For a while now, I have been a big fan of the videos that Tony and Chelsea Northrup put together. Their channel is a wealth of knowledge that I visit many times. This particular video, one of their most recent, is one I found to be particularly helpful.
We are now up to episode 10 in our behind-the-scenes adventures with Elia Locardi. After photographing some of the most beautiful locations in Italy, it was time to travel from Europe to the Middle East.
Landscape photography is one of the most accessible genres of photography. As long as you don’t live in the middle of a city or sprawling suburb, it’s easy to just go outside and start shooting. I was always drawn to the natural world, so landscape photography was an easy path for me, but sometimes, the most rewarding shots are well off the beaten trail.
Shooting landscape photography is not only fun but very therapeutic. The act of planning and capturing, the peace of the surrounding scenery, and the thrill of success all help your overall well-being in a way that makes photography a very effective way to uplift your spirits.
Sure, I dig gear reviews, image processing tutorials, and seeing what others are doing with photography just as much as the next person, but today I want to talk about something a little less tangible yet possibly the most important thing when it comes to landscape photography: how does the location feel?
When you drag all your photography gear to a location, do you ever feel a certain pressure to come away with a shot? Certainly, we all want the time and effort we put into each shoot to pay off, but sometimes, it's detrimental to try to force a shot that isn't there.
I recently had the opportunity to catch up with a photographer I follow who shared his wonderful story with me about how he got where he is today. A lot of us have been told we take great photos somewhere along the way and dreamed of making a living off simply taking good photos. This doesn't really happen in the real world since you actually need a niche of some sort.
This episode of Critique the Community ended up being our biggest ever with over 500 comments on the submission post. Thank you all for your participation.
If you look at enough landscape photography, it might be easy to become convinced that it's a genre centered around exotic locales and epic scenery. And while it certainly doesn't hurt to have access to beautiful places, there's a lot you can shoot right where you live. This great video shows you how much you can accomplish just shooting near your home.
Yes, you read that title correctly. In this episode of the behind the scenes of “Photographing the World 3,” we face the most disastrous day of filming yet! While Lee was recovering our crashed DJI Mavic in the mountains of Matera, someone on the hiking trail stole our brand new Nikon D500 DSLR and Tamron 18-270mm lens.
It may seem like it was only yesterday, but the upcoming total lunar eclipse is actually the first one in nearly three years. Taking place on the morning of January 31, it will be fully or partially visible to folks living in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and North America. If you are in the United States, the farther north and west you live, the better.
If you're engaged in a genre like landscape photography, the simple truth is that no matter how prepared you are, there are things outside your control that may hamper your ability to get good images. This video is a great reminder that a bit of hard work and perseverance will pay off in the end.
Landscape photography can be difficult in even the best of situations. In his latest video, Thomas Heaton finds himself in less than ideal conditions. He doesn't know the area well and is not sure if he'll be able to find a good composition, the forecast calls for a light snowfall but he ends up in a blizzard, and his van gets stuck in the snow.
If you haven't seen the latest episode of Critique the Community, make sure to check out the new surprise we've added to the series. As an immediate follow up, we're inviting the community to submit their landscape images now for our next round of critique. Make sure to follow the submission rules below to keep your image eligible to be chosen.
One of the toughest personal self-searching processes a photographer will go through is defining their style. Many of us will latch on to a composition or a color palette, sometimes by accident, that isn't really defining but is a part of our learning process as photographers. Eventually we learn what we like or value in a photograph and as we create, this becomes our style.
For landscape photographers, a tripod is essential tool for creating those amazing photos showing the movement of rivers and streams. When the dynamic range of a composition is in the double digits, a sturdy tripod will help to blend bracketed images in post.
In today's behind-the-scenes episode of “Photographing the World,” Elia and the Fstoppers team continue to photograph the ancient city of Matera, Italy. Lee gets abducted by an old man, Elia scouts the city for the best camera location, and I walk for hours in search of food.
I think that it is fair to say that photographers have probably been doing bad things to public lands, popular landmarks, and other natural resources since around the time that the camera was invented. There’s no way to keep ignorant people from acting irresponsibly.
Minimalism is a nuanced animal: if you really nail it, the clarity and sheer power of your expression is palpable, whereas if you miss your mark, the photo looks empty and devoid of meaning. The tough part is that the line between these two is razor thin. This helpful video will discuss what makes a successful minimalistic landscape photograph.
I'm not normally one of those people who audibly expresses my approval or disapproval of whatever movie or YouTube video I'm watching while it's still playing, but this one had me yelling, "yes, thank you!" This superb video makes a point that I think needs to be made much more often.
I realized a while back that I watch a lot of YouTube videos. Sure, I'll kill some time while laughing at something completely idiotic, but most of my time on the website is looking for my next lesson in photography. For me, photography is something that I don't think I will ever stop learning, and it's one of the things I like most about it.
Today the behind-the-scenes series of “Photographing The World 3” continues with Episode 7. In the last three episodes, things have not been going very well for us. The food has been bad, the weather has been worse, and we've been struggling to finish lessons for the tutorial. Luckily, in Episode 7, things start to look up.
You know those tricks that are so brilliant in their simplicity that you smack your head in disbelief when you see them? That was me the first time I saw this. Here's a great way to avoid lens flare and loss of contrast when you're shooting into the sun.
If you have just under an hour to kill then Benjamin Jaworskyj has your back with an epic travel and landscape photography video that's worth the watch. Take a visual tour to the beaches, mountains, and castles that lie tucked away in the German countryside with some landscape photography tips to boot.
