Landscape Photography: Shooting Epic Travel Photos

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Our planet Earth is truly a breathtaking place. There's something special about getting out in nature with the challenge of capturing its beauty. Have you ever tried to photograph the most spectacular scenario, but you felt that you're not able to show the real spirit of the place through the photo? Landscape photography is a science. In this class, you'll learn anything you need to know about taking great landscape photos. [MUSIC] Hey, guys. I'm Clara, and I'm a photographer and videographer who's been traveling the world and capturing its stunning places for the last 10 years. Traveling and exploration of unknown places are big parts of my life, and that's also how my passion for photography started. I wanted to share all the places I've been to with my family and friends. There were always a lot of positive comments, not only about the beauty of the places, but also about the photos themselves. That made me think about all the magic a camera could create. I started to learn more about how to capture nature even better. My photos and travel articles started to be published in magazines, and it was a great satisfaction. [NOISE] Landscape photography is my real passion, and I'm so excited to be teaching this class and sharing my knowledge with you. By the end of this class, you'll be able to capture any landscape setting creatively. No more boring travel photos. Even if knowing the theory is important, what's going to make your photos better is practice. As your class project, you will head into nature and take a landscape photo following the tips in this class. To take the most out of this class, you should already understand photography basics and how to work with your camera and manual settings. If you're not confident in photography yet, my previous class sums up all the essential tips for beginners. I would recommend you to check out that class first. In this workshop, I'll start by introducing the gear that is useful in landscape photography, and continue by explaining the basic camera settings to achieve sharp images. After you understand the technical side, I'll spend a little bit more time talking about composition. I believe it is one of the most important parts to make your photos stand out. If you were wondering how to blur the movement of running water, I'll dive into it as well in one of the lessons. At the end, we'll talk about the weather and light conditions that are best for stunning photos. After finishing the class, you'll be able to take 10 times better landscape photos than you did yesterday, and that I guarantee you. I hope you're as excited as I am. Let's get started. 2. Project: Before we jump to the first lesson, let me introduce you to the class project. As a final project, you'll take one landscape photo that follows the steps we will talk about. When shooting you should consider the composition include foreground interest, and also if you have some moving element try to use long exposure and blur the movement. After completing the class, check out the project description and have fun shooting. Upload your best photo that you're most proud of in the project section to share your creativity with everyone. I can't wait to see what you will create, and now let's dive right in. 3. Gear for Landscape Photography: [MUSIC] Starting with landscape photography can be pretty expensive because you will need to buy extra gear that you normally don't need for other types of photography. For the beginning, I would suggest that you just rent the gear instead of buying especially all the expensive stuff like lenses. When you're going to be sure that this is something you really want to get into, then consider buying your own gear. In this lesson, I'll share with you the most essential gear items that I use all the time in my landscape photography. Camera is the first and most of the best item that we need. It can be any interchangeable lens camera. I prefer to use mirrorless cameras over DSLRs because they are smaller and much lighter, which is especially useful when traveling. I think you'll realize it really soon. I dare to say straight after you climb your first hill at 3:00 AM in the morning to catch some stunning sunrise shoots, every gram that you're carrying in your backpack counts. [NOISE] Tripod is item that you don't want to mess around with. Tripod is designed to keep your cameras steady in the muddy, rocky, and sandy [inaudible] and to protect your camera setup from sudden falls. This requires, we'll just select construction which doesn't come cheap. It only takes one good gust of wind to knock over unstable tripod. If you buy a nice camera and lens but mount it on entry-level tripod, it's dangerous for the rest of the setup. Good tripod will outlive the rest of your kit. It's worth is to do a research and invest into a good-quality one. In landscape photography, you'll want to maximize your depth of field most of the times, which means you'll be using a narrow aperture and therefore longer shutter speed. For that, you will need a good tripod that we'll be able to stabilize your photos and keep them sharp for seconds or minutes long exposures. With cheap light and wobbly tripod, you would end up with blurred images for sure. In fact, even if using faster shutter speed, tripod can still be beneficial. It will force you to slow down and consider your composition more carefully. Lenses are where the fun begins. Lenses are one of the most important piece of landscape photography equipment, but also the most expensive one. You can have the finest camera, tripod, backpack, memory cards, and