Planning landscape photography

Landscape photography is one of the most impressive and inspiring among all the photographic disciplines that exist. These photographs invite us to admire, surprise and let our imagination fly to places we do not know, or to see them from a new perspective. Colorado landscape photography changes the perception of what surrounds us; We become much more aware of our surroundings and learn to see and read it in a completely different way. We learn to understand and predict light, weather, twilight, astronomy and an endless number of other elements that make the world open and discover it with beauty and admiration as we had not stopped to see it before.

Landscape Photography Planning

Planning, together with editing/processing and composition, is a differentiating element of any landscape and nature photographer. It can be said that the chances of you getting a good landscape photograph are due in a very high percentage to the planning of the shot. The workflow that I recommend to follow to achieve good planning is as follows:

• Analyze what opportunities you will have; depending on the type of landscape you are going to find and the time of the year in which you visit it. Keep in mind the weather forecasts for that day.
• Consciously prepare where the best locations are located. I recommend placing on a map both the locations of specific photographs (obtained in the previous step of inspiration), and the areas where we believe there may be good opportunities.
• Study each of the details that affect the shot you are going to make: direction by which the sun rises or hides, route of the milky way and moon phase in the case of night photographs or even more specific details, such as at what time the sun will create the rainbow in a waterfall.

There are very useful mobile applications for some of these situations, such as knowing the sunrise and sunset times, and the address it will have at a specific time in the place where we are going to photograph; also make sure to use the best cameras for landscape photography, that will influence in the result

Make sure you have the locations at hand without the need for coverage or the internet. To do this, import them through different applications such as Google earth, my maps, maps.me, etc.

Tips to improve landscape photography

Improve your landscape photography

Ansel Adams said: "Landscape photography is the supreme proof of the photographer and, often, the supreme disappointment."

This usually happens because many people are dedicated to doing what I like to call «postcard photo» in which they simply photograph what they have in front of them, without looking for anything else. And of course, there is a photo with little life, which says nothing. But, as in everything, there are tricks to avoid it.

Obviously, each landscape is a world, and there is no master key that works perfectly in all, but, there are three points that if you follow them (at least one of them) you will see how they change immediately your Colorado landscape photography.

The foreground

Surely hearing about a close-up in landscape photography is weird, but believe me, it is the real key to success. Imagine that you are going to take a picture of a landscape, for example, with a castle. In this case, it is normal to focus on framing the castle and taking the picture.

In doing this, it is not that we take a bad photo, but it is not as good as it could be. And, to give it that special point, we have the foreground. The use of this plane is spreading more and more in current photography and the reason is that it brings two important advantages; positions the public in the photo and brings a sense of depth to the landscape.

Position the public

Making the person who sees the photo feel inside it is like transporting it to that same place, hence it is so valuable. To achieve this, you have to see, in your photo, elements close to the position from where you took it. This is achieved with short focal lengths or, failing that, bending down when taking the photo to capture part of the ground or nearby elements, its also important to select the best cameras for landscape photography.

Feeling deep

By introducing elements in the foreground you also provide a reference to the distances in your landscape. In this way, it is easier for the public to know how far each element of photography is. This, for example, is more difficult to appreciate in shots taken with long focal distances or in which other intermediate references are not appreciated. These focal points also tend to flatten the photo, since, the more zoom, the more closely are the planes of your photo.

For the foreground elements, there are two very interesting ways to do it. The first is unfocusing them, which is good to frame the image and give a different appearance to the bottom or when this area has too much detail. This will be achieved by leaving these elements out of depth of field. The second way is to use the hyperfocal distance, so that you will get the whole scene to be clear and more like what you see in reality.

Landscape photography styles

Landscape photography: Description and styles

As in painting, in photography, landscapes have been a constant theme throughout history. Landscapes are an inanimate, static and affordable photographic subject. In addition, they are one of the least controversial and most permanent issues, since the same landscape may be different depending on the time of the year, the weather, the angle from which we photograph it and the frame we choose. But the appeal of this type of photography goes further because even without having a camera, or a canvas on which to capture them, landscapes have the ability to convey emotions.

They can be romantic, bucolic, make us feel sorry, or infuse us with a feeling of lightness that makes us relax. In landscape photography we find different styles framed in descriptive, impressionist and abstract modalities. Let's briefly define each one of them:

Romantic style: It is probably the most used style. It is based on photographs in which a certain amount of blurring and subsequent lighting is usually introduced. It is also very common to use a high ISO, and a shallow approach. One of the leading photographers of this style was Ansel Adams, who is also considered the most famous landscape photographer.

Descriptive style: It does not have as many concrete elements as the romantic style. The highlight of this type of Colorado landscape photography is a careful composition and extreme attention to detail. It is characterized by not including any type of manipulation so that reality is embodied in the most reliable way possible. It belongs to the field of direct photography, without any artifice, which highlights the work of Edward Weston.

Graphic / abstract style: This is a style in which you try to reduce the landscape to something simple, sometimes even minimalism. It consists in extracting the graphic essence of a scene in the best possible way. Some visual expertise is required to get good graphic and also the use of the best cameras for landscape photography.

