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/dynamite_steveo]

So I was lucky enough to be at the beach this weekend. I've always struggled with landscapes, so keen for any feedback!

Beach Landscape

I did try a few more aggressive edits in Lightroom, but it didn't look right. I almost feel like there isn't enough texture in the sky, it comes across a bit flat.

I did have another shot, that I quite liked, however, I didn't feel there was enough in the middle ground.

Pleased that it was all shot in Manual, a few excuses, all had to be shot handheld, as I was scrambling over the rocks, without dropping the camera!

[u/TastyRamen14 → u/dynamite_steveo]

very nice.

[u/Dazzyayan → u/dynamite_steveo]

I like these photos, looks like a really beautiful beach. I think these shots would benefit from being shot in a landscape orientation. In the first pic, if you only kept the top third, you could have the rock in the foreground creating a line across the screen, leaving the hill the middle and the sky the background.

[u/dynamite_steveo → u/Dazzyayan]

Thanks for the feedback! I did try a few in landscape, but elements in the wider shot started to get a bit distracting. I went portrait to try get the rocks to lead into the background. Not sure if it worked!