Street vs. Landscape Photography: A Personal Perspective

Moving from London’s bustling streets to the peaceful landscapes of the Lake District transformed my approach to photography. In this guide, I share practical tips for making the shift from street photography to landscape photography, including composition techniques, gear recommendations, and how to work with natural light.

It’s been almost 2 years since I made the move from London to The Lake District, and in that time I’ve had to learn (and will continue to learn) a lot about landscape photography, what it is, what it means and how to capture successful images. In this blog, I am going to break down some of the things that I have learned, some of the stuff that I have changed and what has had to stay the same as I continue on this landscape photography path in The Lake District

One of the things that I have learned, is that I need(ed) to adapt what I was already doing. As with so many things, there are a lot techniques, “rules” and conventions that apply to the landscape photography I do now in Cumrbia, that were also important things to remember in street and cityscape photography.

I am aiming to break down some of these below; I hope you find it interesting and maybe learn something as you read!

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Light is Key - Lessons from The Lake District.

Yes, light is key to both styles of photography, but (in my opinion, and certainly in the way I work) you see it and use it differently. Perhaps, for me, a big part of this is that I shoot far less in low light now. There’s not a whole lot to photograph in the hills at night time unless you’re an astrophotographer (something I am yet to have a ‘proper’ go at), or you love super long exposures!

For me, the biggest difference in how I use light, is that when I am doing landscape photography in the Lake District, the light becomes the photograph, it is the subject and it is what generates a lot of the interest, especially when it’s dappled sunlight across the Fells. In my days shooting in the city, I used it in a different way, often finding interesting coloured lights and then using really wide apertures to force these out of focus to create wild bokeh style backgrounds, usually with interesting foreground texture (more on foreground later), often by the way of drain covers, or leading lines.

Golden hour, and blue hour, are important to both styles. Golden hour, the period before sunset and the period after sunrise, and blue hour, the period after sunset and before sunrise, often provide some of the ‘best’ light for both styles of imagery. In the city, I used it to photograph buildings, in the landscape, I use it to photograph entire scenes, or parts of them.

Many photographers see this as the ‘best’ light, but it does mean, especially as a landscape photographer that you are subjecting yourself to super early starts or late nights, waiting for it to arrive.

Harsh light, i.e. when the sun is high in a clear sky can make landscapes much more of challenge, whilst street photographers will likely see more opportunities with this kind of light, which creates strong, harsh shadows can make for some really interesting compositions, but because of the way that the landscape photography environment is made up, these opportunities are often fewer and further between.

Ultimately, and this feels like a bit of a cop-out, you have to be outside to experience any kind of light, you make your own opportunities, and you can’t shoot any images in good or bad light, if you’re sat in the house!

Composition in Landscape Photography vs Street Photography.

This could, and probably should be a blog all of its own, but I will ‘quickly’ touch on some of the similarities and differences that I have found whilst making the switch, this isn’t a ‘how to’ guide, but will look at some of the similarities and differences which have affected me as someone making the switch into predominantly landscape photography vs street photography.

There’s a lot of differences and a lot I have had to learn, change and adapt. I think that perhaps the biggest shift I have had to make is how to decide what to do with what’s in front of me. In the city, the environment is very much on top of you. In a city like London, where I did the majority of my photography, everything is close to you, if you walk through Canary Wharf or around parts of the City of London, then huge skyscrapers ascend above you and horizons can be non-existent. The environment limits how much you see and almost forces you into certain compositions in particular locations.

Contrast that with being out in wide open spaces, often on top of the highest point for miles around. This comes with its own set of challenges and of course, the temptation just to shoot the whole scene, or to photograph the whole of the sunset or sunrise over Derwentwater. This has been one of the hardest things for me to adapt to, especially when photographing in The Lake District, when there is a stunning vista laid out in front of me, with an amazing sunset kicking off in the background.

I have done a number of things to help me with this; I have looked at a lot of work by other photographers, (but have tried to avoid looking at other Lake District Photographers so that I don’t end up just taking everyone else’s photos), watched YouTube videos, practiced, and finally, have gone on shoots with just a longer focal length lens (usually my Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L), as this takes the wide shots out of play and makes me pick out what I think are interesting features in the landscape. It makes me look for different compositions, different subjects and more creative ways to work with the light that is in front of me.