Environmental style: It arises as a method of protest against environmental degradation due to pollution. It is promulgated mainly by the Sierra Club and Audubon Society, in whose publications we find photographs of landscapes of great beauty, which are used to make people think about the possibility of something like this being lost. There is also a variant, which shows desolate landscapes, destroyed due to pollution or human action. One of the greatest exponents is Robert Adams.

Manipulative style: It is probably the least common. In this style some objects are added to the landscape itself, either by including them in reality, or by manipulating the image in a postprocessed whether digital or analog. John Pfahl and Jerry Uelsmann are two of the photographers who have best managed to deal with this subject.

Controlled style: Landscapes are usually photographed illuminated by natural light. In this style, they are usually photographed illuminated with artificial light so that most of the time the night shots are taken.

How to take landscape photography

Photograph landscapes:

One of the scenarios that overwhelms us the most and that incites us to photograph are the landscapes. These natural and sometimes great canvases, sensations awaken us through their colors, rumors, lights, contrasts, smells, etc. but being able to capture those perceptions and capture them in a two-dimensional image as limited as a photograph, is a visual challenge within reach of very few. Colorado landscape photography has many elements to take into count.

The usual result is that the photograph of a landscape is a flat image, totally away from the impressions that it transmitted to us live. This is usually due to the absence in the image of a clear center of interest. All the elements are in it but in a scattered, bland and confusing way.

In landscape photography, one of the tricks is to convert what interests us most in the visual center of the image.

That is why the first thing we should do before take the landscape photography, is discover what has caught the attention of the landscape, the most important element of it, the stimulus that has led us to photograph it. What is the main sensation that wakes us up in the scene? If we had to describe it in words, how would we do it? Is there any element in it that underscores that feeling?

We can rarely afford, unless it is a professional job, to take locations for the photographs and then return to them at the optimal moments of light. But if so, remember that sunsets and sunrises offer a high-quality light, which usually improves any photograph. We can also find a sifted light, very suitable for certain images, on cloudy days.

Another issue to assess is the elements that, without being essential, can give us a graphic complement to the image, creating visual lines, framing the theme, providing chromatic intensity, contrast in lighting, or any other aspect that enriches the composition. This type of elements can be: tree branches, winding roads, lampposts, pointed shadows, fences, and a long etc. is for that reason that its very important to choose the best cameras for landscape photography

The visual angle is also fundamental in the square. The usual is the most comfortable and this leads to photographs taken centered on the object, at the height of the eyes while standing, and with a focal plane perpendicular to the ground. Correct photographs but not infrequently bland.

Dare to look for new points of view, kneel, lie down, get on an object, discover all possible angles regarding the landscape to be photographed. It does not mean that they are always better but you may find new perspectives that help you get better photos, more faithful to the sensations that aroused your desire to click.

Photography types

What is photography?

Photography is called a technique and an art form that consist of capturing images using light, projecting it and fixing it in the form of images on a sensitive medium (physical or digital).

In the case of cameras, the principle is exactly the same, except that they are equipped with lenses to refine the focus of the projected, mirrors to reinvest the projected image and finally a photosensitive tape (or a similar digital sensor), which it captures the image and saves it, so that it can then be revealed or viewed digitally.

The images obtained in this way are also called photographs or photos, and are the result of decades of refinement of the technique and photosensitive materials, until the optical quality of modern cameras is achieved. In addition, this technology allowed the development and improvement of other similar ones, including cinematography.

What is photography for?

Photography plays an important documentary or journalistic role in our days, since it allows us to capture real images and reproduce them in physical or digital media, thus being able to observe events that occurred in other latitudes and / or in other historical times.

Types of photography

According to its claims and the nature of the photographed object we can talk about:

• Advertising photography. That which serves as advertising or promotion to consumer products, whatever they may be. It is often the subject of digital interventions and other types of strategic "corrections."
• Fashion photography. That which accompanies fashion shows and other fashion events, emphasizing the way of dressing or wearing or combing your hair.
• Documentary photography Also called historical or journalistic, it is done for informational or pedagogical purposes, that is, as part of the transmission of a message.
• Landscape photography. That which is taken to exhibit nature in its fullness, such as aerial or underwater shots, usually very open and full of color

Depending on the type of photography the camera will need specific technical conditions; for example to take a photo from a landscape, the photograph will have to choose the best camera for landscape photography

As a landscape concept, three points of view or descriptions can be obtained (according to the Aesthetics Dictionary), and at the same time in all of them it is found in the aesthetic notion of a landscape: that it is a geographical region, or the aspect that is discovered from a given point, or the work of art that represents that aspect.

The landscape photography has a very important role in contemporary culture, the concept of landscape can be taken as a cultural projection of a society in a given space, relating it to aspects such as the physical, material and objective dimension, and another more cultural and subjective perspective.

In any element of the Colorado landscape photography a reality and a temporality captured by the observer are shown. Once these values are perceived, they pass a series of personal and cultural filters that are transformed into values and meanings. From here, the landscape is interpreted as a language that speaks of the culture of a past, present and also of a future.