Landscape Photography Vlogs

Landscape Photography in Bad Weather / Good Weather

Braving bad weather can result in stunning landscape photography conditions. I travel to the Peak District and face a classic day photographing in typical changeable British Summer weather.

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In this landscape photography vlog I head over to the Peak District to climb Kinder Scout with a weather forecast of changeable conditions. When you look at a weather forecast and it shows rain, it is all too easy to stay on the couch. The thing is, changeable conditions in low pressure can result in some of the best photography conditions available. Moving from sunny to rain and back again produces clouds that can make a shot utterly unique, something that is getting harder and harder for a landscape photographer.

Watching landscape photography tutorials such as this can make things look easy. If you are heading into the great outdoors, especially when climbing in to the hills and mountains it is very important to be prepared and stay safe, even in summer.

The day was fantastic and ended when the weather cleared leaving me to capture some sunset photography making the most of the early flowering heather that the Peak District had to offer. I headed home happy with a can full of very different landscape images.

Once in a Lifetime Seascape Photography

When I went to do some seascape photography I never ever thought I would witness something so spectacular. These unique moments come along so rarely in landscape photography so when they do, you have to seize the moment. This vlog documents one of my favourite photography moments, possibly ever.

Once in a lifetime photo opportunities come around so rarely. When they do it is important to be ready to capture them. The readiness comes from hard work and dedication; getting out with the camera, week after week, honing your skills and practicing your craft. We can go months without capturing a ‘keeper’ but so many photographers in the past have had their careers take off because of a single image. You never know when that might happen to you.

Finally a note on luck. Lucky is a word that is thrown around freely. Was I lucky to capture that last image? Maybe, but luck does not account for the years of hard work, the years of getting out day after day, the fact I switched to plan B because my original location at Saltwick Bay was completely in cloud. Luck didn’t drive me two hours to the location and luck didn’t set the correct camera settings and capture the composition and image.

I had planned to film a video which essentially would have been a seascape photography tutorial. When the amazing conditions presented themselves though I had to default to just capturing the images. Seascape photography can be very creative with the use of long exposure photography, using leading lines and interesting shapes, using the water in the foreground, capturing whatever colour is available and mixing these things into your composition. I will film the tutorial at some point but I still utilised all these techniques so there are plenty of seascape photography tips on offer in this landscape vlog.

My video photography blogs are designed to entertain and document how I go about capturing my work. If it provides landscape photography tips and inspiration along the way then please share it with your friends so more people can benefit from the content. If you enjoyed this photography vlog I would really appreciate it if you subscribed to the channel so you can come along for the journey.

5 Ways to Simplify and Improve your Landscape Photography

Improve your landscape photography by simplifying your images.

When working with clients on a workshop, the single biggest thing people are looking to improve is their composition skills. Finding a good composition will often result with a photographer being told they have ‘the eye’. This is fine, but it also implies it is a god given talent that cannot be improved upon. I do not believe this is the case. Certainly some are more creative than others but there are still skills and knowledge that can be learned to improve photography composition.

Although it may play a part, simplifying an image is not just about removing items or objects from the picture. What we are really talking about is simplifying the story. For this we must first understand what the story actually is. What are you trying to convey to the viewer? What emotions are you trying to evoke? What is the story? Without this, an image will be a purely technical exercise and will be left lacking. The story can only come from you so there is no prescriptive method. However, when standing in front of a scene, think about how you are feeling, what does the landscape say to you? Is it a beautiful scene? If the answer is yes, then why? Being in touch with your own feelings is vital in making the work personal to you. Aim to tell the story of landscape from your own point of view.

The next stage is to consider the actual composition of the scene in front of us. Rules of composition work. They are often a good starting point once a subject has been established. Identifying a subject is not always easy, but look for the good light, good shapes and interesting features and things should become easier. Subjects can include anything from a rock in the foreground, a tree, a distant mountain or cliff, a sky full of colour or even the whole scene itself. An image can also include more than one subject if the story flows from one to another. Leading lines are a good narrative tool. They tell the viewer where to begin and guide them through the scene and story. The rule of thirds is also worth considering until you find something better and the rule is broken.

To simplify the image, focus down onto the story and use composition and technique to achieve it without distraction.

1. Long Exposure

Take the image above which looks out from the Scottish mainland to the Isle of Skye. There are a number elements that make the image work. Firstly the leading lines of the jetty guide the viewer from the bottom of the image and out over the loch towards the distant mountain. The snow covered mountain is also framed by the two either side of it with more rock than snow showing.

I have then used long exposure to remove detail from the water and the clouds; this literally simplifies the image. The smooth water shows more reflection and also puts more emphasis on the jetty and the mountains and there is no distraction in the sky.

