The Art of Landscape Photography for Beginners

1. Introduction to Landscape Photography: Photography is such a creative and fulfilling hobby. It feels amazing when you can capture the beauty of this world in a single frame. But when you stand there high on a mountain looking at the beautiful, stunning landscape around you and snap a picture of what you see, you feel disappointment. This picture doesn't represent what I'm seeing, and it's easy to blame the idea that it's impossible to capture this environment and a photo. Well, as of now, we're going to stop doing that because it is possible. In fact, right techniques, we can make our photos look even better than the real deal. Hi there. I'm Jordi, a professional filmmaker and photographer, but chances are you've already seen my face on YouTube, where almost 3 million people subscribe to me to learn about this creative world. Now, for the past years, I've been traveling around Europe, seeking out the most beautiful landscapes to capture those moments with my camera. If you're getting started with photography, landscapes are the best to get into because it's all about creative skills. This means that you can follow this course using a professional SLR, an old analog camera with one of those film roles or just your phone because 90% of landscape photography is all about finding the right angle and creating an interesting composition. You can do that with anything that captures a picture. That's why in this course, you're going to see many examples where I used my professional gear, but also just my smartphone. We're going to take a look at a lot of examples and learn about framing, composition, techniques like the point of interest and leading lines, but most importantly, visual storytelling. By the end of this course, you'll know exactly how to frame that beautiful landscape in front of you so that you can be proud of the photo that you took. So join me into the world of landscape photography where you don't need to worry about the technical stuff, but focus purely on the creative site. I am super excited to share my professional knowledge and experience with you, so I hope to see you soon in my course. 2. The Rule of Thirds Composition: Oh, hey there. I am so excited to see you in this course, and I can't wait to teach you everything I know about landscape photography, which I've been doing for over ten years now. And what started out with me taking a large and heavy backpack shirt into a single camera and very often just even my phone. So I recently went to Austria as I wanted to make photos of some really unique angles. The best way to do that is to put on your climbing gear and get into the mountains. So all I was able to take with me was my phone. However, I took some gorgeous photos, and that's all because I'm applying a creative set to my landscape photos. And once you understand these creative tricks, you can make great photos with any device, and those great photos start with a rule of thirds. You want to take a picture of a big rock in the ocean. You know, you can place it in the middle of your frame on the side or you can tilt your camera up or down. But where is the best place to take this rock from? Well, let's divide the frame into three parts, both horizontally and vertically. You'll see this grit, which you might be familiar with. It's a grit that you can overlay on most cameras and even your phone. Just go into the camera app settings and look for grits. When you're just getting started, it's best to keep this grid enabled. The more you get familiar with the rule of thirds and it basically becomes autopilot, you can disable it. The idea here is that we look for elements within the photo and align these to either the guidelines or where the guidelines cross. So for this rock, which is the main subject or the thing that I'm trying to capture, I'm looking at one of the vertical lines because the rock is tall. This is by the way, shot in the Faroe Islands beautiful place. Now, what site is it going to be on the left side or the right? Well, let's look at what's happening in the empty space. Here we can see both examples. I think we would all choose the photo where the rock is on the right, and that's because we still have something going on on the left side. We got these small pillars coming out of the water here, while on the other photo, it's just empty and we can see that we're cutting something interesting off over here. So that is the first question that you need to ask yourself. Which side of my subject is the most interesting? Alright, now the horizontal alignment, and this is exactly the same. You want to show the big rock. So obviously, we're not going to give the space to the sky unless there is something really interesting going on, like a cloud formation, the northern lights. But it's not in this case. So I'm going to align the peak of the mountain to the top guideline, and you don't have to stick it to that line. You can move it a bit up. Make sure that there is still some space above the rock. I'm looking here at the top of the mountain that I can use to align. This entire plateau here is the top and there we go. This is a balanced photo now or better set a composition. As a photographer, you're always creating a composition. Now, throughout this course, we'll look at a ton of more examples because every photo is a