I don't always go out with just one lens, I often take something which is a bit wider (like a 24-105mm) or sometimes, something super-wide (like my Canon EF 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6), but I do try to think more carefully about my composition when I am shooting with a wider lens, which leads me neatly onto my next point about foreground interest.

When I was shooting in the city, I would use foreground interest to force background lights out of focus to create bokeh, and this kind of foreground interest is something I am trying to include more of in my landscape photography.

I just have to look a bit harder for it, and I’m also not trying to force my images to have out of focus elements (more on focus stacking later). In the city, there are interesting textures, in convenient places, everywhere. There are tons of interesting textures in the country as well, but getting them in the right places, with the right background and a pleasing composition which leads the eye through it, is much more of a challenge, but foreground interest is often key to a successful image. It could be something as simple as a boulder or a patch of heather, but having it there makes a huge difference to your images.

Weather Conditions in Lake District Landscape Photography

No blog about UK landscape photography would be complete without a mention of the weather, but it is something that I have found impacts what I shoot, where I shoot and when I shoot it way more than it did when I lived in the city. When I lived in London, the weather was any combination of hot, dry, wet and/or humid. Occasionally it snowed. Going out to shoot in good weather was a no brainer, going out to shoot in the rain or just after it, was even more of a no brainer - cities look awesome in the rain and in low light - reflections, bright lights and extra textures. You were also never very far from the warm shelter or a shop or a tube station.

I’ve become a bit obsessed with the state of the weather since landscape photography became my biggest focus - will there be rain, how cold will it be, how bad is the wind when I get further up and into the hills? Is there any lightning forecast? What are the chances of a cloud inversion? Is there going to be mist?

The answers to all of the above will influence where I go and shoot and when I decide to go there. If you’re new to photographing in the Lake District, apps like Clear Outside, Ventusky, the BBC Weather App, and the Met Office Mountain Weather Forecast are essential for planning sunrise or sunset photography trips.

There’s some great apps to help you stay on top of this, don’t just rely on one, have a look at what they are all saying, some of my favourites are Clear Outside, Ventusky and the BBC Weather App. If you’re heading out into the hills, the you should always check the Met Office Mountain Weather Forecast. The last thing you want to be is stranded half way up or at the top of fell when the weather closes in, putting yourself and others who may have to come and fetch you down in danger.

Focus Stacking

This has been a real game changer for me, but it has taken some practice. Focus stacking is essentially a different version of exposure stacking, something which I had done in my city photographs to enhance the dynamic range. If you’re trying to achieve pin-sharp images of the fells from foreground to horizon, especially during golden hour, focus stacking is an essential technique for Lake District photography.

Focus stacking, on my camera at least, is a far more manual process. What focus stacking does is to combat some of the physical limitations of your lens and allows you to have all parts of your image either acceptably sharp or pin sharp. Essentially, you take several exposures of the same scene, with your camera mounted on a tripod (this is important, as if you move the camera, your attempts are over before the have even begun!), with each exposure focused on a different point. So, for example, you may focus on the foreground, take an image, then the mid ground and take another image, and then the horizon line and take another exposure. Three generally works well, you could do more, but this can make things more complicated in post production.

When you get back to your computer, you can do all of your light room edits etc. and then export the images to layers in Photoshop. Once in photoshop, you can ask it to automate this process for you, or you can use masks to have full control. It’s slightly more involved than that, and I will do a tutorial on this at some point in the future, but in the meantime, there are lots of tutorials on YouTube that will talk you through the process

I did far less focus stacking in the city than I do in the country, I think largely because my style has shifted and I want more of the scene in acceptable focus than I did in the city when the goal was often bokeh balls.

Slowing Down Your Process

This has been a big adjustment for me. In the city, everything moves a lot quicker, no one is taking their time. Opportunities for images can be fleeting, gone in seconds and won’t come back.

Thats’s not to say that things don’t change at all in the country, but there is more time to let a scene develop. You can stay in one spot and see various stages of light, see patterns change and wait for light to move to where you want it, especially if you’ve got some great dappled light illuminating the hills above Ullswater.

<— Not me in the image, I’ve used a stock image here!

