometimes.
It's actually really reallynice in landscape shots but it
does make your photo pop more.
And de-haze is something that II use not only on landscape
shots but sometimes, if I justdon't know what a photo needs, I
(32:21):
might uptick the dehaze alittle bit because it really
focuses on increasing thedominance and the saturation of
the blacks in your photo.
But it also does some otherthings that have to do with
sharpening and clarity and allsorts of stuff.
But it really is one of thesecatch-all, be-all, end-all type
edits that's just like oh, allof a sudden my photo looks
(32:41):
dramatic and Dehaze is reallynice for that.
Now, when I do this, usuallywhat I'm doing is I'm selecting
either the sky or the backgroundor my subject first, and I'm
making my edits that way, usinggradients and ellipses.
When I'm making my edits, I'mprobably gonna click on the
slider with my mouse or with mytrackpad, and my technique is
(33:03):
really to slide it all the wayto extremes right off the bat.
That means if one of my sliders, like exposure or contrast or
clarity, is starting at zero,I'm gonna slide it all the way
to 100.
And as I'm sliding it prettyquickly, I'm taking notice of
whether it's improving or makingthe photo worse.
So I'm obviously never going togo all the way to a hundred on
(33:26):
any of these things.
You know, shadows is anothergreat one to play around with,
but what it does is it quicklyallows me to figure out if
contrast or shadows or clarityor dehaze is the thing I need to
focus on, and then, once I likethe effects, I'm going to go in
and make really small microadjustments and I might only go
one or two units, or five or 10units at a time and just make
(33:48):
small, sensible adjustments.
And I'm going to get to thepoint where it's over-correcting
, it's over-editing, and thenI'm going to go back quite a bit
.
I don't want it to evenapproach that level, so editing,
and then I'm going to go backquite a bit.
I don't want it to evenapproach that level.
So, again, going from zero to ahundred real quickly in the
sliders.
It's so easy.
It happens in real time to yourphoto.
You can see the effects.
It's a really, really helpfultool to quickly experiment with
(34:09):
these various editing techniquesto find, you know, your own
style and the things that youlike the look of most.
At the end of the day, this isart.
So even if you are editing tomake it look a little bit
different or quite a bitdifferent than the way the photo
was originally taken, that'sokay.
You're creating here.
I personally like to make thephotos look as much as how I saw
(34:32):
them in the moment as possible.
So sometimes they come into thecamera without sharpness,
without contrast, really not theway I remember seeing them.
Some of the times, you know, Iwill be in these amazing
landscape scenes and I'll justhave this euphoric feeling,
watching this exquisite sunsetand you know all sorts of things
going on that makes me feel sogood that I I I remember the
(34:53):
scene being so much more magicalthan the photo actually
captured it.
So, yeah, I will absolutelyedit and make that photo look
fantastic.
So there's no real wrong way toedit on these things and, I do
think, defining your own style,whether you like really warm
photos or cool photos.
If you are the kind of personthat wants to have a certain
color palette to all of yourphotos, maybe injecting a little
(35:16):
bit of teals or oranges, that'sa okay, I think, one of the
best ways to all of your photos,maybe injecting a little bit of
teals or oranges, that's a-okay.
I think one of the best ways toreally define your style and to
see what's out there is justget on Google type amazing
landscape photos and hit imagesand just start cycling through
all these things but actuallyvisualizing stuff and seeing
what's out there and starting tonotice oh, I didn't even really
(35:36):
notice that they did thiscertain technique that Court was
talking about, but once you seeit in these examples, it's
gonna be all the more clear asto why you need to start
incorporating it into your ownpro level landscape photography.
And there you have it, folks apretty extensive dive into how
the pros get extraordinarylandscape photos.
We're talking about aperture,big depths of field, low ISOs
(36:00):
for great quality and greateditability.
Make sure you get out there ata really unique time of day.
Do some research to figure outare there interesting phenomena
going on?
Or maybe is a storm approachingand you found this really,
really great vista or vantagepoint that would just be
exquisite with some big billowyclouds.
Make sure you nail thosecomposition techniques.
And, as a quick aside, it'salways better to shoot a little
(36:22):
bit wider than a little bit morezoomed in, because you do have
that ability to straighten yourshots.
You have that ability to cropinto the rule of thirds and make
sure your photo matches as bestas possible.
And yeah, just think about allthose outside the box things.
The more things you canincorporate, like amazing
foreground elements,extraordinary things like
wildflower blooms or waterfallsor anything that is a big X
(36:45):
factor in terms of somethingthat's gonna put your landscape
photo in front of people andsend it over the top, the more
you can add in, the better yourshot's gonna be.
But individually, these are allthe ingredients.
You just gotta figure out whatis gonna go into your cake, and
by cake I mean photo.
Okay, folks.
Well, once again, this is great, always a pleasure.
(37:06):
I hope you learned somethingand thanks so much for joining
Friends.
I really do appreciate youlistening in today.
This is absolutely a passionproject of mine.
I hope you can tell, and I'm soglad to be able to teach so
many about what I personallyfind the most valuable and
helpful in the world of naturephotography.
It's a big part of my why topreserve the beauty of our world
(37:27):
.