little bit different. Now, for instance, this one, also shot in the Faroe Islands. Now, we're not really seeing a tall object. Everything is more stretched. This mountain bank is pretty long. We got the waves on the water, which are stretched as well. Now, we do see these rock pillars again in the but they're very small and it's really hard to make it the main subject of the photo. So let's start with the horizontal lines this time. Now, this photo actually gives me a great opportunity to align the horizon on the horizontal guideline. I mean, it shares the name. That way, I'm using the bottom part of my frame for the ocean waves, the middle for the mountain, and if we frame it so that the peak of this mountain aligns with the top horizontal line, we have space for the sky, as well. So we're using that grid to nicely divide the different elements in the picture. What I like as well, is this vertical slope in the mountain. We can align that to the left vertical line as that still gives enough room for the pillars here and fills up the rest of the frame nicely with this bank. We got some beautiful sunlight on it, so it gives the viewers something to look at. This is a photo where you can really take the time to look at. There's so much diversity going. Let's have a look at another photo, this one right here, which is one of my favorite photos which I took in a Lava desert in East Iceland. It's a very simple picture. Looking at the grid, we're going to start with the horizontal lines again, and there is not much going on. So the only visual we can use is the horizon itself. And now we got to ask ourselves the question. What do we want to show? Or it's the dramatic cloud? Then we align the horizon with the bottom guideline or the empty vastness of the lava desert, then we place the horizon on top. There's no right or wrong answer here. But as the photographer, you got to ask yourself, what am I trying to capture? And as you visit these places, it's usually going to be what you're experiencing there. I was stunned by the black and white view of that desert. I had to rub my eyes for a moment as I thought I'd lost color in my vision, but it was that moment that I wanted to capture. Alright, and now the vertical guidelines, there's not really something that stands out, except for this hill in the far back, but the hill is not taller than anything else. There's nothing special going on on the left or on the right side. So here we can opt for a center composition. We just ignore the vertical guidelines. So even though the rule of third splits the image into both vertically and horizontally, we don't always have to use every guideline. Alright, one more photo before we move to the next one. This is also from the same Iceland trip a bird. But there is so much more going on than just a bird. We also have this slope of the mountain over here. What I absolutely love about this photo is that both the seal and the slope are parallel to each other. And as I talk about this photo, we start to realize what the subjects are and the way that we want to frame this. Now, the bird will be placed on the intersection of the top horizontal guideline and the right vertical guideline because I want to make room for the mountain slope, both vertically and horizontally. In fact, I'm actually going to align the slope on the opposite intersection, and doing this creates a very balanced composition. And of course, I was not able to align these elements so perfectly on the spot. I took about 1,000 photos here and only two came out great. Afterwards, I had to crop and move the picture around to align it better to the rule of thirds. So if you're into wildlife photography, know that it's something unexpected. Look at places where you have the ability to shoot hundreds if not thousands of photos because unlike a big rock in the ocean, you cannot control a flying bird. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you back in the next lesson. 3. Breathing and Viewing Space: We've seen how we can use a grid to align different elements in the frame. And although that rule of thirds is a great tool, we shouldn't always follow it so strict. Let's have a look at this photo. This was actually another project that I was doing in Iceland. The idea was to shoot on black and white film. Now, unfortunately, the development of the film completely failed, and I think it has to do with the Xray at the airport. I'm not sure. Now, luckily, I also took a whole bunch of photos with my phone. But to stay in that same feeling of the black and white photography, I also took away the colors of my photos in post production. But that's for a different course. Let's have a look at the composition. When following the grid, there are a couple of things that we can do here. We can place the horizon on the upper guideline, which, in theory, should be correct. But as you can see, this rock formation just touches the top of the frame. This is something you always want to avoid. Either cut off a good chunk from an object or you leave some breathing space. This is some empty space around the object. You give it space to breathe. So this photo is suddenly much more balanced, even though we're not making use of the upper guideline. Now, the same thing occurs on the sites. Again, in theory, we should place the left guideline on the tall rock formation. Now, this cuts