The start of a new year is always rife with possibility and plans for self-improvement. Something I intend to accomplish in 2018 is improve my time-lapse photography skill set. As with most self-improvement goals, this will involve a combination of education and practice. For me, the education part of the equation comprises binging YouTube tutorials and inspirational videos.
Thomas Heaton has released his final YouTube video of his trip to Namibia, and it ended on a fantastic note. It shows what landscape photography can be, that for many it's not just creating imagery, but a personal way of learning who they are.
It may be absolutely freezing where you are right now, but that doesn't mean it's not a great time get out and shoot some photos. This great video will give you seven helpful tips and ideas for better winter landscape images.
Astrophotography is a fun genre with a wealth of knowledge that you could easily spend years diving into. Many landscape photographers like to incorporate the night sky into their work and just need a practical understanding of how to process it in single exposures. This great video will show you just how to do that.
Talking about good composition is one of the subtler aspects of image-making, but of course, a composition can make or break a photo. This helpful video will give you six tips for composing better landscape images.
You’re no doubt familiar with these two images since both have served as stock photos placed on every Windows computer. However, the huge difference in the payday for their respective photographers may surprise you.
With Christmas solidly in the rearview mirror and that shiny new camera that Santa brought screaming for some action, it is all on you to shake off that excess holiday cheer and head outside to see how you and your gear performs.
Do you scout out locations before you shoot them or do you just photograph as you happen upon them? This helpful video explores why visiting locations before you shoot them can benefit your landscape work.
Landscape photographers get up early and stay out late. It's all about the light with sunrise and sunset being the ideal times of day to capture images. Thomas Heaton's latest video takes us to the Namib Desert as we watch him search for the perfect shot of the dunes at dawn and dusk.
Tilt-shift lenses are some of the more exotic hunks of glass out there, but they enable some very unique capabilities that simply can't be accomplished with normal lenses. This interesting video shows how their shift capabilities can be used to easily create panoramic images.
We’ve had our first snowfall of the year here in the Netherlands. It’s one of those instances when most people stay indoors, while just about every landscape photographer is aching to feel the snow on their face. One of them is acclaimed British Landscape Photographer Simon Baxter, who I've asked to help me analyze the introvert mind.
One of the curses of modern photography is that nearly every breathtaking place on Earth has been photographed. And while many, many places continue to offer new angles, conditions, and compositions, some of the most famous have been so well documented that it can be tough (if not impossible) to create something truly original.
Every genre of photography has its share of clichés, and while that doesn't necessarily mean you should never shoot certain images, it can restrain your creativity by never forcing you to think outside the box and create a shot more representative of who you are as a photographer. This great video examines recognizing and avoiding clichés in landscape photography.
We all make mistakes when it comes to purchases we make when we're first starting out. As we continue to grow and evolve we continue to make mistakes. Hopefully, our mistakes aren't too financially costly like a camera body or lens that we don't need and never use.
Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between a technically accurate photograph and one that has been modified, enhanced, composited (you pick the word) in order to give it a broader audience appeal. Nature is both stunning and surprising in its raw magnificence which begs the question: why should we mess with it at all in photographs?
As someone who shoots 90 percent of my professional work with wide lenses, it seems like a daunting tasking to go reaching for a 70-200mm or longer when looking to capture a landscape. Long lenses require a lot more thought in how the compression is going to affect the way the viewer sees the image and its a focal length that the human eye can’t really grasp until you look through the
Shooting landscape images can be a bit difficult in a certain sense sometimes, as you have no control over your subject or even the lighting, which can make it difficult to know what you want to say with an image and then to say it. This great video examines the topic of telling stories through one's landscape imagery.
The winners of National Geographic’s 2017 Nature Photographer of the Year have been announced. This year, Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan comes away with the grand prize for his wildlife photo, “Face to Face in a River in Borneo.”
When you think of landscape photography, you likely think of wide angle lenses that capture large swaths of a scene; after all, those are the most common tools of the trade. However, this great video makes a case for why you might want to consider a longer lens the next time you head out to take some landscape shots.
With the 2017 Geminid meteor shower peaking this evening, I put together a list of 10 things to think about before you head out into the cold, dark night to enjoy the show. Whether you’re an old pro or a complete rookie at photographing meteor showers, it never hurts to review just to make sure you are at the top of your game.
What started for native Coloradan Pete McBride as an excuse to go off on adventures became a career in photography that would span two decades, 75 countries, and earn him the National Geographic title Adventurer of the Year.
Our friends at ViewBug are proud to give away a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV in the creative landscapes photo contest. ViewBug is launching a new contest series called the Newly Shot Series; everybody wants to see your new photos. Only images uploaded recently are eligible for this contest, so keep uploading great new stuff.
For first time travelers to Kyoto, it can be a bit confusing to choose where to shoot. Unlike my previous posts on Madrid and Barcelona which are about three-hour photo walks, this article will be similar to my Tokyo article which involves five different locations. Here is a link to a great website to give you a better overview of each location and other locations worth a look.
Recently, Micael Widell was lucky enough to catch the northern lights over his hometown Stockholm. The experience of seeing and photographing aurora borealis inspired him to compile a video of the best tips to capture the northern lights with a camera.
Personally, I love shooting in winter, I love the challenge to find and create good compositions while my extremities are slowly going numb, and I love the freedom to go and shoot more beautiful scenery while it is devoid of most tourists and travelers. Over the years, my choice of locations has gotten more aggressive in comparison to my earlier ventures out into the cold.