accessories available. But if you don't have good quality glass, you'll struggle to take a great photo. When it comes to landscape photography, I prefer to use prime lenses rather than zoom lenses. With a zoom lenses, I tend to get a bit lazy, standing on one spot and just zooming in and out. But there is nothing better than actually moving your feet and seeing the composition with your own eyes. You miss the special perspective if you zoom instead of walking around and considering your scene. But it is really about your preferences. I would say that before buying any lens prime or zoom, just rent it first because you can't really know how the lens will work for you until you try to use it in various situations. In landscape photography, some filters are almost as essential as good lenses. I will keep it brief here and tell you just about the basic filters that I always travel with. Filter that I use most of the times is UV filter. I want to do everything that I can to protect my lenses from scratches, so I have UV filter on every lens I own. UV filter doesn't help to improve your photos, but it does a great job protecting your lens from dirt and dust or from breaking when you knock it over. Another filter I love to use in landscape photography is a neutral density filter, also called ND filter. ND filter basically acts as sunglasses for your lens because it blocks sunlight from reaching the camera sensor. There are different strengths of ND filters. From one stop to 10 stop filter, which will allow 10 stops less light coming into the camera sensor. With these filters, you can make the running water silky smooth. You can blur the clouds or turn people into ghosts. I use variable ND filter because for me it is much easier to have just one filter than carrying five different ND filters for different situations. I highly recommend variable ND filter, especially if you're at the beginning of your journey to become a landscape photographer. There is another type of ND filter which is graduated ND filter. It has only one part darkened and is used in conditions when the sky is much brighter than the foreground. For example, during sunrise or sunset, it will help you to darken the sky while keeping the horizon nice and bright. I wanted to show you my remote trigger, but the truth is that I don't have one, at least not one of those fancy and special ones. Instead, I use the app in my phone that allows me to control my camera without actually touching it. Remote triggers are very popular by landscape photographers. Without a remote, you have to physically press the shutter button on top of your camera and no matter how careful you are, this will introduce some shape, which is problem with long exposure photography because you will end up with blurred images. Rather than pressing the shutter button with your finger, buy a reliable remote shutter release, or if your camera allows it, you can download a special app to control the camera with. If you really don't want to invest into another piece of equipment, you can set a self-timer on your camera. To avoid touching the camera after the shutter is released, you need to have your camera as steady as possible. Self-timer will work pretty well in most of the scenarios. But if you want to try time-lapse photography, you would need the remote trigger to make sure that your camera will not move at all between the shots. Always without exception, carry extra battery for your camera, extra memory card, and extra batteries for other devices. Chances are that you will not need them, but better be safe. Once you take long exposures or time-lapse photography, your battery will die pretty quickly, especially if you have mirrorless camera like I do. Compact size and lighter weight come at a cost because the batteries of mirrorless cameras are much smaller than in DSLRs. That's why I always carry at least three fully charged batteries when going for a shoot. This is it. This is all the gear that I use in my landscape photography. Now and get your backpacks ready, and let's go out to shoot. I'll see you in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 4. Sharp Images: Maximize Depth of Field: [MUSIC] For me, photography is a great opportunity to see the world from different perspective. Shooting landscapes always makes me slow down and appreciate the nature around. There's usually a lot of planning ahead and considering what equipment I have to carry. I know the list is quite long, but I hope the previous lesson helped you to pack your gear more easily. Now, it is time to reveal your camera and format your SD cards because we are about to start. [MUSIC] In this lesson, I want to talk about basic camera settings that will help you to nail your landscape photography. When shooting landscapes, a deep depth of field is almost always the way to go. In other words, you want as much of your scene in focus as possible. The simplest way to do this is to choose a small aperture setting, which means a large F-number such as F11 or F16. Because the smaller your aperture, the greater the depth of field in your shots. Landscape photography is not like portrait photography, where we want to achieve the blurred background. In most of the cases, shooting landscape is quite the opposite. We want to have everything sharp and in focus. Do keep in mind that smaller apertures mean less light is hitting your image sensor. So you will need to compensate for the narrow aperture either by increasing your ISO or lengthening your shutter speed. I would rather keep lower with ISO because we want to avoid unnecessary noise occurring in our images. So the best idea is to put your camera on tripod and set longer shutter