By nature, humans are programmed to learn by example. We see somebody else doing something that we like or that impresses us and try to match their behavior, be it cooking a new dish, playing the guitar, or learn landscape photography. This approach seems to work well when you’re just starting out in a new field of activity, but what do you do when you’ve been involved in a hobby for some time and notice that your pictures have not improved lately? You may blame your equipment, the weather conditions or maybe yourself being too tired from work. In fact, all these factors can play a role, but they may not be the real reason. It often happens that beginners, even established landscape photographers, can see amazing images of exceptional quality in books or magazines and suddenly feel overwhelmed by the gap between their own results and those of these ‘masters’ they admire. This is when your motivation starts to crumble, and you’re in danger of losing interest. The solution would be plain simple if everybody could afford fancy equipment, had enough time for shooting several hours every day, or lived in an area surrounded by stunning nature all year round. But this is not reality.
The problem needs to be solved at its root before it gets worse: most importantly, YOU need to know what makes a good picture – something you can decide on your own without the opinion of others who may have completely different tastes than yours. How to learn landscape photography does not have to be that difficult. It all boils down to the following:
1) Learn how to see
2) Master the technical details (exposure, focus, etc.)
3) Improve your composition skills. Just like knowing what makes a good picture helps you decide which pictures are worth taking, understanding compositional rules will help you improve your own compositions. At this stage, you may also want to seek feedback from friends or online communities for constructive critique. Once you’ve put together your personal guidelines that determine whether a photo is successful or not, it becomes easier to identify gaps in your current workflow and notice mistakes before shooting rather than after. The sooner you realize that something went wrong during shooting – missing focus, for example – the faster you can correct it on the next try and avoid wasting time and film on a poorly exposed or out-of-focus picture.
4) Plan your shoots more carefully, pay attention to details beforehand and be creative. Try different genres (landscape, architectural, abstract), experiment with new techniques (slow shutter speed, etc.). Take as many photos as you can – not necessarily those that are ‘worthy of the exhibition’ – but those that help you learn from experience what works and what doesn’t. There’s no such thing as bad photographs at the beginning, only those that do not serve any purpose. And once you start approaching something good, keep shooting because it takes at least ten shots of one subject to get just one really good photo!
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