into the rock right here. Luckily, the rock doesn't stick to the frame as we had with the big rock. It actually cuts off from the frame. So this is not really a problem. Now, in fact, this is considered a good composition. However, and we'll get into the point of interest in one of the next lessons, but leaving breathing space on the right side and not following the guidelines exactly is also good. Now, there's one last thing that I want to do, and that is look at the bottom guideline. By theory, we place the bottom guideline to the end of the rocks in the front, you know, kind of following the horizontal shape. But we got to ask ourselves if we need to show more or less from the bottom. It's all rock. There's nothing to give breathing space. So we could place the bottom guideline on the horizon, but that cuts into the bottom rocks. We're showing it barely. Like, either show an object or don't, but don't try to do both at the same time. So in this scenario, placing the bottom guideline on top of these rocks is the best thing to do. Alright, let's look at another example time, we're in Normandy France. It was 80 years ago that D Day took place. So I thought this was a great opportunity to go there and capture some photos for this course. And I know it's a little bit different from landscape photography, but if you're on a trip and there's some events going on, you probably want to make photos of that, too. And you can still try to utilize the landscape, which I did over here, both a beautiful location. Plus, we have all of these silhouettes that present the soldiers that gave their lives during the Second World War. With a photo like this, we're already stepping into visual storytelling, which I've got a lot to talk about, but that's for later in this course. So back to this photo over here. For starters, we want to cut off a piece from the right as we don't want these cars in the back to be on the photo. Now we're left with a couple of options. Do we place the upper guideline on the horizon and cut off a bit from the bottom? Perhaps align these with the wheels? I love that we can place this intersection on the front wheel. The front of the car then aligns with the left guideline. This all here makes sense, except maybe for the big empty space we have in front of us. We're learning about breathing space, and we have that all around just a bit too much on the front, or is it. You see, we're dealing with a moving object that clearly has a front and a back. Even if it were to stand still, we would still know where it's facing to. And whenever a person or an object is facing to a specific site, we can give more breathing space. We also call this the viewing space. So this makes a lot of sense, and we end up with a nice composition. Within the same photo, different compositions are possible. There are wrong ways to do it, but there are also multiple right ways to frame. I eventually went to crop my photo like this, and we we think it's wrong, too much space on top, but I did follow the rule of thirds. I placed the horizon on the bottom guideline. I put a prominent front wheel on the right guideline and made sure that we had viewing space in front of the truck. The space above is a choice that I made to tell a visual story, but that's going to be for later when we'll come back to this photo. 4. Center Composition: So we've been learning that there are tools like the rule of thirds that help us make a better composition, but it's not something that we should limit ourselves to. We don't have to make use of every single guideline, as I said before. Sometimes things like a bigger breathing space takes over, and that's what photography is all about, understanding the basic rules and knowing how to bend those rules. My favorite lesson is all about storytelling, in which we'll explore this a whole lot more. But first, let's talk about center composition. So why do we place our subject in the middle of the frame? Very simple. And yes, it's going to be a short lesson. Well, it's to draw all the attention to the subject. This right here is Kim. My wife and she also helps out in my business. And I asked her to stand here in the lava desert of Iceland. It's a very cliche photo, which you'll see everywhere. But as a beginner, it's important that you do try out these cliches because they work it's a good photo. It's not great because of the cliche. Everyone has made such a photo, but it works. Now, looking at the rule of thirds, we got the horizon on the top guideline, and Kim is standing perfectly in the middle. Now, she doesn't look to a specific angle, so there's no viewing space. She stands there looking in front of her to the landscape around her. I'm already getting into storytelling a little bit here, but seeing that she is surrounded by the barren landscape, we visualize that by placing her in the center way she's literally surrounded equally by both sides by the landscape. Here is another example of a photo that I took in Norway. And again, it's a cliche. Definitely professional photographers will say it is not creative, but the biggest mistake that you can do as a beginner is going too fast and try to step over these cliches. Are there because they work. So make sure that you've taken your set of cliche photos before you're going to try and avoid them. You can see a clear similarity here. We again have