The jetty is in a small village called Glenelg in a remote area of the West Coast of Scotland. The people living there have to be resourceful and do things for themselves in order to get by. This creates a functional industrial feel to the village. The jetty, which is clearly old and not designed for recreation, hints toward this heritage. The jetty is also in a truly beautiful location and this juxtaposition is shown in the loch and distant mountains.

Further simplification can occur in post-production. The second image shows a test exposure that is an unedited standard exposure.

The conversion to black and white was planned at the time because the colour creates distraction and is not particularly appealing. However the soft morning light was beautiful and where it hits the metal of the jetty, creates some really interesting tones. Finally a blue toner has been added to enhance the overall metallic industrial feel of the photograph.

2. Negative Space

Another way to simplify an image is to draw attention to the subject by using negative space. The image above shows where this can work in a landscape image and produces what is often described as a fine art feel. The white areas of the sky and the bright surface of the sea serve to draw all the attention to the old groins. The image was shot on a bleak beach on the remote and neglected spot of Spurn Point in East England. It is actually a colour image but the natural lack of colour, and focus placed on the groins, support the bleakness and loneliness of the story.

3. Isolate the Subject

Isolating a subject in a photograph is a very common way to simplify a picture and enhance the story. It is the basis of the majority of portrait photography where all focus it put on the model by either blowing out the background with big apertures, or using plain backgrounds in a studio setting.

The same applies to landscape photography where an image can often be described as intimate or a ‘portrait of the landscape’. There are countless ways to achieve this including using a longer lens, capturing a tree in a foggy woodland or using an extreme wide angle lens very close to the subject.

The image above shows a tree growing out the side of a Welsh mountain. For a few moments the sun shone perfectly down a small gully in the mountain and lit up the tree in a very exciting moment. I used the light and natural contrast to isolate the tree from the background to emphasise the fleeting moment the image represented. The second image shows the exact same composition just a few moments later once the sun has passed. You can see how the tree blends back into the cliff face and there is no image at all.

4. Simplifying the Image VS Simplifying the story.

Removing features and items from an image does not necessarily mean we are simplifying the story. Take the two images above of a mountain in Glencoe on a truly stunning day of landscape photography — watch the video now — https://youtu.be/iXyUDwB9sMQ.

In the picture on the right I have removed the road in photoshop. There is a lot I prefer about the composition without the road but it has complicated the story. My location becomes less clear, it deceives the viewer and most importantly it has removed the sense of scale provided by the road in the absence of any other permanent object.

Another example is shown here. The picture on the left is full of detail and colour; there is lot going on in the summer scene consisting of a view dear to my heart. However the photograph works using a number of compositional elements. The heather bathing in the warm light immediately tells the viewer it is the height of summer, the winding curves of the path lead you round and up to Roseberry Topping, which along with the sun, is sitting on the cross sections of the rule of thirds. In the other image I have removed the heather. Very often less is more, but by removing the heather the story is now lost. The composition no longer works, particularly as the light hitting the hill to the right distracts the viewer from the main subject of Roseberry Topping.

The aim is to simplify the story, not just the elements in the photograph.

5. Cropping

‘Get it right in camera!!!’ It is a common phrase that I do not subscribe to when it comes to processing an image. However it is more applicable with composition. You simply cannot change perspective in post production. You can however crop. It is always better to plan a crop like a square or a panorama at the point of shooting but cropping can be used in post to remove distracting elements that you missed at the time of shooting. Whether you end up using that particular image or not, use the new found knowledge and hindsight as a reason to re-visit the scene and capture it again.

The images below are an example of where cropping can work. The picture on the left is the full un-cropped frame. It was an incredible evening for a number of reasons (watch the video here — https://youtu.be/6NqDSY2nVu0) but when the sky set on fire I was not totally focused on the photography.

The image on the left is not bad. It just has some distracting elements that do not assist the story. By cropping in, the leading lines of the cliffs and the road become more prominent improving the pathway through the image towards the sky of fire. The horizon now also sits on the rule of thirds which adds to the overall balance of the image. The crop has worked because all the right elements were captured in the original file.

Simplifying an image is just one way in which composition can be improved. Give it a try, work hard and your images will almost certainly begin to improve.

Build Confidence in your Camera Settings and Composition

I meet up with Paul G Johnson on location in the Lake District and we discuss how worrying about the camera settings is holding back creativity. We also do some landscape photography in this epic location.

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I wanted to talk about camera settings, photography composition and technique today in response to last weeks video where I compared doing a handheld panorama to one on the tripod. I got hammered in the comments because of the technique I employed, mostly because I had not considered the nodal point and parallax. One person even stated it was a great example of how not to do a panorama. I found this a touch frustrating because I think many people have this backwards…..also, did you see my final image? I think it is one of the best panoramas I have taken, it looks great, it has printed beautifully and I am proud of the work.

