5 Traps Landscape Photographers Fall Into

Every genre has common traps that lure photographers in, causing them to miss out on better images, and landscape photography is no exception. This excellent video tutorial discusses five of the most common traps and how to recognize and avoid them in your work. 

Coming to you from Brian Matiash, this great video tutorial details five common landscape photography traps and what you can do to avoid them. One that I have to be careful to avoid even to this day is shooting with too wide of a focal length. Simply by virtue of the subject matter, a lot of the time, it is tempting to use as wide a focal length as possible to capture the entire scene. And while this will work in some circumstances, in others, it can leave the image feeling either too busy due to competing elements or rather empty, particularly if it is missing a foreground element to draw the viewer's eye into and through the scene. Don't be afraid to use a longer focal length and to exclude elements from your composition. 

Check out the video above for the full rundown from Matiash.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi." 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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3 Comments

Once again, I'd like to thank you for sharing my video, Alex! I really appreciate it and hope that viewers find it helpful.

Very informative video. As a "new to digital" photographer I appreciate the points you made as well as the side by side demo. Being a visual learner that style helps me far quicker than verbal instructions. Thanks for sharing this video.

You're most welcome, Cheri. I'm thrilled that you found the video helpful and wish you well on your "new to digital" adventures!