STAY COMPOSED

Mike Harris shows you how to improve your landscape photos with a few simple compositional tweaks

- Mike Harris

1 HOUR

Landscape photography is arguably the most popular genre, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a brilliant way to head out into the great outdoors, explore new locations, and practise your hobby at your leisure. For this Crash Course we’ve going back to the very basics, with a comprehensive guide to perhaps the most important technique photographers have at their disposal: composition.

The great thing about landscape photography is that you often have plenty of time to really perfect the composition of each shot, a luxury that other disciplines, such as wildlife and sports photography, rarely afford you. In this tutorial we’ll run through some of the key points to think about when you’re composing your shots – from using the classic rule of thirds, to breaking away from this tried-andtested method and experimenting with different compositions.

We’ll also look at how to make the space around your focal point work harder in your shot, and how to look for natural lines present in your scene that can be used to guide the viewer’s eye towards your point of interest.

Pro landscape photographers will nail down their composition and then return to a location multiple times until they’re presented with the perfect light, so don’t be disheartened if you get a good composition, but the light looks a little flat on your first try. Be patient and keep coming back, because when you finally experience perfect conditions you’ll know just where to set up, and what to frame.

HOW TO FRAME AND ADJUST

Master landscape composition with these essential pieces of kit

1 TRIPOD