If you'd like to get in touchwith me, you can do so at
wildphotographerpodcast atgmailcom.
You can give me questions andsuggestions for new episodes
anything you'd like.
You can also check out otherrelated tutorials related to
this content, as well as a lotmore in the world of science,
nature and adventure at myYouTube channel that's just at
(37:48):
Court Whalen.
That's all one wordC-O-U-R-T-W-H-E-L-A-N on YouTube
, and I've got some nifty videosthere.
It's been fun and lookingforward to the next podcast.
Thanks again.
When you see an extraordinary landscape shot,
you just know it.
It's like less than a secondand you know it's something
special.
It's a special angle, time ofday, an awesome set of colors.
It's maybe something youhaven't quite seen before in
that way, or if you have seen itbefore, you pretty much
instantly know it's one of themost special portrayals of this
(00:20):
scene you've ever seen.
So what is it that makes thisso special?
Well, I alluded to a couple ofthe key ingredients, but there's
so much more, and how youcombine these things, how you
look for them and how youcapture them in camera is gonna
be the subject of today'spodcast.
So join me, folks.
Here we go.
Before we get into it, I wantedto give a quick shout out to an
(00:56):
awesome company that Ipartnered with to help support
this podcast, and that's LensRentals.
Lensrentalscom I've been usingLens Rentals for years now and
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It's an amazing resource.
I highly highly recommendrenting lenses from time to time
(01:26):
, whether it's renting somethingbefore you buy it, to see if
you really really think thatthat lens is going to be helpful
, or kind of splurging a littlebit and before your next nature
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It's just, it's kind of likethe apple of lens rental
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(01:47):
They've got return shippingboxes and labels and they even
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It's just, it's amazing.
It takes a lot of the thoughtout of it.
They're super professional.
So, yeah, I'm partly just doingthis because I think it's an
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Cool stuff.
(02:07):
When you initially walk up on alandscape scene you want to
photograph, you're probablythinking about focus first and
foremost.
I know I do and I think a lotof people do.
It's not wrong.
But the key thing is don'toverthink about focus, not so
much that it's not reallyimportant.
Overthink about focus, not somuch that it's not really
important.
It's huge, it's like one of themost important things in
(02:28):
photography.
But it's very, very simple forlandscape photography, and if
you think first and foremost andonly about focus, you're going
to miss out on like 10 or 11other really key ingredients
that honestly make it even moreimportant.
Obviously, if your shot's notin focus, if you don't have the
right hyper focus or the rightdepth of field, it's going to
look off.
(02:48):
But the point is is that thereare so many other things beyond
focus that this first thing thatwe usually think about is
definitely not the be all endall.
But that being said, let's talkabout focus.
So you do want to have a widedepth of field, and what I'm
talking about here is a smallaperture or a big F number.
These are all the same thingswe're talking about F8, f11,
(03:10):
maybe even F16.
But where to focus is probablyequally important.
So let's get one of the morecomplicated things right out of
the way is you've got a biglandscape scene.
It's relatively uniform.
It's a meadow, it's mountainsand it's a sunset.
Let's just say those threeelements foreground, midground,
background, right, sunset's.
The furthest mountain is themidground and then the meadow
(03:31):
with, let's just say, somewildflowers, is the foreground.
You want it all in focus Ifthose wildflowers are, you know,
blurred, mildly blurred or wayblurred, not going to look good.
Same thing with a mountain andthe sunset less consequential,
but we still want definition inthose clouds.
If it was blurred it wouldn'tlook quite right.
So where do you focus?
Well, in comes this terminology,this concept of hyper focus,
(03:55):
and if you Google this online,you're going to see some really,
really complicated equationsabout how to calculate hyper
focus, and it takes into accountthe focal length of your lens,
about how to calculatehyperfocus, and it takes into
account the focal length of yourlens, how distant you are to
the foreground, mid, ground andbackground, and a few other
things as well, like goshaperture, even shutter speed,
just crazy stuff.
You can see where I'm gettingat.
Don't think about all thatstuff, don't worry about it.
(04:17):
I'm gonna give you a really,really simple trick right here
is to achieve hyperfocus.
Even if you did all thosecalculations, pretty much each
and every time, you're going toland on this focus about one
third of the way into the scene.
Okay, I'm gonna say it againfocus for landscape photography,
about one third of the way intothe scene to get maximum depth
(04:37):
of field and to get just abouteverything intact, sharp focus
that you could possibly hope for.
Now.
There's a mild exception if youhave a very strong foreground
element and you're doing somecreative artsy stuff here.
But the point is, for the vastmajority of landscape shots, we
just want everything in focusand this is the way, in
combination with a greataperture of F8, f11, or F16,
(05:00):
that you're going to get as muchin focus as possible.
Now, since we broached the topicof camera settings and we're
talking about aperture, I'd beremiss if I didn't also mention
shutter speed and ISO at thispoint.
So when you are getting thosebig F numbers, as you may or may
not know, you're going to befaced with light limitation
because as you go higher andhigher in number, your aperture
(05:22):
closes down more and more andlimits the amount of light
getting into your camera sensor.
So this is where we usually seepeople with tripods.
Right, because what happens isyou, you do want a low ISO.