a very vivid subject surrounded by more neutral colors, and it's that idea why we place the canoe in the center. All the attention should go here, and the rest is just background, nothing more. One more example. This time we're flying back to the Faroe Islands and look at one of my favorite photos from that project. Now, there's a whole lot more going on in here than just a center composition. But let's only focus on that for now. So we're looking at the mountain in the far back. That is the element in the center, and as we've learned by placing object in the center, we draw attention to it. We did that before with two very prominent objects, but this time, we're doing the opposite. The rock formations in the front are not just background elements. They are stunning to look at. They draw atten what I wanted to do with this photo was draw attention to a faded rock in the very far back. You can barely see it, and by placing it in the center, you're forcing people to look at it, but their eyes are kind of pulled away from it because of the other cool stuff that is going on around it. By making such a composition, we're letting those that look at the photo wander around. This is a photo you tend to look at for much longer than something that we've seen before, because we're doing a contradiction, placing a vague object in the center of the attention, surrounded by these amazing rock formations. Alright, the next one, we have a beautiful landscape here. I wanted to draw the attention to the Segel first and haven't me surrounded by these cliffs. The idea here is the same as before. This time, we're actually placing it in the perfect center of the frame. So a center composition isn't always perfectly in the center. It depends on what's going on in your photo and whether or not it needs to be placed more on the top center or on the bottom center or in this case, in the middle center. And I want to show you one more example back to my Iceland project where I wanted to shoot in black and white. Here is my dad at the beach picking up pebbles and stones, and I really like this one. I opted for a center composition here because I again wanted to surround him by the beach that has millions of pebbles. My dad is there in the center looking for a needle in a haystack. I thought it had something wholesome, but that's the reason why I opted for a center composition. With every photo, you need a reason why you're framing it the way you are. Now, center compositions is not the only trick in the book to draw attention to a specific object. There is more, but that is for the next lesson. 5. Point of Interest: Point of interest. Now, we're already creating a point of interest in a center composition as we've seen before. It's the point where the interest lays the point that draws attention. And starting off with this example right here, it can be done very simply. There's not much going on. We got the dark ocean, a wave, and a bird. Bit stands out because it is much brighter than the dark ocean. So it draws attention. This right here is my point of interest. It's that simple. So use your background and your subject to see if you can make it pop out and be the point of interest. Now, that point of interest doesn't have to be a small object. Taking this idea about contrast, we can apply it to something much bigger. Now, in this photo right here, the rocks in the front are so dark that we don't even look at it. All the attention goes to the back where the sun is hitting the slopes of these mountains. That is my point of interest, or we could say region of interest. Just like with the mountain in the far distance that we've seen in the previous lesson, we can obscure the point of interest to make the photo a bit more fun. And in this photo, right here, we are literally covering up the point of interest, but it still works, and it's all because of detail or texture. The clouds are soft. They got generally the same tone, just as the slope of this hill, which is also just a dark smudge. Definitely, the grass in front is out of focus and dark. And a contrast occurs where the bright clouds collide with the dark slope, and we can see some of those rocks sticking out right here. This is our point of interest. Because of that contrast, this is the exact same idea as the bird flying over the dark ocean. Now, that grass in front has another purpose. We can feel that we have two different layers, the grass in front and everything else that is going on in the back. I took a different photo from the same angle, but it doesn't have that same depth as the previous one because it's missing that layer of grass. Having soft out of focus objects in front of your lens helps the viewer to look at what's in focus in the back. We are guiding the eyes of the viewer to the point of interest using that very simple technique. And this here is another example of that. The branch here out of focus in front of the lens helps to guide the eyes to the point of interest, which is the sunlight breaking through the clouds, lighting up the rock formation over there. General, there are things that just draw attention regardless. Contrast or an object with vivid colors is one of those things. But another one are faces. Us humans are instinctively drawn towards faces, even if it's from an animal, like in this picture, I love how the one in the front is the point of interest, as it's the most prominent. But as we look around, we get drawn by a second face. So a very fun photo. It could have been better if the faces would line on the rule of thirds better, but in moments like these, you got to be fast. Now, what if we want to draw attention to something that doesn't really stand out? There is a great technique for that, which is going to make our photos stand out professionally, and I'd love to talk about that in the next lesson. 