Shoot Low to Improve Your Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography  •  Photography Tips

Landscape photography has two important aspects among many less important ones – the important ones being lighting and composition. While patience and planning your shoot is the only way to tackle lighting, composition is something that you can control. That’s why you’ll find a lot of resources to help you improve your landscape photography composition. In this video, landscape photographer Mark Denney shares one simple tip that’ll help you elevate your landscape composition skill – shooting from a lower perspective:

“Getting better at composition is the way to improve your photography the most, and in the quickest possible way.”

Composition in itself is a very vast topic. There are so many techniques for composition you can use that it can feel overwhelming. This can lead to a confusing situation and have a negative effect on your photos. As Denney shares, out of all the techniques that he’s learned, the single most effective technique is finding your focal point and getting low. As Denney showcases in the video, doing so has a lot of advantages in certain scenarios.

It really works well if you have interesting subjects or patterns in the foreground that you want to emphasize. Doing so can help you make your image visually powerful and grab the viewer’s attention. If you have an interesting subject in the foreground, like a rock or a bush, shooting low with a wide-angle lens can really help in exaggerating it and creating a visually compelling foreground. This can then lead the viewers to the focal point of your image.

If there’s a water body in your frame, shooting from a lower perspective should be your ultimate choice. If the water is moving, it creates an immersive experience. But if the water is calm and has some sort of reflection, shooting from a lower angle makes it pop. Try and get as close to the water surface as possible and you’ll surely be impressed with the result.

Many photographers are guilty of always shooting from eye-level. If you too happen to be making the same mistake, make an active effort to get low. You’ll notice how this can add some fresh breath to your landscape photography.