This is going to give you thebest clarity, definition,
quality of shot.
So, like ISO 100, iso 200 is ispretty important for the best,
(05:42):
like best, best landscape shots.
Not only is it going to lookbetter, but it's also going to
be the most editable.
We'll get to that at the end ofthis talk about how to process
and edit these shots.
But what does that leave you?
Well, in this golden triangleof aperture, iso and shutter
speed, if you know you want twoof the three at very specific
settings, it's your shutterspeed that usually just is a
(06:03):
consequence of the other,meaning you don't want to have
to worry about your shutterspeeds.
This is why we usually seetripods, especially in lower
light, like sunrise, sunset,landscape photography, because
you may.
If you're setting your cameraon F16 and ISO 100, you may find
that your shutter speed is onesecond or one tenth of a second,
(06:24):
even one twentieth of a second.
I really don't advocatehandholding.
So, as a result, tripod isreally quite a nice tool to have
for great landscape photography, and I can almost promise you,
if you're marveling at alandscape photo as your desktop
background, that youautomatically got populated by
your, by your computer'soperating system, or if you're
(06:44):
seeing a screensaver that'sautomatically on there, or all
of these stock photos of thebest landscape shots in the
world, I'm pretty sureeverybody's shooting on a tripod
.
Because you just don't want toworry about being handheld, you
want to prioritize ISO 100 or200, aperture of F8, f11 or F16,
and then just deal withwhatever shutter speed comes
your way.
(07:05):
Okay, now we're moving on fromcamera settings.
We're going to talk about moreof the je ne sais quoi, more of
like the gosh, you really had tobe there, sort of element of
things, and this does come downto finding a fantastic time of
day.
I think that a huge part of thebest and again we're not
talking about good landscapephotography or great landscape
photography you can makelemonade out of anything in
(07:27):
front of you, and you'veprobably listened to other
episodes I have on just maintenets of great landscape
photography.
We're talking today about howto get the best, how to get the
pro level shots, and reallycomes down to finding a time of
day that is really quite special.
The time of day may be specialbecause nobody else is seeing
that landscape at that time ofday.
So even if someone's seeingthat mountain scene that they've
(07:49):
seen a thousand times before,they're going to look at it as
really special because you shotat an arduous time of day at the
blue hour, at twilight, at thegolden hour.
You know, when I say arduous, Ijust mean you're going the
extra mile.
So what are those times of day.
Let's rattle them off, listthem off right here, right now.
So the no brainer is sunriseand sunset.
(08:11):
It's when the light is lowestangle.
That low angle also filtersthrough a little bit more
atmosphere and usually you getmore of a golden angular light.
It just looks really darn good.
So sunrise, sunset, you know,the first we're talking about
like first, minutes after thesun rises or minutes at just
before the sun sets.
Obviously it's subjective.
(08:32):
You might find that you have 20minutes or even an hour um
before, after, et cetera, etcetera, but that that
technically gets into slightlydifferent times of day.
So this category is sunrise andsunset.
But that does beg the questionwhat about just after sunset or
before sunrise, like the dawnand dusk time?
So we call this in photographythe blue hour.
(08:52):
I've done a whole episode onnothing but photographing the
blue hour, so I definitelyrecommend checking that out.
But it's essentially the 20 or30 minutes after the sun has
literally gone down below thehorizon and what this does is it
sets a really really nice bluehue in the sky.
This is definitely tripodterritory, but it's an
extraordinary time to get somereally really cool sky color
(09:16):
which then translates to reallythe overall color palette of
your scene.
So blue hour is awesome.
We normally think of blue hourafter sun sets because it's like
more convenient, you can getblue hour on awesome.
We normally think of blue hourafter sun sets because it's like
more convenient, um you, youcan get blue hour.
On the flip side, like an hourbefore or, let's say, the 20 or
30 minutes before sunrise, alittle bit more difficult to be
there and time it a little moredifficult to hike out to the
(09:37):
spot or set up your shot in thedark.
So usually after sunset is morecommon blue hour.
But let me take that as amoment to say you know what, if
it's more common, more peoplehave seen it, more people have
photographed it and it's goingto be less special, it's going
to be less pro worthy.
So you know, if you have thechutzpah, get out there before
sunrise, an hour before sunriseto scout out, set up your shot
(09:58):
and get that dawn blue hour,because it's those difference
makers that well, gosh makes thedifference.
So blue hour awesome time.
Now, uh, an easier time of dayand this is a time that a lot of
portrait photographers like touse, maybe if you are doing a
slight portraiture element ofyour landscape photography,
meaning if you do have a reallycool subject or feature like a
(10:20):
tree or a rock or a waterfall,and it's the golden hour.
The golden hour, again, wetypically think of it as the
hour or so before sunset.
As that sun goes down an angle,it definitely turns more yellow
, more golden, more orange, onthe warmer tone.
You're going to get this at theflip side of the day, so in the
morning as well, but again,that evening hour is probably
(10:41):
most common and the golden houris fantastic.
It casts this really, reallynice golden light on everything
that you can capture in yourcamera and do nothing with, and
it gives this beautiful warmtone.