speed. Using long exposure times give you not only possibility to brighten up your photos, but it is also a powerful tool of how to blur the movement and give your landscape photos well-needed dynamics. [MUSIC] To sum up, if you're starting with shooting landscapes and you're not sure about all the different camera settings, start with using [inaudible] aperture, you have all the elements in focus. If your photo is still dark, try to avoid raising your ISO, but rather use longer shutter speed with camera settings on your tripod. I believe these are the best camera settings to start with. Now let's move around a little bit to find some amazing locations where we can take our first landscape shot. 5. Composition: Focal Point: [MUSIC] Shooting landscapes can be challenging. Slowing down and thinking about your composition is a vital part that separates beginner photographer from the professional one. In the next few lessons, I want to talk about composition in more detail. Composition is one of the most important parts in landscape photography that can help to make your photos stand out. That's why you shouldn't keep snapping one photo after another, but rather try to slow down and look for the right composition. Walk around the scene a little bit and look at the place from different perspectives. You should also consider the light and position of the sun, which will affect your shooting angle as well. Most importantly, did you already think about what the main subject of your photo will be. [MUSIC] There's a lot to consider before you actually press the shutter button. In terms of composition, let's first talk about why is it important to include a main subject in your images. Pretty much every shot needs some focal point and landscape photography is no different. In fact, a landscape photograph without the focal point ends up looking rather empty [NOISE]. It will leave your viewer's eyes wandering through the image with nowhere to rest. Focal points can take many forms in landscape photos, they can range from a building or a structure to an eye-catching tree. A boulder or rock formation, silhouette, or something entirely else. The point is to include at least one element in your photo that the viewer can grab onto, something that's sucks them into the frame and creates interest. [NOISE] If you don't have anything lined up in your photo, viewer will become confused. They won't be sure where to focus, so they will move on to a different image and never look back. You have to think not only about what the main subject of your photo will be, but also where should you position it within the frame? What will help us here is the rule of thirds. Let's move on and talk about rule of thirds in the next lesson [MUSIC]. 6. Composition: Rule of Thirds: [MUSIC] I like to talk about the rule of thirds pretty often because I think it is the simplest key to master composition. When teaching photography, rule of thirds is usually one of the first things that I talk about with beginners. It is one of my favorite composition tools and a great way how to get started with composition. Rule of thirds will give you idea how to easily arrange key elements within the frame like your main subject horizon and other supporting elements. For those of you who are not familiar with the rule of thirds, here's a quick explanation. The rule of thirds tells you to split your frame into vertical and horizontal thirds. So you end up with series of grid lines, more specifically four grid lines that divide the frame into nine pieces. If you have your camera close by, have a look in the menu now and turn the grid line on. Maybe you're wondering what is the grid line good for? Rule of thirds says that for the most powerful compositions, you should place the key elements along those grid lines and at their intersection points. For example, this often comes into play when working with horizon lines. [MUSIC] [NOISE] Instead of putting the horizon in the center of the frame, you can put it along one of the grid lines. Top grid line is a good idea if your foreground is especially interesting. On the other hand, if the sky is dramatic or full of colors, place the horizon along the bottom grid line to emphasize the sky. You can also use the rule of thirds to position your main subject. You might put the subject along one of the vertical grid lines or even better at intersection point. [MUSIC] So next time before you place the main elements to the center of the photo, remember rule of thirds, and try to play with the composition a little bit more to make it more interesting. Before we jump onto the next lesson, I want to mention one more point why turning on a grid line in your camera comes in useful. There is nothing more annoying in landscape photography than image that is tilted. It is one of the basic rules to try and keep your horizons straight. Even if you can always straighten images later in postproduction, I think it's much easier if you get it right in camera, and grid lines can be super useful with that. Needless to say, the rule of thirds is a helpful technique, but despite its name, it's not a rule, but rather a guideline. So you don't need to follow it at all times. Instead, use it when it works and break it when it doesn't. 7. Composition: Foreground Interest: [MUSIC] Good composition can make or break a landscape image. Understanding composition in photography is something that people need to learn and experiment with over time. The more you get out and practice shooting, the more you will start to recognize major elements and where to place them within your images. Composition is something that cannot be changed in post-processing. That's why I wanted