6. Leading lines: Leading lines, an amazing composition technique to lead the eyes of the audience to the point of interest. And this is a technique that can be applied on top of the rule of thirds or cener composition, but we'll look at a bunch of examples to understand this better. Alright, we're back in Iceland, and we're looking at a photo where we see a power plant in the back. They are making electricity from the geothermal activities there. So this water is actually pretty hot, and the fumes in the back are pure water vapor. But it is very small. It wouldn't really draw any attention. However, we have some leading lines going on. Shoreline here is a clear wine with lots of contrast and leads to the power plants. So even though this foam here might draw attention at first, it will lead the ice to where I want them to look at. And as you can see, we follow the rule of thirds, as well. I place the factory on the left side because the water plume goes to the right. Therefore, I wanted to give some space for that. We could say viewing space to and here is another example. The waterfall in a distance creates this very small river. I'm using that river to draw a line to that waterfall, and this is a very playful photo because it's not just a straight line. We guide the eyes of the viewer over the entire photo as we zigzag through it, eventually ending up at that waterfall. Which is hidden in the back behind these clouds. This over here is a photo that I took in Normandy France. It's the Mont St. Michel, if I pronounce that right with my best French. And we went there hoping to snap some great photos, and fortunately, it was very crowded there, so I wasn't able to shoot that much or anything. Anyhow, there's a long bridge leading to the castle, something perfect to make use of for creating leading lines, especially at a distance where you can't really see the castle in detail. And here is another one from Normandy that I really like. I'm using this wall right here as a leading line towards the sculpture. I guess we understand the idea now behind the leading lines, a visual line that leads towards the main subject. So look around. Do you see any cracks in the floor? Maybe that can be used as leading lines, as in this example? Great, then use that. Or is there a nice texture on an object that you can use for leading lines as in this photo there aren't many lines, but they act as leading lines. You know, even the star of the sun right here helps with those leading lines, they are in the same direction. Now, perhaps there's something bigger going on, requiring you to climb up to a rock to find that specific angle, which lets you see an interesting leading line. Leading lines are everywhere. You just got to look around. 7. Creating Depth: Someone looks at your photo for longer than 5 seconds, it means that you did a great job as a photographer. You were able to capture their interest and let them explore your photo. Eventually, that is the goal that we have as a photographer. And so far we've learned that there are several tricks to do that. A well balanced photo, aligned to the rule of thirds is a start. It gives the photo a thought out composition which makes it more pleasant to look at. Playing around with the point of interest using techniques like center composition or leading lines is another great trick. We can use a leading line that crosses an entire photo, we help the audience explore. And that's what you want to achieve that people see your photo, explore and find interesting elements along the way. So that's why I want to talk about creating depth in this lesson. It's another one of those techniques that lets your audience explore. And I'd like you start off with a very simple example, this photo right here. We've already seen this monument in the previous lesson. This photo is just from a different angle. And I also encourage you to do that. If you're at a certain location, see if you can take different kinds of photos from various angles. Anyhow, we have two elements in this photo right here. The sculpture in the back and the grass in the foreground. We have a very prominent foreground object. It draws so much attention. You're not only looking at the sculpture anymore, but also at the grass and the wind that is going through it. I love how this grass field is so dense and green, and that's what makes it interesting. If you were to crop the foreground off, you'll only have the sculpture. In a couple of seconds, you've seen a photo and you swipe to the next one. With the added foreground, you look at it for a little bit longer. Alright, this here is another photo from my failed black and white film photography. So I took this one with my phone and turn it into black and white afterwards. We have two distinct areas or elements, the hill in the back and the rock in the foreground that sits in this lake at the bottom