In addition, as we'll learnlater in the episode, is as you
start editing these colors andboosting the warm with a little
bit of a warming filter or likea warming white balance, and it
(11:01):
just makes it that much moredreamy, that much more
captivating.
When you increase thesaturation of an already
saturated scene or increase thewarming white balance of an
already warm scene, you get alot of room to play with is the
basic gist I'm getting at.
So these are really good timesof day.
Let's talk about a time that isa little bit more stochastic, a
(11:22):
little bit more just capture inthe moment, and it's like storms
and weather.
So storms bring in amazingclouds, big billowy cumulonimbus
and all sorts of really coolwispy cirrus clouds.
So anytime storms, wind, comethrough, if you want to elevate
your landscape photography, it'sa really, really good time to
(11:43):
get out and go check places out.
Now the thing is is thatusually in a storm A, you're
going to, you know, be in thestorm yourself, so scouting out
a place is going to be really,really helpful ahead of time.
And then, when you know that,oh gosh, if a storm comes in,
this is the shot I want, becausethis landscape is going to lend
itself to amazing clouds Getout there during storms.
Be safe.
(12:04):
Of course, you know, on therims of canyons like Grand
Canyon and Bryce Canyon, it'squite dangerous because these
lightning storms come throughand you're at a high point.
So, goodness gracious, becareful when you're out there.
But also realize that stormsprovide some amazing, amazing
atmosphere and helps elevateyour landscape photography to
that pro level.
A common theme you're going tohear throughout the day is that
(12:26):
the more of these things youcombine, the more pro level it
is.
So I'm going to continue withthis list.
We've got a lot more things totalk about.
So keep in mind that time ofday and some sort of moodiness
whether it's that bright goldenhour or it's moody from, uh,
ominous clouds that's a checkboxyou want to put on your list
(12:48):
with everything else I'm aboutto talk about here.
Composition is super critical.
Well, to all photography, butespecially to landscape
photography, because thereusually isn't a real dominant
subject, or if there is, it'snot as dominant as, like,
wildlife portraiture.
Another thing that I've talkedat length about on this podcast
composition.
You know you can read books oncomposition.
(13:08):
I'm going to distill this downinto sort of my three favorite
composition techniques.
The first, of course, is ruleof thirds.
You probably heard this azillion times, but I've got to
mention it here because it'sit's always my starting point, a
hundred percent of the time mystarting point and, I would say,
for the vast majority ofphotographers out there, 90% of
the time their ending point too.
There, there isn't a need to gotoo much beyond this, but of
(13:31):
course I'll give some examplesas to how and when.
But rule of thirds basically,you break your scene down in the
thirds instead of halves orquarters.
Uh, the human eye, human brain,really likes these thirds.
Imagine a tic-tac-toe boardover your scene and break your
scene with the sky, mountainsand foreground into thirds, top
to bottom.
Break it left to right as well.
Again, a common theme forlandscape photography is the
(13:54):
more layers you can add on withcomplexity, meaning if you have
a great top to bottom rulethirds going on in your scene,
then also, look, how can I alsomake this a left to right rule
of thirds, or right to left.
You know how can I break itinto vertical components too.
Maybe the tallest mountain ison the left and then there's a
valley in the middle and then amidsize mountain on the right.
You know, break it into as manyways to employ the rule of
(14:17):
thirds as possible.
Also, think about thoseintersecting points.
This is a really really commonstrategy for wildlife
photography or portraitphotography, where there's a
single dominant character in thescene.
You want to put that personoff-center.
So the main focal point, likethat person or that animal's
eyes, is right over one of thefour intersecting points.
(14:38):
What do I mean by intersectingpoints?
Well, if you have thattic-tac-toe board, there are
four places where those linescross one another.
That's where you're going towant to have something of
significance.
So one of the tricks I'm aboutto tell you about is, with
landscape photography, is tochoose some sort of focal point
or some sort of foregroundelement.
That is a really, really greatplace to put that foreground
(15:00):
element is at one of thoseintersecting points.
So if you're using andemploying the rule of thirds in
every which way, it's just goingto be more and more layers,
more stacking the deck in yourfavor to get a bodacious
landscape shot.
Now the next thing is aniteration of the rule of thirds
that I've learned aboutrelatively recently, the last
few years, and it's called thephi grid, p-h-i, the phi grid,
(15:22):
and it's basically the rule ofthirds, but it's actually a
little bit more attuned to theFibonacci sequence or the golden
ratio, which is something thatI'm not actually going to talk
about here.
You can tune into mycomposition podcast to learn
more about that.
But basically what it does isit breaks the rule of thirds.
You know similar ratios, butit's actually as if you squeezed
(15:43):
the lines a little bit moretowards the center of the frame,
meaning it's not exactly equal.
From left to right it's alittle bit bigger, on the left.
It's a little bit skinnier inthe middle and a little bit
bigger on the right, such thatthe left and the right are equal
, but that middle column is alittle bit more reduced.
Same thing from top to bottom.
So again, it's as if you tookthat tic-tac-toe, those two
(16:04):
lines left and right, those twolines top and bottom, and just
squishing towards the middle.