to cover this topic in detail. There are so many beautiful images out there that you may think, how can I make my photos standout? Here's one key tip that can help you with that. The trick is that while others focus only on capturing the main subject in the background, whether it's a mountain or a waterfall, you will think carefully about the foreground as well. When you do this, you will give viewers a path into the image. This is a powerful tool, one that's insanely popular among today's professional landscape photographers. The reason it's so popular, it helps to create illusion of depth in a scene. For instance, if you snap a photo of waterfall, it can look nice, but it often appears rather flat. [NOISE]. But at some grass or leaves close to the camera and the whole composition immediately deepens. The viewer first focuses on the foreground leaves, then moves into the mid-ground, and then finally sees the stunning waterfall in the background. So by including foreground, we lead the eye of the viewer. You can also lead the eye with lines in the foreground, and you can make leading lines out of pretty much anything, out of rivers, roads, voluntary lines in the dirt, and much, much more. Sometimes you can also run into foreground elements that can sit around the edges of your photo as a frame. For instance, you might include overhanging branch over to the top of the image [NOISE] in order to guide the viewer towards the subject in the middle of the shot. In wide-open spaces, finding frames can be tough. But if you're shooting in more chaotic landscape, you can often find trees or rocks to create a frame. In fact, it's often these simple frames that take a good composition to the next level. They not only provide much needed focus by showing the viewer exactly where to look, but when positioned carefully, they can also block out distracting elements. I have another helpful tip. If you don't know what to include as your foreground, what always helps is if you take your camera to the ground and shoot from a lower angle, there's always something on the ground that you can use as a foreground interest. Remember that the foreground doesn't have to be anything special. It can be a discrete subject like a patch of grass, rock, branch or anything else really. In our case, I have included the rock and some more water flowing in the foreground, which are interesting extra elements. [NOISE]. So the next time you find a beautiful backgrounds subject like the mountain or stunning sunset, take a few moments to look for foreground interest and include both foreground and background in a single shot. Just keep your eyes wide open and always have a good look around and move with your camera before you press the shutter button. 8. Long Exposure: Capture Movement: [NOISE] When most people think about landscapes, they think of calm, serene, and static environment, but landscapes are seldom completely still. If you try to capture this movement, you add drama and mood to your images. Look around and you will see the nature and movement. You can focus on the wind in the trees, waves on the beach, water running in a mountain creek, or moving clouds. Capturing this movement generally requires longer exposure times. It can be anything from parts of seconds if you try to blur the running water, to minutes long exposures, if you want to capture star trails. For better [MUSIC] understanding, I have written this basic guide which will give you better idea what shutter speeds to use when capturing different moving objects. I will share this guide in the class description so you can download it and study it better. If we shoot at slow shutter speeds, it means that more light is hitting the camera sensor. To avoid having to photos overexposed, you will either need to set a narrow aperture or if it's not enough, use ND filter that we talked about in the previous lessons. You might also choose to shoot at the start or the end of the day when there's less light. In any case, keep trying to capture the movement because it is one of the easiest way how to make your photos look truly professional. [MUSIC] 9. Change Your Point of View: [MUSIC] I will tell you one scenario that could sound familiar to you. You drive up to scenic lookout, get out of the car, and grab your camera. You walk up to the barrier, raise your camera to your eye. Rotate left and right a little. Zoom a little, and take your shot before getting back in the car and driving to the next scenic lookout. We all have done that but as we all know deep inside, this generally doesn't give us the best results that we're looking for. First of all, standing behind the barrier doesn't give us many opportunities to shoot from different angles. Moreover, this is probably the most well-known view that thousands of people before us enjoyed as well and took the same photo. Here's my advice. Instead of shooting from the viewing platform, take a little more time with your landscape photos and find more interesting point of view. Try to look around to see how far you can get. Of course, that there are some places like in national parks where you don't have a chance to step out of the tourist path to keep the local ecosystem safe. But if you try and walk around with your eyes wide open, even there, you might capture something truly unique. You might start by finding a difference both to shoot from then from the scenic lookout. You can also look for new angles. This could mean getting down onto the ground to shoot from below, or heading up high to gain a nice vantage point. Experiment with different viewpoints and if possible, leave the well-known tourist paths and explore. There's also another way how