When I was doing much more street photography, I always felt like I needed to be moving, whereas with landscape photography, you have time to slow down and take things in and wait for the opportunities to present themselves, photographing the scene in front of of you as it changes. The big difference is that sometimes, it can take a long time (and a lot of effort) to get to where you want to be. In the city, hop off the train or get out of the car, and generally you’re in amongst it. The country is often a lot more uphill and not as easy to access, but that’s all part of the fun!

You don’t limit yourself by staying in one place, you have time to explore what is in front of you and enjoy the way it changes - as the light moves, so will your eyes and you’ll notice things that you hadn’t thought about capturing only moments earlier.

Gear

This isn’t going to be a ‘does gear matter’ section, but a comment on the type of gear I’m using.

I used to rely heavily on fast lenses - I was using wide apertures for shallow depth of field and often needed the extra light for shooting in low light conditions. I have come to realise that I don’t need a plethora of fast lenses for what I am doing now. I am more concerned about image quality and sharpness, which helps with the cost of things as well - fast lenses are much more expensive. Take the Canon 16-35mm L series lens, there is a difference of almost £300 in the price of the F/4 version when compared to the latest version of the same lens with a maximum attitude of F/2.8. The F/4 versions are also a lot lighter, which is great in terms of carting it around with you all day.

I do still have a couple of fast lenses, namely an F/1.8 nifty fifty and an F/1.2L 85mm Prime. The 85 is a unit of a lens, weighs almost 2kg and is incredibly sharp. These two lenses also hardly ever come out with me unless its for a portrait session or I have a genuine use case for them in the field - 2KG is a lot to carry around all day and then not use! The 85mm was a staple of my bag in London, because of that shallow depth of field, and it was great in low light as the front element is like a bucket.

The lenses that tend to come out with me now are a 10-18mm EF, 16-35mm f/4L, 24-105mm F4/L and my 70-200mm F4/L. These save weight, cover the whole range of focal lengths and give me all the flexibility I could ever need.

Some things are a given for both styles - a sturdy tripod is a must, if it’s light weight, then even better, but expect to pay good money for the privilege. The other item that has been really useful is my Peak Design Camera Clip, which whilst a little pricey for its size, is a must have for when you are out walking, but you might want to get it back in your bag when the terrain starts to get a bit trickier. Better to break a tumble with your hands and not your camera and expensive lens!

What bag you put it all in is very much a personal choice, but for short walks, I like the LowePro Fast Pack , (you can read my review of the Lowepro Fastback here), and for longer walks I take the LowePro Protactic 450 AWII. The latter is a much bigger bag and it comes with hip straps, which make longer days much more comfortable, but it does lack space for your non-camera gear like a jacket or something to eat!

In Summary

I think it’s clear that there are a lot of similarities between the two different styles I have shot, but in short, we’re still taking photos, we’re still telling stories and we are still doing it using similar equipment. We are, to an extent very reliant on the weather but for different reasons.

For me, the biggest difference is the tempo that things move at in the landscape photography world, it’s slower and at times more methodical, with a greater need for focus stacking if you want that front to back sharpness in your images.

Which one would I choose? Well both of them. I still do some street photography and still really enjoy it; I enjoy the dynamism and the change of pace it offers from the much more pedestrian pace of landscape photography, but regardless of what I prefer, I just love being out with camera, taking images, sharing images and telling stories!

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10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Photography.

Beginner Photography Tips from Someone Who’s Been There

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I have been working on a lot of things for beginner photographers in the last few weeks and a few people have had a read of my blog from last week, Essential Photography Gear for Beginners: What You Really Need to Get Started. https://chriskendrickphoto.co.uk/blog/what-gear-do-you-need-as-a-beginner-photographer

To this end, I thought I would go one further and think more about beginner photography and this led me to think about the things I wish I knew when I started taking photos. 

This turned into quite a long list (with some repetition!), which I have tried to distil into ten points below. I will try and keep it short and simple, but I do have habit of trying to share as much as possible - it’s all about helping each other. I’m not a gate keeper! 

So let’s jump into 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Photography…

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1. You Don’t Need an Expensive Camera to Take Great Photos

This one kind of touches on the “Does Gear Matter Question”. The answer to that, as we know, is yes. But also a resounding no. But, it does a bit and “categorically no”. 

