What's Wrong With This Picture? Improve
Your Mountain Photographs
By: Simon Kirwan
 Why is it so difficult to capture mountain images
like the ones we see in those lavishly-produced
coffee table books? Is it just down to equipment, or
is the photographer simply better at it than we are?
Was he just lucky with the weather that day? And if
so, why am I never that lucky? Well, luck does come
into it, having the right equipment is a necessity,
and if the weather's not right, there's not a lot
you can do about it, but you don't have to be a John
Cleare or Colin Prior to produce fantastic mountain
images that will capture the essence of your perfect
day in the hills.
Mountains are by nature photogenic, but it is not
always easy to capture their scenic grandeur in a
photograph. Serious professional photographers have
to use very expensive, large-format equipment to
produce the image quality required for reproduction
in a printed book or magazine, but for
non-professional purposes, a decent 35mm SLR camera,
preferably with a wide angle lens, will produce
highly acceptable results.
I use a Sigma 12-24mm wide-angle zoom lens on a
Nikon D2X, usually at its wider settings, or a
Tokina 20-35mm. Wide angle lenses are necessary to
include the large physical area occupied by mountain
scenes, and impart a sense of scale and space. It is
a good idea to include some foreground detail like
figures or buildings to emphasise the scale of the
scene.
But owning the latest Canon or Nikon 35mm will not
turn you into Ansel Adams overnight. Ask any
photographer what is the most important element in
the picture-taking process, and he will reply - the
person behind the camera. The camera should become
an extension of your eye, allowing you to frame the
image in the viewfinder the way you see the scene in
your mind's eye. This is where viewpoint,
composition, and lighting enter the equation., and
although the best photographers do this
instinctively, there are basic principles which you
can adopt, and apply to your picture-taking, which
will dramatically improve your photography.
Viewpoint is the first consideration - most places
and objects, whether they are mountains, buildings,
people, or your prize begonias, have an optimum
viewpoint, from which angle they are shown to best
effect. With large objects like mountains, there
will be several viewpoints from which interesting
and often dramatic images can be captured. These
viewpoints are often well known, and books like The
Welsh Peaks and the Lakeland Peaks by W.A. Poucher
contain specific information about the best
viewpoints for mountain photographs in these areas.
There is also every chance that your normal walking
routes will pass several striking viewpoints during
the day.
 Having selected your viewpoint, you need to compose
the image in the camera, a process known as
'framing'. Although images are often cropped prior
to publication, the photographer usually composes
the image in the viewfinder, and there are some
handy devices employed by top photographers to
improve the composition of their images. A common
failing of the pictures we bring back from our day
in the hills is that they seem empty and flat, when
at the time we were surrounded by soaring peaks and
dramatic views. To remedy this, we need to include
an object of known size, your walking partner for
instance, to impart scale - lack of foreground
interest also makes pictures look boring, so try to
include something like a cairn, a tarn, an
interesting bit of rock, anything which will improve
the composition. One trick landscape photographers
use is to angle the camera downwards, to avoid the
inclusion of too much empty sky, and to fill the
frame with more of the foreground. Of course, the
sky is often an interesting feature in its own
right, and a dramatic cloud formation can often
rescue an otherwise mediocre scene.
The primary consideration affecting the quality of
any photograph is lighting, even more so when
shooting landscapes. The lighting on a particular
scene can change dramatically depending on several
factors - the weather, time of day, season of the
year, and location of the scene.
Generally speaking, lighting for mountain
photography is better early or late in the day, and
from autumn through to spring, when the sun is low
in the sky, producing side-lighting which emphasises
the shape of the mountain. During the middle of the
day, and particularly in summer, the sun tends to be
very overhead, and produces lighting which flattens
the contours of the landscape.
Sunlight on a crisp winters day, with snow on the
peaks, often produces the most satisfying results -
the air is cold and clear, intensifying the blue of
the sky, and definition of the landscape is at its
most pronounced. In summer, heat produces a dust and
photochemical haze in the atmosphere, reducing
definition, and causing the sky to appear grey and
colourless, even in bright sunshine.
 It is also important to remember that the light
moves around the points of the compass from dawn to
dusk, rising in the east, passing through south in
the middle of the day, and setting in the west.
Light illuminates different facets of a mountain at
differing times of day, so that an east-facing
mountain will receive light in the morning,
west-facing will be lit in the afternoon, and
south-facing will receive light all day. Often a
shot from a desired viewpoint must be timed to suit
the timing when the light will be at its most
advantageous - side-lighting generally yields better
results than flat over-the-shoulder lighting.
Finally, don't leave the camera behind because the
weather is bad - often the best results occur when
the light suddenly breaks through clouds after rain,
glinting off wet rock. This is where the luck comes
in - all the planning in the world won't help if the
weather isn't being co-operative, but any serious
photographer will be ready for that single moment
when the light miraculously appears before the gloom
descends once more – if your camera is permanently
buried at the bottom of your rucksack under the
first-aid kit and the emergency fruit cake, and you
only bother to dig it out to record that summit
moment, then you’re probably going to miss a
multitude of mountain photo opportunities. So keep
the camera accessible - that way, if the perfect
panoramic landscape does appear during your day out,
you’ll be able to record it – and even if every
image on the film isn’t an award-winning
spectacular, photographs are a great way of
recording your walks.
Simon Kirwan is a photographer with a passion for
the outdoors. He spends as much time as possible
visiting the mountains and wild places of Britain
and the world. After visiting Nepal and
photographing the Himalayas in 1999, Simon was named
'Observer Outdoor Photographer of the Year 2000'. He
has since travelled overland across East Africa
visiting Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Malawi,
Mozambique and Zimbabwe; in addition, he has
photographed the mountain ranges of Europe including
the Spanish Pyrenees, the French and Italian Alps,
and the Polish Tatras.
Despite his love of travel and the excitement of
visiting new destinations, Simon is equally happy to
wander the hills and mountains of Britain's
countryside, especially Snowdonia, the Peak District
and the Lake District where he can indulge his love
of mountain walking and scrambling as well as
photographing the ever-changing landscape.
www.aerial-photographer.co.uk
http://www.the-lightbox.com
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