Now, the reason to think aboutthis isn't because you now need
to go affix a five grid on topof your, your camera's
viewfinder, but when you aresetting up that scene and you
put that subject in the deadmiddle of one of those
intersecting points of the gridof the actual rule of thirds
(16:25):
grid, play around with maybeputting it slightly inside, a
little bit more towards themiddle, because there are some
laws of aesthetics.
With this Fibonacci sequence, avery common mathematical
principle, there's a laws ofaesthetics.
With this Fibonacci sequence, avery common mathematical
principle, there's a rule ofaesthetics that says it might
look a little bit better towardsthe middle of the scene.
I'm going to end there and notsay much more, because that's
(16:46):
really all you need to know inthis big overview episode, but
there's something to it.
Now.
The next one is again, if we'retalking about layers, we're
talking about multiple ways youcan make your landscape shots
better and better and better.
Try to incorporate leadinglines.
Now, the thing here is thatthey work really well on their
own and they work really reallywell in concert with the rule of
(17:08):
thirds or the five grid, andthe leading line is basically
some sort of dominant line inthe scene.
Since we're talking aboutlandscape shots, we're usually
thinking about something innature a curving river, a branch
of a tree, the triangle outlineof a mountain, and just think
about how those lines, thoseedges of natural features, are
(17:28):
leading your eyes in a certaindirection.
So you know, and a greatexample could be, if there's a
tree on the left hand side andthere's lateral branches,
horizontal branches, like, let'ssay, a fir tree extending out
to the right, completely flat,those could be leading lines
into a meadow to the right.
If you're really trying to drawthe eye towards a certain part
(17:49):
of the scene, leading lines area very, very good way to do it.
Now, leading lines withoutanything to point to aren't all
that powerful, but you'd besurprised the artistic
impression you can reallyconjure up with leading lines,
meaning that they're going tolead to something in the scene.
But the more you can put theseleading lines, the more you can
find leading lines in naturethat really direct the viewer's
(18:12):
eye towards a dominant part ofthe scene a river that snakes
around and points to a mountain,a mountain that points in a
triangle like an arrow up to thesun or up to a really amazing
colorful cloud.
These lines are gonna reallyagain just pump steroids into
all these different elementswe're talking about to make your
landscape shot better andbetter and better.
(18:33):
So leading lines are reallyreally great thing to think
about.
Now, one thing I'm going to kindof throw around here is that so
many of the best landscapescenes do not have real flat
horizon lines.
Even if you are adhering to therule of thirds really nicely
and you're putting that horizonline at the bottom third and
(18:53):
leaving two thirds of sky,usually, especially with
mountain scenes, meadow scenes,pretty much anything but beach
scenes you're probably going toget some blending right, like
that mid ground is going to, isgoing to jag into the background
or the foreground, like you're.
You're not going to have asmooth line between each section
(19:14):
, but I want you to think abouthow much sky, how much
mid-ground and how muchforeground you have in those
rule thirds.
But also look for elements thatmesh those thirds together,
meaning maybe the mountain sceneis indeed in that middle third,
but there's a huge mountain ora big tree that breaks into that
sky third.
Those things are gonna reallybring the scene together and
(19:37):
make it less exact.
I don't see a lot of sceneswhere you could put a rule of
thirds grid over and everysingle thing has its own
delineation, its own separationin that scene.
A lot of times the elements ofthe landscape mix a little bit.
That river kind of goes betweenone and two of the thirds, or
(19:58):
the upper third and lower third.
The tree kind of breaks intolike a jagged line, into the
upper third even though itstarts in the bottom third.
So look for elements to helpbring things together and make
that line a little bit lessexact between your composition
of your photo.
A really good way to start outtaking landscape shots is to
center them around some sort offoreground element.
A really good way to start outtaking landscape shots is to
(20:19):
center them around some sort offoreground element.
A foreground element could bejust about anything you find in
nature, whether it's a largerock or boulder, it could be a
specific wildflower, it could bea tree, it could be even a
smaller mountain range of a verybig mountain range in the
background.
But I find it really, reallyhelps to have something that the
(20:39):
eyes of the viewer can affix toright away, and usually that's
the thing closest to them.
So if I'm looking at a photo,my eyes are naturally going to
go towards the thing that isclosest to me, which is going to
be that meadow in front of themountain, it's going to be that
seashell in front of the beach.
So if you find a dominantforeground element, I really do
like to make it quite prominentin my scene.
(21:01):
But what this does is this thiskind of flips the page a little
bit on how to focus and whereto focus.
Because if you do have adominant foreground element like
a boulder right in front of you, you can't not have that in
focus, like that needs to be infocus.
So if you focus on that even atF8 or F11, if you're really
close to that rock or that tree,the background might get a
(21:23):
little bit blurred.
So what do you do?
Well, you want to do your bestto give yourself space between
you and the foreground element.
In other words, you want thatthing to be in the scene but you
don't want it to be rightunderneath your nose.
You want to give it 10, 20, 30feet of distance.
This might even require you usea telephoto lens we're going to
get to that in a second as areally, really good strategy for
(21:45):
next level pro landscape shots.
But you do want to give alittle bit of space.
Because of this ratio, if youare right next to your subject
and then your subject is way inthe background, it's gonna be
blurred.
