You Can Always Take a Good Landscape Photo, No Matter What the Conditions Are

If you look at the sort of landscape photos that tend to dominate the popular pages of Instagram and the like, they are often lit with warm, golden rays, augmented by dramatic skies, rich colors, and dramatic contrasts. And of course, those can be incredible images, but the conditions required to create them are often not present, and they are not the only compelling type of landscape photo. This excellent video shows you that you can create good landscape images no matter what the conditions you encounter. 

Coming to you from Thomas Heaton, this great video demonstrates how no matter what, you can create interesting landscape photos. I think the trap a lot of us fall into is having a certain style or preconceived image in mind and trying to force that into existence when the conditions are not right for it. There is nothing wrong with planning ahead; in fact, that is a good thing in any genre, but sometimes, the forecast does not work out as expected. When that happens (or when you're improvising), it is important to understand the light and the scene and to make images they are conducive to rather than fighting against them. You will come home with a lot more keepers if you embrace what you are given. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Heaton. 

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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Excellent video, I completely agree with you on one thing, landscape photographs can be taken with conditions that do not include those sunrises and sunsets on the image, but that extra color on a mountain with the reflection of the sun, a sunrise full of colors in the sky, a sunset with those magenta tones in the clouds and the residue of light in the mountains, I personally think that these are the moments that come to steal the glances and sighs of the person who sees that photo.

And it is not just about the place and the conditions, it is also about effort, as a landscape photographer that extra mile is what makes a photo worth more, waking up earlier than most of the people just to see those moments, well for me that adds something more to the photo.