Ultimately, what matters is that you have some gear AND you know how to use it. Some of the best time you can spend as a photographer  is time getting to know your camera (or the camera app on your phone!), what the buttons do, and more importantly, where they are. You will miss shots if you’re spending ages trying to remember what the buttons do and where they are. Its also well worth learning your menus, where to find things and what they all do.

But this doesn’t answer the question. The main point in the previous paragraph is “that you have some gear”. It doesn’t matter what that gear is, as long as it works and you know what you’re doing with it.

You can take a great photo on any camera. It doesn’t matter whether its a Hasselblad X2D or an Canon R5 MKII. Breson didn’t have either of these. Gilden doesn’t use one. What they do know how to do is to frame a shot, when to take the shot and how to edit the shot to make it exactly what they want. 

If you have camera that uses older tech, or you have a camera that is more basic, or you’re using your phone, you can take a great photo. 

Good photos mean something. Good photos say something. Good photos tell a story. You achieve a photo that does all of these things with any camera, be that the latest offering from one of the big companies, or a 20 year old DSLR. What matters is what or who you are taking photos of. 

This is one of the most important things I have learned. When I started out, I bought the best camera I could afford and paired it with a kit lens. I still have that camera now. I have added more lenses, but I still have that camera and use it most days. 

Another way to think about this. In “real life” I am a teacher and I have taught photography at A-Level. The best photography student I ever had, the one who took the best images was the student who had the cheapest camera (not just in their class, but across all 4 classes I taught) and they created some images that were genuinely first rate images. I always remind myself of this when I am looking longingly through the window of my local camera shop. 

2. Manual Mode Isn’t as Complicated as It Seems

It really isn’t. It might seem it, but it’s not. I promise. The thing you need to master is the exposure triangle. Conveniently, I have made a blog about the exposure triangle, which you can read here. https://chriskendrickphoto.co.uk/blog/a-beginner-photographers-guide-to-the-exposure-triangle

If you can master the basics of shutter speed, ISO and aperture. Get the hang of this, then you can start to think about white balance and picture profiles (if your camera supports them) and maybe go one step further and start to explore things like long exposure photography and ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). 

You should also look into aperture and shutter priority on your camera and learn to use these too.

3. Light Is the Most Important Part of Any Photo

It’s the name of what we do… The word “Photography” is taken from two Ancient Greek words “Photos” meaning light and “graphé” meaning to draw or write. Photography literally means “writing or drawing with light”. 

So yeah, light is kind of important! Without it, we can’t take images. 

But then we have low light, good light, bad light, soft light, hard light, specular light… and many more. 

A good space for us to start is Golden Hour. This is the light we have after sunrise and before sunset. The term  Golden is a bit of a misnomer, it can be about an hour, it can be 15 minutes and it’s also really dependent on the weather and atmospheric conditions where you are taking photos. If you’re covered in thick grey cloud, you aren’t going to get amazing golden light, but you will have some lovely soft light to work with.

It doesn’t have to be soft light though. Hard shadows can work really well and add drama to your photos, just look at the work of someone like Fan Ho, for example. He used harsh shadows to great effect in a lot of his work (he also shot on a dual lens reflex camera, not a mirrorless or a DSLR, because they hadn’t even been thought of at this point!) 

As you get more confident with your camera, you will find new ways to manipulate the light with long exposure and exposure stacking and this will produce you some awesome results!

Use your weather apps and maybe look at experimenting with apps like PhotoPills. They will help you to decide what the weather might be like at the location you are visiting and will tell you where the sun is going to be in the sky and this will enable you to pick the right place to make the most of the light. 

I’m going to include reflections in here as well, because they’re made of light too, right? Reflections are some of my favourite things to include in my shots; I used to live for a good reflection when I lived in the city, and the same is true now I live out in the sticks, they just tend to be a bit bigger in the countryside that in the city. But you don’t need a tarn in the Lake District with the reflection of a mountain, a puddle and tree can work just as well!

4. Composition Can Instantly Improve Your Photos

This is one of the most important things and one of the easiest ways to improve your images, quickly and cheaply. 

Composition as both a topic and a concept is HUGE. As a beginner, I didn’t know much about it, let alone the different types of composition. When I started out, I was just taking pictures of things I liked and sticking them in the middle of my frame. 