of the crater. Even though the photo is about the backgrounds, the foreground is so prominent that it gets your attention and you're exploring the photo. This one right here is similar shot in Norway, and I love how this little waterfall in the back is so subtle when your eyes eventually do get drawn to it. We got two distinct areas in the photo. Now, I also want to show you a bad example. Take a look here at this photo. Unfortunately, a glacier in Norway that is melting at a rapid rate. You know, this might be one of the last photos ever taken of it. But you see these rocks in the front, I could have made a much better composition if I were to stand a bit more back and in the water so that they'll have more breathing space and better aligned to the all thirds. Then those rocks would have been more prominent, and we would have gotten a bigger difference between foreground and background. Alright, here's a photo where we combine a few techniques together. Starting off, we have a center composition on the subject. Kim, my wife, we're climbing a mountain in Austria. Anyhow, she stands out because she's wearing a red helmet, a color that doesn't come back in nature. I specifically chose this color when I bought our climbing set. I knew that in a lot of photos, she would be in the back, small, so I needed something to make her pop and draw attention. Now, we also have a leading line going on here, which is this art, but also the rock formation itself. I leaned the ice to the subject. This whole area here acts as a foreground element at the same time. But as we look further back and explore the photo, we can find a small church in the woods. That's a fun surprise, and this makes the audience look longer at such a photo. By the way, I took this picture with my phone as well because obviously I didn't want to take my heavy gear with me on this now going back to the Faroe Islands, I came across this incredible opportunity where four cliffs aligned together. And just to give you an idea, this is where I was standing, I found that spot by walking around. So always do that if you're at a cool location, walk around as much as possible to find that holy grail position. Anyhow, we have a foreground, but also a background that draws a lot of attention. And as we look around, we see a bird in the sky, a small detail that adds so much more to the photo. Nothing near is photoshopped, by the way. I don't ever do that with my photos. Not that I'm against it, but I just want to show a moment in time that I actually experienced myself. It would be cool if we had two Eagles fighting in the sky over some prey. And you can photoshop that in and have an incredible photo. But it's up to you if you want to bring out a photo that captured a moment in time of your life or a photo that tells a fictional story. Side story, we actually shot a movie here in the Faroe Islands, and on that same location, we had a model standing in this cliff and a bird came by just flying around her. It was an incredible epic moment. With that story, I want to jump into the last lesson of this course, which is all about storytell. 8. Visual Storytelling: One of the biggest differences between photography and video or film is that with a photo, we only have one still frame that needs to tell a story. When watching a video, you have multiple actions, sound and music. Basically, so many tools to tell a story. And you might think with photography, it's almost impossible to tell a story, but in fact, it is not. The way you set your composition, the angle you shoot from, lighting and whatnot, tells a story. I want to start off with a relative easy example. Taking a look at this photo, we don't only have a landscape, but also a person. Adding a person into your landscape photos helps to tell a story because we can use their body language. This is Kim sitting in the grassfeld on top of a mountain. And I'll just describe what I'll see here. She is relaxed, maybe resting after a long hike, because I can see that she's wearing a backpack. She's also looking into the distance, gazed by the beauty of the landscape. There's a subtle bird in the back. Where it lives, and Kim is visiting that place. As I just described what I see, you can already tell that there is a story going on. It's very relaxed and with a lot of respect to nature. That relaxed feeling is all because of Kim being in that photo. Now, I want to show you a similar photo. Again, a landscape Kim. This time, she's standing up, wearing gloves and a cap over her head. Her arms are a bit spread showing that she needs to keep her balance. This setting is an interaction with the background, which are these mountains and especially the clouds. It's also darker. So immediately we understand where the story is going to. It's not as relaxed. We're visiting unknown territory. We might not be welcome here, and the hike to this place was not as easy. We're unbalanced in this place. At age person is a great way to help tell your story, but as you can see, it are subtle things that help tell that story. And to show you how a subtle thing can change the entire mood of a photo, I want to look at this one here. Again, the hiker is going forward. He's holding his backpack tight. This tells that he needs to stay focused and keep on going forward. It makes the surrounding seem more dangerous. Now, I took a bunch of