Common Landscape Photography Composition Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Landscape photography can be very challenging in a lot of ways, particularly when it comes to creating effective and compelling compositions. This excellent video will show you some common compositional mistakes in landscape photography and what you can do to avoid them in the first place.

Coming to you from Mark Denney, this helpful video details common compositional mistakes in landscape photography and shows you how to improve your images by avoiding them. Though there are many mistakes, the one that likely took me the longest to truly understand is the importance of including a foreground element in photos. A lot of landscape photography revolves around capturing large, arresting scenes, which often necessitates the use of wide angle lenses. These lenses tend to push the background away and reduce it in size, and without a foreground element to lead the viewer's eye into the image, they can make what's otherwise an impressive scene look small and dull. Including something as simple as a carefully placed rock can make all the difference. Check out the video above to hear all of Denney's helpful tips.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing the World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing!"

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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2 Comments

I agree with the foreground element part, it does create a whole lot of very similar looking shots.

Some great tips and comments! Thanks.