Starting in any new genre of photography can be daunting. Each comes with its own challenges, and landscape photography is no different. If you are a beginner landscape photographer and looking to get started with it, check out this helpful video tutorial that will give you a basic three-step process for creating images.
Coming to you from Chris Sale, this great video tutorial will show you a helpful three-step process for approaching a landscape image. One point that I think is particularly important for landscape photographers of any level is to always think about what you can exclude from the frame. There is a tendency in the genre to default to using a wide angle lens that simply fits as much of the scene as possible into the frame, but often, that can lead to unfocused, overly complicated images. Often, a stronger photo can be made by stripping away frivolous elements of the frame and only including the most essential parts that directly communicate what you want to say to the viewer. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Sale.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi."
The photo headlining this article demonstrates one of my pet peeves about some folks' landscape image processing: The ground is brighter than the sky. Could be the sun peeking out from behind a cloud, but often it's not. In my view, retouching that's unnatural and obvious is a fail.
On this occasion I was fortunate enough to get some light on the foreground. Plus the grasses in the Lakes at this time of year are a very light straw colour. But you raise an interesting point regarding the conflict between remaining true to the scene and creating a successful photograph that has tonal balance. I suspect the problem is more prevalent when shooting directly into the sun than when using side light as in this case.
Yeah, at first I was suspicious, but on closer inspection I could see that broken cloud cover might explain the effect. I've seen some pretty egregious examples, though - one dusk shot, in particular, that's been published widely in ads for retouching software, where the foreground water is brighter than the clouds lit by the sun below the horizon - so thought I'd mention it.
Sorry for casting aspersions. Ya got a nice shot there.