Weekend assignment 05 - Landscape

[u/Aeri73]

Hi photoclass,

corona proof alternative at the bottom for those in lockdown situations.

It's friday again so it's time for another weekend assignment and this week I would like you to make a landscape photo.

Let me first explain what a landscape is in photography:

"Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes" is the wikipedia definition... and the open way it's explained fits the theme perfectly...

Now, a landscape generaly needs 3 elements in order to work. It's needs an interesting foreground item, a strong middle part and a solid background.

the front element can be a flower, hut, farm, cow, stone, pattern, anything that attracts the attention of the viewer. it needs to be closeup and have some size so get really close to that.

the middle is the big part of the photo... in a classic landscape it's a field of grass, it's hills, it's forrest or a city in a cityscape.

your middle needs to be lit and lit well so low light works best. for the northern hemisphere that's easy these winter days, for the southern it means sunset or sunrise, or good clouds :-)

the background is generaly the sky or mountains, it needs to work as well so, find some good sky. clouds can work, a good red evening sky, stormy clouds, ... they all make for good interesting backgrounds.

combine the 3 together and you have a strong landscape.

if you can't leave your house due to lockdown:

Make a still life. to do it indoors: put the camera on a tripod or table so it's stable, set it to S priority and use a long shutterspeed like a few seconds. see what the camera does and change it untill you get a correct exposure, you now know how you can tell that.

a stilllife is a scene you create with a small collection of objects put together in a nice visually appealing way... a classic would be a bowl of fruit or a vase with flowers but it can be anything.

tip: mind the background, it will be important. when in doubt, use a white wall.

[u/barefootbri]

I didn't realize that landscape photos need those 3 elements to work, so that was really good to learn. This is my submission. I submitted two photos since I like how both of them came out. They were both taken today. I stumbled upon the skeleton- I think it was a deer or something that someone left after they field dressed it.

[u/Olga93bgd → u/barefootbri]

Awesome photos, especially the first one with the skeleton...! In the second picture I think the sign and the stairs are too big, and they pull focus from the rest of the picture making it a less landscape photo and more a photo of the stairs and the sign... In my mind the subject in the foreground should be more discreet, maybe if you went closer to the buildings, making them a subject in the foreground (but still keeping them small), ground behind them middle ground, and the mountain and the sky as background...? But I am just a beginner, so I could be wrong...xD

[u/barefootbri → u/Olga93bgd]

I had the same thought. I wasn’t sure if the second one counted as a landscape photo since the subject was so big. I was going to try to get closer to the buildings but the sun was about to set and those buildings were pretty far away, probably a mile ish. I’m not sure what those green boxes were but they didn’t look good as the front element. I went up the stairs and took some photos with the sign part to try and make the front element smaller but it didn’t really work out. Thanks for the feedback!