you can take unusual image that will stand out from the crowd, even if shooting from the well-known lookout. That is if you visit the spot at a unique weather conditions and capture the place in a moody atmosphere even if it sometimes means discomfort, it's worth the unique shot. Because I think that the weather is such a powerful tool in the landscape photography, I think it deserves its own chapter. I will see you in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 10. Work with the Weather: [MUSIC] Nature can change dramatically depending upon the weather, so choosing the right time to shoot is of major importance. Many beginner photographers see a sunny day and think that this is the best time to go out with their camera. However, overcast day that is threatening with rain, might present you with a much better opportunity. You can create image with real mode that will make the viewer feel emotions. Look for storms, wind, mist, dramatic clouds, sun shining through the dark sky, rainbows, sunsets and sunrises, and work with these variations in the weather rather than just waiting for the next sunny day with blue sky. Remember that bad weather, is a good weather in landscape photography. Clouds and rain are not the most encouraging weather conditions, but they often present opportunities far more exciting than those of a sunny day. In landscape photography, you should always think about the sky. Most landscapes will either have a dominant foreground or dominant sky. Start by observing the sky. If it's lifeless, don't let it dominate your shot and place the horizon in the upper third of the image. But if this sky is filled with drama, interesting cloud formations or hailers, then let it shine. Place the horizon in the bottom third of the frame to emphasize the heavens. Also consider enhancing the sky by using filters on your lens. Polarizing filter will add more colors and contrasts to the sky, and ND filter can make our scene look darker. You can always fix things in post-production if you shoot in raw, and you shouldn't have problems to add more colors or details to the sky later on. If you're not sure what the exposure always rather underexpose your image with main focus on the sky. Because it is much easier to fix underexposed photos in post-production, than to recover blown out highlights. What should you take from this lesson? That if the storm is coming and everyone else is running home to hide, you will do the opposite. Grab your camera and capture it. The moments right before the storm hits all those dramatic clouds and rainbows, this is the time when you will have the best opportunity to take extraordinary short with real mode in it. Again, remember that in photography, bad weather equals a good weather. [MUSIC] 11. Light: Golden Hours: [MUSIC] It is well-known among landscape photographers that when chasing a great photo, you should be shooting at times of the day that will present you with the best light, which are generally times around dawn and dusk. That's when the landscape comes alive. These golden hours, as they're often called, offer great landscape photography opportunity for a number of reasons. First of all, you'll get gorgeous golden light, I also loved the low angle of the sun, which creates interesting shadows and textures. Another reason is that, especially if you shoot in the morning, it is a great way to escape the clouds. If you want awesome experience, don't be lazy and wake up early. When exploring, I try to go to the same place multiple times during different times of the day. For example, when I was traveling in the Red Center of Australia, I was so excited to see Uluru, which was my childhood dream. I knew since the beginning that I want to photograph it during sunset with the sun behind our back, which made Uluru changing colors from brown to orange and dark red. But I also wanted to see if during sunrise, when the sun appeared behind the rock out of nowhere painting this beautiful silhouette. I was standing on exactly the same spot to watch sunrise and sunset, and it was truly different experience. While hundreds of cars came to watch the sunset, there was only about five cars in the park at 6 am in the morning to watch the sunrise, which made it much more enjoyable experience. Dawn light is always surprising, you never quite know what you're going to get as you wait into darkness. Dawn light can range from dusky pink to a warm yellow, and if you're lucky enough, you can sometimes get wonderful mist and vapor effects, which will disappear by the time that the rest of the world is awake. I know that waking up early can be pain. Anyone being on a holiday you think you deserve to sleep in. But try to gather all your determination and wake up for the sunrise at least once on your next travel adventure. You won't regret it. 12. Conclusion: Thank you guys for staying with me through the whole video and congratulations on completing the class. You are now ready to capture some stunning landscape photography. If there's one thing I hope you take from this class is that the next time you're out to shoot, you will slow down and explore the place before pressing the shutter button. Consider different angles, compositions, foregrounds, and light. Be creative and have fun. Also, don't forget to share your best photos with us in the project section. If you like this class, it would make me really happy if you leave a review and follow me here on Skillshare. Or feel free to connect with me on Instagram where I post photos from my travels all around the world. You may find some travel inspiration there as well. Now, grab your camera, head out and find a beautiful landscape to shoot. Have fun.