Landscape Photography: The One Question You Should Ask Yourself

There are so many tips and tricks out there to help you take your photography up a level. Flowing compositional elements, using light effectively and implementing creative camera techniques are all great methods for achieving a nice photo. But I think those are well beyond the basic foundational building blocks for what creates a good photo.

Ultimately, I think the first and most important question all landscape photographers (actually, all photographers in general) should be asking themselves when setting up a shot is this: What am I taking a picture of?

This may sound like a silly question, because come on, of course I know what I'm taking a picture of! That's why I got my camera out in the first place, right? But in reality, it's not that simple. Often, we'll come upon a scene that makes us stop and get the camera out. We'll set up a shot in the general direction of what made us stop, click the shutter, and move along. Nailed it, right? But then we'll get home, look at the photo and think "Why doesn't this capture the moment the way I saw it?"

The answer is most probably that we just took a photo of the general scene. We didn't actually look to see what it was that caught our attention in the first place. Maybe it was the palm trees flanking the ocean view. Maybe it was a distant cascading waterfall. Maybe it was the glow of the evening light on a mountainside. Maybe it was the sun itself, peeking out through the forest canopy. Whatever it was, we can determine it by asking ourselves the question "What am I taking a picture of?" That will make us more aware of exactly what caused us to stop in our tracks. Answering that question will give us the subject of our photo. And once we have the subject, the rest of the photo is simply there to complement the subject, and be arranged in a way to accentuate it.

In a way, this is similar to painting. When a painter creates a piece of landscape art, the subject of the painting is of primary importance. The rest of the scene is painted in, simply to "set the scene" and provide a beautiful backdrop for the subject itself. The subject can be anything; A tree, mountain, river, waterfall, animal, person,building, the sun, the moon, etc. Once the subject is chosen, the scene that is painted is purely there to support the subject. Anything that doesn't support the subject is left off.

This is how to create a good photo. Determine the subject, find a composition that will display the scene that best supports and enhances the subject, as well as eliminating (leaving out of the frame) any elements that would not support it. It's a recipe that works every time, although being able to check all these boxes is often more difficult than it would seem. When you're out in nature, there is so much to look at. You're bombarded on all sides by stuff: trees, rocks, water, sand, wind, bright sun, noises... it can be hard to focus on successfully checking off all these boxes, especially when there's that darn twig in the way that you just can't seem to hide out of frame (yes, that happens to me all the time). But this is all a lesson in practice. Being in tune, being mindful, being aware to what's around you is something that comes with time.The more you're out there, answering the question of "What am I taking a picture of?" and checking off those boxes becomes an easier process. And that process is, in fact, the joy of landscape photography.