Then I learned about the rule of thirds, leading lines and the golden ratio. There’s more than this, but these are the three that you will hear the most about. You should go and find out about them and start using them - the difference you will see is huge. 

5. Editing Helps — But Subtlety Is Key

Editing is one of my favourite things to do. You need to know that it takes practice and you are constantly learning. You can never know everything about editing. 

When you first start out, one thing you are likely to do (I know I certainly did!) is to find the saturation, virbance and clarity sliders in Lightroom and drag them all or most of the way towards the right hand send. This will make your colours unnatural and it’s not a desirable look for your photos. 

Take your time, practice, look at other photorgapher’s work, watch YouTube videos to learn, but keep it subtle and let it look natural. 

When it comes to editing, less is more. Just like this section of the blog!

6. You’ll Take a Lot of Bad Photos — and That’s Fine

Time for clichés. 

We learn by making mistakes, so go out and make them. The only stupid mistakes you make are the ones that you don’t learn from (2 clichés already!).

But joking  (and clichés ) aside, embrace your mistakes, establish why it’s a mistake and then go out and try again. Rinse and repeat.  

(I’ve used stock images in this blog, but this one is mine, it was handheld and the exposure was too long for this method of taking the image, so it’s blurry and there’s camera movement!)

7. Stop Comparing Yourself to Everyone Else

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken” Oscar Wilde. 

This was on the wall in a school I used to work in and it’s stuck with me. It works for so many things in life, but in this instance, it works really well. 

Don’t sit and compare your landscape shots to Ansell Adams’ work. Don’t compare your portraits to Annie Leibowitz and don’t compare your still like/commercial photos to Scott Choucino. These are well established professional photographers, have years of experience and have forgotten more about photography than most of us will ever know!

But aside from those I have mentioned above, don’t compare yourself to other photographers on social media. You’re not them and they are not you. Work on your own images and discover your own style!

8. Consistent Practice Beats Occasional Perfection

Use it or lose it. If you’ve ever played and instrument, you will know that you need to practise to get better. Stop practicing and it takes longer to learn the piece. If you’re a sports player and don’t train, you lose the skills you are developing and your fitness decreases and you don’t perform as well.

The same is true with photography. If I go out to shoot and haven’t done so for a couple of weeks, I really notice it and I find that it takes a while to get my eye in and I don’t always know where the camera controls are - this leads to missed shots and missed shot can’t be a good shot or a bad shot!

9. You’ll Start Noticing the World Differently

This sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but it’s true. You’ll notice leading lines, you will notice good light and you will notice that you don’t always have your camera with you when you wish you had - but we all have a camera in our pocket these days anyway, don’t we?

I have lost count of the number of times I have been driving home and have seen amazing light on the fells. The number of times I wish I had my camera with me or the the numbers of times I wished I wasn’t driving at 70mph watching the world zip by the car window is huge. 

If you look hard enough, everything can be a photo and as you practice more, you will begin to see that you can find images where you might not have thought there could be one. Even in harsh sunlight (which isn’t always the photographer’s friend), you will see that you start to see shadows that will make a great image!

10. Enjoy the Process

What is the point in doing it if you don’t enjoy it? It’s probably going to be difficult at times, but what you experience in difficulty, you will more than make up for in sense of achievement. 

Go out there and take lots of bad photos! Learn from the mistakes and use them to improve. Enjoy getting frustrated at the edits but having something beautiful at the end of it. 

I’d also recommend getting your photos printed. I print my own images but if I’m not printing them to hang on the wall or want smaller images, I use services such as Free Prints and get a stack of 6x4s delivered direct to the door for about three quid! It completes the process and brings everything full circle from scouting to shooting to editing, to having those prints in your hand - it’s nice to have a tangible reward at the end!

Photography is great fun, if at times it can be challenging and occasionally frustrating. It can be your best friend and your sanctuary, and it can also, at times, be your worst enemy and some subjects will become your nemesis, but it wouldn’t be fun if it were easy, right?

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Thanks for sticking with me through this post — I hope it’s helped you feel a little more confident on your photography journey. If it has, why not stay connected? You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook for regular tips, behind-the-scenes content, and new work. And if you’d like more beginner-friendly photography advice, early access to blog posts, and exclusive updates, make sure to sign up for my newsletter here. Let’s keep learning and creating together!