photos from that same action, so I could pick out the best afterwards. But here you can see the exact same photo, but instead, this person is now facing the rock formations in the back. He is standing more relaxed, and we can't really tell, but he is armed up indicating that he might take a picture or is holding some binoculars. Anyway, the surrounding is immediately less dangerous because of the way that the person is standing. So adi language is an interaction with the surrounding, and the way you make your subject react to the landscape defines how the audience perceives it. I want to show you one last example with a human subject. I took this one with my phone in Iceland, and before I talk about skin, let's first be aware of the perspective of the photo. Shooting this from a very low angle, trying to capture both a foreground rock and the top of the waterfall. We're looking up to the waterfall, both literally and figuratively. Looking up to something or somewhat means that the subject is important, is great, is amazing. Even though this waterfall was not as imposing as most others, I made it a lot bigger and wilder because I shot it from a very low angle. And again, I added Kim in there. She covered her head and is wearing a backpack. She's crouching down, so this all indicates that she needs to protect herself a bit from the waterfall. However, she's able to come close like she's taming a beast. Even though the waterfall is deadly, she did find a way to make it friendly with her, but she has to be cautious. Kind of reminds me of the beauty and the beast here. And I have a similar photo where she isn't wearing a backpack. She isn't covering her head. She stands strong with her hands close to her body. And even though we perceive the waterfall as something mighty because of the low angle, she stands really strong in front of that waterfall. This tells us more about the person rather than the waterfall. So the focus here is very different. Again, subtle things and body language, which could turn around the story. Now, of course, you don't always need a person to create an interaction with the surrounding. Looking at this photo, it might take some time to notice this small house right there. Now, because I shot this with a white angle from far away, the house appears small, almost unnoticeable within this landscape. That's an interaction. The house now appears as in a remote place overtaken by the landscape, which is beautiful, but also something to be careful with. The clouds help to make it more dramatic, but if we live here, we got to be careful and obey the rules of nature. You can see how the roof of the house is even covered in grass, as if nature lays her hand on the house to conf no, it goes very far, but this is the story what the photo tells, and it usually translates into a feeling that we get a subconscious that tells us that story. When I showed this photo to my friends and family, they all said the same thing. Their first reaction was, Wow, what a beautiful landscape. And then they noticed a small house, and they would all say the same thing, like, Oh, wow, what a cute, tiny house there is. The surrounding nature is so, much bigger, has such a big impact on that tiny house. It's that feeling that they get. The story that I wanted to tell has come across. I've got a similar photo right here. I specifically chose to have this fence in the foreground in focus and background, even the house out of focus. And because of that, we are at a distance. We are locked away because of that very prominent fence, like we cannot help the house anymore. It's completely overtaken by nature. And that's not always a bad thing. People that love nature see this as a calm relaxed photo where human is one with nature. If your viewer also wants that, they might have a jealous feeling because they're locked off by that fence. City people might feel more safe here as they are scared to be taken over by nature, a story that can differ depending on the background of the audience. So what should we do as a photographer? When you come to a place and see a beautiful landscape, stand still for a moment. Look around. What emotions does it give you? What does the landscape tell you? Are there elements like the weather? Maybe something you see in the distance that can add to the story? Think of something that you want to tell through your photo. Now, go and find the right angle to tell that story. Can you use foreground objects that have an interaction with the background? Maybe at a person. What body language do you need? Take some time to think that through and just describe what's going on in your photo. So in Normandy, I took these two photos, which are quite similar. You can see that the breathing space on top is way too much. However, I chose to keep that in because it helps me tell a story. Even though re enactment, let's assume that these are soldiers, sergeants, generals, veterans. They have a status that we respect. They fought for our country, and that's why I want to give them a lot of space above their head. It's space that they used to think. These are smart people. Achievements are high, as high to the sky. The rules of photography are there to help us create a balanced picture, but they can also be there to unbalance a photo and tell a story. We've learned that we should place our subject on the rule