Landscape Photography

Ultimately landscape photography is the the opposite to maths. In school we were always taught to show your working and points were still scored even if the answer was wrong. In photography as long as the viewer is not being deceived the final image is all that counts; how you got there does not really matter. When I take a photograph the final image is more than just what was visible to my eyes at the time. It includes my emotional perspective and I am trying to induce that same feeling in the viewer once I present it. I want to tell a story of that moment. A technically perfect image, that is devoid of this creative, emotional element, will almost certainly be an image I am not interested in.

Photographers Lacking Confidence

Through my workshops I am often finding that photographers are seeking technical perfection way over discovering their own creativity and photographic personality. This is often is borne from worrying too much about the camera settings, with the assumption that we must all be technically perfect. It is nonsense. Great landscape images can be captured on a phone or any camera, whether they have filters attached or not.

Exposure Triangle

Developing a basic understanding of the exposure triangle and how each one affects the elements of a landscape photograph is an important step. It is also one that will not be achieved without hard work. However once the work has been put in, no longer will they be worrying about the camera setting and lacking confidence. The camera becomes an extension of the photographer; a tool to express their creativity and share the single moment they have witnessed with all the emotions attached.

Landscape Photography | Wild Camping in the Lake District

I meet up with Gary Gough to climb to the top of a mountain and do some wild camping in this landscape photography vlog.

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Having a day out shooting landscape photography is good for the soul and almost always improves your wellbeing, especially in the Lake District. Going out alone is great. More recently though I have found I can get a new sense of perspective when taking photographs with a friend. That’s exactly what Gary Gough and I did today.

The Lake District is an incredible place to take photographs. Sunsets are not always easy though because as the sun sets, the mountains cast very large shadows over the landscape and unless you’re up high, it’s going to be a struggle. Being up high at sunset though means you’re in for a dark and lonely walk down. Unless you wild camp that is. Wild camping is not strictly allowed in the Lake District but it’s a fairly common practice and will not upset anyone if you are respectful. Eg don’t light a fire, take all rubbish away, set up late and leave early etc. Obvious things.

Once you are set though we are rewarded with the ability to capture a sunset, and the following sunrise with relative ease. If the weather is good, it will be something special when waking up to a mountain vista with no one else around. Magical.

In this video Gary and I hiked to the to the top of Great End where we spent the night. The conditions were amazing and the view is undoubtedly one of the finest in the UK. Despite this the Photography conditions were challenging because a mist in the air was catching all the light and removing all the detail from the shadow areas. However once the sun started to dip behind the cloud I managed to get a few images.

How to Improve You Industrial Landscape Photography

In this video I travel to the northern powerhouse of Teesside to explore some industrial landscapes using long exposure photography.

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If you are anything like me then you will agree that variety it this spice of life. That is exactly how I feel about the subjects of my photography. Varying the type of subjects I shoot gives me an edge and keeps me motivated and creative. It is even true with the landscape photography genre too, so in the video I am going to show you how to photograph industrial landscapes and take them to the next level using long exposure.

The last video provides and in-depth introduction to long exposure photography. You can check that out here - https://youtu.be/vKAu0IluyR4

I hope the video inspires you to get out and shoot some industrial landscapes of your won.

Landscape Photography in the Snow - Winter in North Yorkshire

Snow is the the theme of this landscape photography vlog. I travel to Roseberry Topping in North Yorkshire to make the most of some winter conditions and talk about how I capture landscapes in the snow.

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Snow Challenges

Landscape photography in the snow can present some genuine challenges. Firstly the cold causes problems and in this shoot pretty much all my gear stopped functioning by the end of the day. It seems obvious to say, but snow is wet. It just doesn’t feel wet when it is falling out of the sky. The snow had been falling on me, my gear and my bag all day and, by the end, everything was wet to the core.

Technical Challenges

Secondly there are the technical challenges to shooting in snow. This mainly comes in the form of exposure and white balance. When shooting in the snow the highlights created by the light reflecting off the snow can really confuse the camera’s meter. Putting your camera into manual mode is a must. Using the LCD and Histogram in Liveview will then help you get in right place with exposure. I always shoot in RAW which gives me a large amount of adjustment to exposure in post-production. With white balance, cameras often tend to capture snow with a very blue tint. You see this a lot on TV and it can be used purposefully to add to the cold feeling of the scene. However, have you ever seen blue snow? Again, shooting in RAW provides full control of white balance in post production and I always aim to bring my images to match the scene I visualised at the time ie with white snow. In the last shot of the day the snow had a slightly yellow, orange warm glow to it when it was bathed in the evening sun.