The background's gonna beblurred no matter what F number
you have.
You can go all the way to F22,it's still gonna be blurred.
So you wanna give a little bitof space.
Exactly how much space is apretty complicated equation.
(22:06):
This is a great time toexperiment a little bit.
But again, you do wanna give itmany, many feet.
Step back quite a ways.
Put that foreground element inthe frame as that bottom third.
You know like we're talkingabout with foreground, but just
give it so that there's a littlebit more distance between you
and the subject, so that subjectis a little bit closer to the
background, and that's going tohelp tremendously with the depth
(22:28):
of field issue we're talkingabout.
It's going to make it soeverything is indeed in focus.
Okay now, the penultimate thingwe're going to talk about here,
before we get into a little bitdeeper dive into post-processing
and editing of pro landscapeshots, is we're going to talk
about thinking outside the box.
What are the things that youcan be doing that you possible?
Because this is gonna be whatgets your landscape shot to look
(23:01):
different and jump out of thepage and be something that
people have never seen before,and really stop scrolling and
pay attention to what you have.
Stop navigating websites, stopflipping the magazine and really
take a look at your art.
So the first thing I alluded toalready is something I use very
, very often for my next levellandscape shots is a look at
your art.
So the first thing I alluded toalready is something I use very
, very often for my next levellandscape shots is a telephoto
(23:22):
lens.
So many people right out thebox think, oh, if I wanna make
my landscape shot even better,I'm not gonna use my normal lens
, my wide angle, I'm gonna go toan ultra wide, because it's
gonna get way more of thelandscape in the scene.
Yeah, there's totally astrategy here and I'm not going
to discourage you.
But I will tell you that atelephoto lens can work absolute
(23:45):
wonders for your landscapeshots.
If you don't believe me, go tryit out.
When I'm talking about atelephoto, I mean something
between like a one and 300millimeter.
You can, of course, use a 400,500 millimeter.
These are comparable to like asix to 10 times zoom, more or
less.
You can use those bigger zooms,but really what I'm talking
about is like two to six timeszoom.
Here is like a 100 millimeter.
(24:07):
A 300 millimeter, um, like my70 to 200 is one of my favorite
landscape lenses out therebecause, well, it allows me to
do a few things.
One is it allows me to see thescene differently and again, I
keep hampering on this, but it'ssuper important is you have to
see and portray scenesdifferently to get them to
really stand out and get peopleto pay attention and say, ooh
(24:28):
huh, look at that.
I've seen maroon bells before,but I've never seen it that way.
You know that's what we'retalking about here.
So something like a little bitof telephoto can be a different
look, a different way of seeinga landscape scene.
This is not a requisite forevery time you use a telephoto
in landscape.
But it also allows you to dowhat's called zoom compression,
(24:49):
and this is a really awesometechnique.
Probably the most well-knownand famous way to use zoom
compression is anytime you seethose scenes with a huge moon in
the background and like theAcropolis on a hill or some sort
of you know a temple or abuilding, and then that huge
moon is behind it and you say,golly, that is that looks fake,
it's Photoshopped.
(25:09):
Well, it might be, but youactually can do it in camera
quite well, and what you'redoing is you're standing quite
far away from that building,from that temple, from that tree
, with the moon behind it, butthen as you zoom in with a big
beefy telephoto, it's makingeverything big.
It's making the temple big, soit looks as if you're standing
right in front of it, and makesthe moon big as if you're
(25:32):
standing right in front of it.
So basically, what it does isit brings the background and
foreground a little bit closerin size and it just makes this
really, really interesting lookwhere something behind your
foreground element can take onan otherworldly size and appeal.
This works really well formountains.
You can make a mountainsidelook like Mount Everest.
(25:55):
Basically, you can fill theframe with just part of the
mountainside, with a wildflowerin the foreground, or with a
meadow in the foreground or ariver in the foreground, and
this is all done by standingquite a bit far away from the
scene you're photographing butthen using that telephoto to
zoom into it and cropping it,basically composing it just like
you would a wide angle, but youuse a telephoto and get
(26:15):
yourself away from that verysame seam.
It's a really, really awesometechnique.
And then other things you knowwe've already mentioned this,
but an exquisite sunrise, youknow, adding this in for
something outside the box, awildflower bloom, doing your
research and figuring out whenare interesting phenomena going
on, when is this desert bloomgoing to happen?
You know, when is the AuroraBorealis going to happen?
(26:37):
All that sort of stuff.
These are things that are reallynext level awesomeness that if
you can get them in yourlandscape scene, it's just going
to send them over the top.
A waterfall in a sensationallandscape, a crazy perspective,
like getting half in the waterand half out of the water, or
getting your tripod just abovethe water's edge, so you're
actually photographing a littlebit of the hazy water on top,
(26:59):
maybe a supreme aerial shot, youknow, just an incredible top
down.
You're in a plane you're in abush plane across Alaska or
across Africa and you're gettingjust a perspective that people
don't see before.
Now, again, with any of thesethings I just rattled off, if
you do them without any of theseother tactics, without thinking
about composition, withoutthinking about the lighting,
(27:21):
without thinking about theaperture, you're probably not
going to get a pro level shot.