of thirds and have some viewing space in front of them. So this photo over here seems to be wrong. However, I've broken the rule because I wanted to tell a visual story. Kim here doesn't have any viewing space. This means that she doesn't know where she's going, or she has trouble going forward, and that makes sense in a photo like this. It makes the climb harder and more challenging, and we show on the left side what's behind her, the paths that she already took, which are the rural mountains. Framing it this way helps me tell that story. On top of that, I focus less on Kim and more on the landscape. Keep in mind that she's already standing out because of that red helmet. Now, here's another one that I absolutely love. With her back to the large space, the rocky slope, the fog that is setting in from behind, she needs to be fast, but she's struggling the way she poses. Now, it's different from this one, where her body language is more confident, which, again, reflects on the environments. We show an open, large area. She is surrounded by the dangers of the mountain. Again, different from a photo like this, here she's also struggling, but we're closer to her. She doesn't seem to be alone, so there's less danger. Plus we don't emphasize as much on the mountain, the landscape. Whereas, here, she is far back, more alone, more surrounded by the mountain. So again, some great examples that show how subtle things can make a very big difference. Similar to this one, her body language shows more struggle as she leans towards the wall. We got a nice foreground going on, a leading line going towards her, framed on the rule of thirds. We could have broken that rule of thirds, but you don't want to use the same technique over and over again. Sometimes the story is already told by a few techniques you implemented. Keep it subtle and don't implement every trick in the book. Alright, I know this is a long lesson, but hang on, I just want to show you a few more examples. It's by doing analysis that you understand more how storytelling works. Here's something very different. I found this boat in Iceland on the shore. It was abandoned, and I framed it in such a way that I cut off a piece from the front and show the sea behind the boat. You can already tell where I'm going with this. It's a broken boat once at the ocean, but not anymore. It's history that lays behind it, literally, the way that I framed this photo. And now it's broken, and I even cut off a piece from the front to visualize that. Furthermore, it follows the rule of thirds, a hostile and dangerous environment, which is emphasized bird who needs to fly over and between under these rocks to get through. It's a bumpy road. I chose to have the background and the foreground in here as well as that says something about the environment that the bird needs to live in. Very different from this one, which is at the exact same location. So it all depends what angle and framing that you choose. A lonely cabin in the field and a lake in the back. There was a path going to the cabin, but I framed it in such a way so that you could not see that path, which makes it more lonely. It's far away, lots of space around it. And lastly, this one right here, it was about to storm. Winds were extremely fast, and I wanted to show that storm a bit, but towards this side, the sky was still clear. Behind me, it was nuts. I love the look of these cliffs. It reminds me of impacts they had from the waves on the ocean. You can also see that there's lots of movement on the sides. And then we've got this small fisher boat all the way on the left, small and surrounded by the ocean. The rock formations on the shore are spiky and look a bit hostile as if the boat is not welcome a silent before the storm. You can see how all of these clips right here wrap around the boat trying to grab it. That's why I included the foreground. We get a large claw going for the fisher boat. I love this photo, and with that, we've learned how to tell a story in a picture. Do you always have to do that? Of course not. A photo like this might not immediately tell a story, but it's a nice composition. There are enough playful elements that makes you look at the photo. I've got one more conclusion lesson left in which I'd like to share some advice for the future and some things that you can do to keep improving your photography. 9. Conclusion: You've reached the end of this course, and for that, congratulations. With all this new information, it's important to start practicing. And please don't wait until your next holiday. Just take your camera or your phone right now and try to implement the techniques that you've learned. And what helps is that you re watch every lesson and try to apply the tips and tricks to your new photos. Then watch the next lesson again and practice those techniques. Take this step by step until you work on autopilots, but give it time. Landscape photography is a journey. A photo that stands out usually has a story behind it, how you were able to climb up that mountain. Finding that right angle, spending hours, if not days for that one photo. So don't rush it. Explore nature and with enough patience, it will talk back to you. I want to thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed the course, and I wish you all the best of luck in your photography journey. Stay creative.