Location, Location, Location

In the video I also talk about shooting from the same location on numerous occasions. I am often asked how I find locations and do I run out of places to shoot. I am a big fan of returning to the same place and capturing an image of it over and over again. Capturing a scene in the different seasons, in different weather, in different light will produce very different photographs and the one you make on the 15th time of asking might be the one that really pops and gains attention.

Happy New Year

Finally I’d just like to wish you a very happy new year. I hope good things happen to you in 2018 and I look forward to running into you out in the landscape. Thank you so much for subscribing, watching, commenting and sharing. It means a lot.

Landscape Photography - Driving rain, gale force winds, and a race against the clock

Driving rain, gale force winds, and a race against the clock stand in my way of capturing a dramatic sunset in this landscape photography vlog.

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In this week's landscape photography vlog I head back to North Yorkshire, close to where I grew up, to capture the famous Teesside landmark of Roseberry Topping.

Landscape Photography Vlog

Recent landscape photography vlogs have seen me enjoying some pretty good weather. Since I hurt my back, the weather has been really poor. Today I decided to head out and brave the conditions in the hope of some great sunset photography. Sometimes when the weather forecast indicates a slight improvement at the end of the day, it can mean something spectacular.

Challenges

For this trip I set off late in the day and also got held up in traffic. It created and unintended race against the clock to shoot the photography vlog, capture some images and be in position for the sunset. My aim was to climb up Roseberry Topping, capture a couple of images and be over to a second location in time for some sunset photography.

Roseberry Topping

Despite the challenges the day ended with a spectacular image of Roseberry Topping. The iconic hill and surrounding landscape were bathed in golden light for a few moments as the sun found a gap between the clouds. I took my moment, having already composed, and created a photograph that I am proud of. Great reward for a challenging day of shooting.

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Landscape Photography - scouting and planning High Cup Nick

Photography Reconnaissance

I get caught in more dreadful weather and drop my camera in a muddy beck when I travel to High Cup Nick in the English Pennines to scout and plan some landscape photography.

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Planning Landscape Photography

Planning is a vital part of landscape photography. Planning often sounds boring but when your job is to scout out a beautiful location, like High Cup Nick in the Pennines, then it is thrilling. High Cup Nick is a canyon in Cumbria that was forged out thousands of years ago by a glacier and provides an excellent scene for photography.

The weather forecast for the day was not great but that was not to prevent me getting out. I have not visited High Cup Nick before so I decided to use the day to scout out some locations for the future. My aim was to find some compositions that would be perfect when the weather was better and the sun was in the right place. I could then return at the right time of year to capture some beautiful landscape photography.

A new lens

I am also testing out a new super wide angle lens that has not been released yet. I am not able to talk about it too much but manage to capture a couple of images.

On reaching the top of High Cup Nick the weather changed for the worse and the wind, rain and cold arrived. This made the main shot of the day impossible but I turned it to my advantage and captured a couple of moody black and white landscapes.

Another brilliant day of landscape photography and some locations in the bank for future use.

Landscape Photography - Shooting on the edge of the world

Isle of Mull Part 3

In this landscape photography vlog I travel to the Isle of Mull in search of some big scenes and a sunset to conclude my epic trip. I also fall into a bog.

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Landscape photography in Mull

In the video I spend my last epic day in the Isle of Mull shooting landscape photography. Today I go in search of some huge landscapes to really tell the story of the island.

The day started well and conditions were still but a little cloudy. The first shot of the day was of an unbelievable road that is sandwiched between a mountain and the sea. It provides an imposing scene. I climbed up a little way to get the composition I wanted. It would be a scary place if the weather was bad.

Next up, Lyle and I, rescued a couple of nice ladies who had broken down. I forgot to film it though so I apologise for that. A quick water fall shot and we were moving on to capture the big sunset shot of the day.

The day, and entire trip, ended in a truly incredible landscape. I shot several compositions and captured a beautiful time lapse. I nearly fell entirely into a bog before capturing a huge scene after the sun had gone down.

The whole trip was amazing and I have made some very good memories and created some images that I am proud of.

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My landscape photography vlogs are designed to document the creation of my work and share my methods and artistic process. If you are inspired to get out and shoot some landscape photography then I have done my job.

Photography is the Best Medicine. It has to be Valued - Vlog No. 5

A landscape photography vlog from First Man Photography

In today's video I head up to Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire to film a landscape photography vlog.

In the video I make a passionate speech/rant about the value of photography so make sure you stick around for that at about 07:25

Photography truly is the best medicine and when you wake up feeling a little bit off or reflective, indulging in some landscape photography is just what you need. It gets you out into the open air, hopefully into a beautiful location, so you can be creative and capture some beautiful images.

This retreat and creativity always results in a more positive outlook and often sparks off some powerful new ideas that I then carry forward into the next thing.

Watch this landscape photography themed vlog and you will see exactly what I mean.

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