But if you create check boxesof all of these things, you're
going to start noticing thatwhen you layer them on top of
one another and incorporate themall, you're going to get that
pro level look.
So we've now come to the timewhere we talk about
post-processing, the editing ofyour photos.
This is getting more and moreimportant in today's day and age
(27:43):
.
Ironically, in some ways it'sgetting less important because
cameras and lenses are gettingso dang good.
We don't really have to sharpenanything, we don't really have
to add contrast, because if youhave really good equipment, it's
just looking so good out of thecamera.
The reason it's more importantto do this is because sounds
(28:05):
weird to say it's becauseeverybody's doing it, when you
see the exquisite landscapephotos of Iceland or of auroras
or whatever.
You're photographing mountainscenes and you're comparing your
shots with pros.
Even if you do all these checkboxes, the reason that their
photos are going to look moreeye popping, more dramatic, more
special than yours is becausethey have edited their photo.
So what are they doing withtheir editing?
(28:26):
Well, this is by no means anextensive editing course, but I
do want to give you a few ideas.
Mainly, they're always going tobe using masks with gradients
and ellipses, meaning thatthey're probably not going to be
changing the sharpness or thecontrast of the whole scene.
They're not going to increaseor decrease the exposure of the
entire scene.
(28:47):
You kind of want to, you know,make light coming from a certain
direction left to right or thetop corner to the bottom corner.
I've seen other photographersmake a little bit of a sandwich
with some of their contrast,with some of their darkness,
meaning the top of the scene isa little bit darker, the bottom
of the scene is a little bitdarker, and that actually has
its own way of leading your eyesinto the middle of the scene.
(29:08):
So these masks with gradientsare hugely helpful in Photoshop
and Lightroom primarilyLightroom, but I use Adobe
Camera Raw, which is kind oflike an intermediary program
between Adobe Bridge andPhotoshop, but it's the same as
Lightroom.
But I use Adobe Camera Raw,which is kind of like an
intermediary program betweenAdobe Bridge and Photoshop, but
it's the same as Lightroom.
But gradients are huge.
And then what you're going tobe changing with the gradient
gradient is really just a way ofapplying a very specific amount
(29:30):
of your editing technique in agradient.
The editing technique you'regoing to be using, I would say
exposure, is always one to thinkabout.
A lot of photographers willbarely touch exposure because
it's a very dramatic, heavyhanded way of editing a photo,
and they'll touch more on thewhites and the blacks and the
contrast.
Contrast is really justincreasing lights and decreasing
(29:52):
darks at the same time.
But then also, you're going towant to think about the color of
your shot, and white balance issomething I've talked about at
length on this podcast and otherplatforms, and you really want
to think about changing thecolor temperature of your shot.
You know, if you arephotographing at the blue hour,
you can add a little more of acool white balance, like a
daylight effect, and that willadd more blue in your shot If
(30:14):
you're photographing a greatsunset or a sunrise, and it's
already inherently quite yellow.
Like I said earlier, is itboosting that via a little bit
more warming filter, ie a cloudyor a shady white balance?
It's just gonna.
It's gonna be able to hold itmuch better, like the photo will
not start to look fake becauseyou're already shooting on a
really, really nice, warm tone.
(30:35):
So, yeah, white balance is huge, but then also, sometimes you
might wanna saturate your colors.
I will say that, betweensaturation and vibrance, like
every color slider, whetheryou're on like a Mac photo
program or one of the free onesonline for PCs, or all the way
up to a proper Photoshop andLightroom, you're gonna have
these two options right next toone another, and you're probably
(30:58):
gonna to want to touch one orthe other a little bit.
Generally, saturation is theheavy-handed one.
It's just going to saturateevery color more.
Vibrance, though, is kind of asmart saturation, so it
saturates the colors, but itgoes easy on those colors that
are most likely to make thephoto look fake, and, frankly,
those are the greens, kind oflike the yellow side of greens
(31:19):
and oranges.
So if you saturate everythingwith saturation slider, you're
gonna notice if you have a lotof greens in your shot, it's
gonna look really messed up.
So I almost never touch fullsaturation like the actual
saturation slider in place.
I'll just uptick the vibrance alittle bit.
And then two of the more newsliders that are kind of like
(31:40):
these meta or combinationsliders that take into multiple
edits all at once is clarity andD haze.
Clarity is really really goodfor kind of bringing more
definition and more pop and more, more chutzpah to to your shot.
People use it for the rippleson water.
You might want to use it forthe edgesipples on water.
You might want to use it forthe edges of a mountain.
(32:00):
And then de-haze does reallyreally well with cutting some of
that atmospheric haze that maybe distracting Sometimes.
It's actually really reallynice in landscape shots but it
does make your photo pop more.
And de-haze is something that II use not only on landscape
shots but sometimes, if I justdon't know what a photo needs, I
(32:21):
might uptick the dehaze alittle bit because it really
focuses on increasing thedominance and the saturation of
the blacks in your photo.
But it also does some otherthings that have to do with
sharpening and clarity and allsorts of stuff.
But it really is one of thesecatch-all, be-all, end-all type
edits that's just like oh, allof a sudden my photo looks
(32:41):
dramatic and Dehaze is reallynice for that.
