Advice You Should Ignore If You Are New to Landscape Photography

Landscape photography is one of the most popular genres for new and expert photographers alike. There's a wealth of information on how to improve, but what common advice should you ignore?

I've never been much of a landscape photographer. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it and I have a large folder filled with landscapes from my travels, but it's certainly not my calling. When I bought my first camera, however, it was a keen interest of mine and I attempted to consume as much information as I could get my hands on about the craft. Unlike most other genres of photographer, landscape photographers forgo a lot of control over light and direction, and have to become masters of representing what is in front of them. Landscape photographer and YouTuber Mark Denney walks us through some advice you ought to ignore as a beginner landscape photographer.

One faux pas I made with landscape photography wasn't given to me as advice per se, but rather just generally accepted wisdom. I believed that landscape photography was created with wide angle lenses pretty much exclusively. It wasn't until years later I started seeing fantastic landscape photographers using 70-200mm lenses and longer primes and creating superb results.

What's the worst advice you've heard given about landscape photography? Share in the comments below.

Rob Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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3 Comments

First thing I buy with every new camera is a quality L bracket. The added weight and bulk are negligible, especially when compared to the benefits of added protection and utility. Landscapes make up maybe 30% of my work.

I didn't even know about L brackets before this, looks like a great idea!