Now, when I do this, usuallywhat I'm doing is I'm selecting
either the sky or the backgroundor my subject first, and I'm
making my edits that way, usinggradients and ellipses.
When I'm making my edits, I'mprobably gonna click on the
slider with my mouse or with mytrackpad, and my technique is
(33:03):
really to slide it all the wayto extremes right off the bat.
That means if one of my sliders, like exposure or contrast or
clarity, is starting at zero,I'm gonna slide it all the way
to 100.
And as I'm sliding it prettyquickly, I'm taking notice of
whether it's improving or makingthe photo worse.
So I'm obviously never going togo all the way to a hundred on
(33:26):
any of these things.
You know, shadows is anothergreat one to play around with,
but what it does is it quicklyallows me to figure out if
contrast or shadows or clarityor dehaze is the thing I need to
focus on, and then, once I likethe effects, I'm going to go in
and make really small microadjustments and I might only go
one or two units, or five or 10units at a time and just make
(33:48):
small, sensible adjustments.
And I'm going to get to thepoint where it's over-correcting
, it's over-editing, and thenI'm going to go back quite a bit
.
I don't want it to evenapproach that level, so editing,
and then I'm going to go backquite a bit.
I don't want it to evenapproach that level.
So, again, going from zero to ahundred real quickly in the
sliders.
It's so easy.
It happens in real time to yourphoto.
You can see the effects.
It's a really, really helpfultool to quickly experiment with
(34:09):
these various editing techniquesto find, you know, your own
style and the things that youlike the look of most.
At the end of the day, this isart.
So even if you are editing tomake it look a little bit
different or quite a bitdifferent than the way the photo
was originally taken, that'sokay.
You're creating here.
I personally like to make thephotos look as much as how I saw
(34:32):
them in the moment as possible.
So sometimes they come into thecamera without sharpness,
without contrast, really not theway I remember seeing them.
Some of the times, you know, Iwill be in these amazing
landscape scenes and I'll justhave this euphoric feeling,
watching this exquisite sunsetand you know all sorts of things
going on that makes me feel sogood that I I I remember the
(34:53):
scene being so much more magicalthan the photo actually
captured it.
So, yeah, I will absolutelyedit and make that photo look
fantastic.
So there's no real wrong way toedit on these things and, I do
think, defining your own style,whether you like really warm
photos or cool photos.
If you are the kind of personthat wants to have a certain
color palette to all of yourphotos, maybe injecting a little
(35:16):
bit of teals or oranges, that'sa okay, I think, one of the
best ways to all of your photos,maybe injecting a little bit of
teals or oranges, that's a-okay.
I think one of the best ways toreally define your style and to
see what's out there is justget on Google type amazing
landscape photos and hit imagesand just start cycling through
all these things but actuallyvisualizing stuff and seeing
what's out there and starting tonotice oh, I didn't even really
(35:36):
notice that they did thiscertain technique that Court was
talking about, but once you seeit in these examples, it's
gonna be all the more clear asto why you need to start
incorporating it into your ownpro level landscape photography.
And there you have it, folks apretty extensive dive into how
the pros get extraordinarylandscape photos.
We're talking about aperture,big depths of field, low ISOs
(36:00):
for great quality and greateditability.
Make sure you get out there ata really unique time of day.
Do some research to figure outare there interesting phenomena
going on?
Or maybe is a storm approachingand you found this really,
really great vista or vantagepoint that would just be
exquisite with some big billowyclouds.
Make sure you nail thosecomposition techniques.
And, as a quick aside, it'salways better to shoot a little
(36:22):
bit wider than a little bit morezoomed in, because you do have
that ability to straighten yourshots.
You have that ability to cropinto the rule of thirds and make
sure your photo matches as bestas possible.
And yeah, just think about allthose outside the box things.
The more things you canincorporate, like amazing
foreground elements,extraordinary things like
wildflower blooms or waterfallsor anything that is a big X
(36:45):
factor in terms of somethingthat's gonna put your landscape
photo in front of people andsend it over the top, the more
you can add in, the better yourshot's gonna be.
But individually, these are allthe ingredients.
You just gotta figure out whatis gonna go into your cake, and
by cake I mean photo.
Okay, folks.
Well, once again, this is great, always a pleasure.
(37:06):
I hope you learned somethingand thanks so much for joining
Friends.
I really do appreciate youlistening in today.
This is absolutely a passionproject of mine.
I hope you can tell, and I'm soglad to be able to teach so
many about what I personallyfind the most valuable and
helpful in the world of naturephotography.
It's a big part of my why topreserve the beauty of our world
(37:27):
.
If you'd like to get in touchwith me, you can do so at
wildphotographerpodcast atgmailcom.
You can give me questions andsuggestions for new episodes
anything you'd like.
You can also check out otherrelated tutorials related to
this content, as well as a lotmore in the world of science,
nature and adventure at myYouTube channel that's just at
(37:48):
Court Whalen.
That's all one wordC-O-U-R-T-W-H-E-L-A-N on YouTube
, and I've got some nifty videosthere.
It's been fun and lookingforward to the next podcast.
Thanks again.
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