Improve Your Landscape Photography - For FREE!
Welcome back, and if you’re new here, then welcome.
I’m going to give you some tips to improve your landscape photography, and none of them are going to involve you spending money on new equipment. The only things these will cost you, in no particular order, are time, travel costs, and, if necessary, accommodation.
In many of my blogs, once I have written a brief introduction, I then add an Amazon affiliate disclaimer. This is not one of those occasions. Any links you see in this blog will only take you to other pages on my site. When I say free, in this instance, I really do mean free.
So what are the tips I have for you? Let’s find out…
Get Out and Shoot
Ok, so we’re at point one and I already need to take my own advice. Getting out to shoot is, for the most part, free and easy. You don’t need to spend any money to do this; you can go and shoot in your own locality.
Maybe you think this is boring, but many photographers before you or I have completed projects about where they live, often titled along the lines of “photographs of my boring town”. You might be surprised at what you can find within a one-mile radius of your home, and it’s a great way to explore it.
I am thankful every day that I get to live in the Lake District, but I have also lived in London and in smaller towns. Whilst I wasn’t a photographer before I moved to London, I would love to go back and shoot within an hour of my old addresses. Maybe they weren’t as boring as I thought.
This could be done as a project or simply as practice, but any practice is better than none. If you don’t practise, you don’t improve. If you don’t improve, you don’t move forward.
Ultimately, you won’t take photos sitting at home. Get out and take your camera with you.
Slow Down
I think this is really important. When I first started shooting, I wanted to take as many photos as possible in as little time as possible. Looking back, I can see how unhelpful that approach was.
Ok, London moves quickly, especially if you’re a street photographer, but you can still slow down.
Slowing down makes you more purposeful, and when you are more purposeful, you think more carefully about what you are doing. This was one of the most impactful changes I made to the way I work. As I slowed down, my images improved.
Think about your composition. Think about your settings. Think about where you are placing elements in your scene. These choices matter, and they have a huge effect on how successful your images are.
These decisions can be rushed, but they shouldn’t be.
Restrict Yourself
This is one of my favourites. Decide what you are going to shoot, take your camera and one lens, and go out to take photos.
If you’re a wildlife photographer, you will probably want something longer. If you’re doing this for the first time and don’t want to limit yourself too much, take a zoom lens for flexibility.
If you’re more experienced, or simply want to challenge yourself, take a prime lens. I love taking out my 50mm or 85mm and seeing what I can create.
If you’re worried about missing shots, don’t be. Restricting yourself forces you to see differently. You’ll start to notice compositions you would have overlooked and create images that are completely different from your usual work.
Revisit a Favourite Location
In the Lake District, I find myself constantly drawn to Coniston Water and Gummer’s How. They’re close, they look great, and the views are fantastic.
In London, it was the Square Mile and a spot near Canary Wharf. Both locations worked well in daylight and at night, and they were busy enough to offer plenty of opportunities for street photography.
The locations I revisit in the Lake District also look great in different lighting conditions. At night, you might not see much of the landscape itself, but the stars can be incredible.
So why revisit the same places? Because you already know them. You know what compositions work, where to stand, and how to get there. That familiarity frees you up to focus on other things, like nailing your focus and exposure.
It’s also a great opportunity to hunt for new compositions, which leads nicely into the next point.
Learn Your Camera
Know everything about it. Know how to set up custom menus. Know where all the buttons are and what they do.
This is really important. You need to be able to use your camera without looking down at it, especially when adjusting settings such as shutter speed, ISO, and aperture.
The less time you spend looking at your camera, the more time you can spend looking at your scene. That’s where the interesting and beautiful moments happen.
Spend time with your camera. Read the manual. Set up custom buttons to suit the way you work.
Understand your camera, and it will help you take better photos.
Back Button Focus
This takes a bit of practice to get used to, but it’s something that has improved my photography.
In short, you remove the focusing function from the shutter button and assign it to a button on the back of the camera, usually labelled AF-ON.
Normally, half-pressing the shutter both focuses and prepares the shot. With back button focus, the shutter button only takes the photo, while your thumb controls focusing.
This separation gives you much more control. You can focus once, release the button, and recompose without the camera trying to refocus every time you press the shutter.
It’s especially useful for moving subjects, as you can track focus continuously and lock it when needed. It also helps prevent accidental refocusing when taking multiple shots of the same scene.
It can feel unusual at first, but many photographers find it becomes a more efficient and reliable way of working.
That said, when I am shooting landscapes on a tripod, I tend to switch to manual focus. Especially when focus stacking, it gives me complete control. If I miss focus, I know it’s down to me rather than relying on the camera.
Shoot in Manual Mode
When I teach photography, I always make sure my students can shoot in manual mode.
This isn’t because it makes you a better photographer, and it’s certainly not about snobbery. I don’t subscribe to the idea that you’re not a “proper” photographer unless you shoot in manual.
However, I do believe that to take good photos, you need to understand how your camera works and what each setting does.
There’s little point in using aperture priority if you don’t understand aperture, and the same applies to shutter priority.
Understanding the exposure triangle is essential. Knowing how it affects your images gives you more control and more creative freedom.
Shooting in manual mode helps build that understanding. Once you have it, you can choose whichever mode suits your workflow, but you’ll be making informed decisions.
Start a Project
I have a blog coming up about this in a couple of months and will talk about this in much more detauil, if you want to be notified, sign up to my mailing list and you’ll find out all about it.
For now though, understand that having a project can give you focus, a reason to go out when the conditions and necessarily the best or the ones you would normally go in and it can help you to get over a creative rut. If you’re not sure where to begin, check out my ideas generator, which will help you to find something which might get those creative juices flowing.
Your project doesn’t need to be complicated or ground breaking, it just needs to be something that you achieve and that you’re proud of!
Make a Zine
This is something that I could have tied up in the ‘start a project’ heading above. Zines would usually need a theme, but they don’t have to be a project. This is something that I have started doing, and really enjoying - I have (you guessed it) a blog coming up about this at the start of November, so be sure to check back for it, and sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t!
Final Thoughts
The whole point of this blog is to give you ideas you can use to go and start improving your photography, for free. You should see from this that going out and buying new kit isn’t the inspiration you think it is; if you need to buy new kit to be inspired, then take some time to really digest this and get inspired to use the kit that you already have - the short term good feeling of having a new piece of kit, will quickly be replaced with buyer’s remorse when it’s still sat on the shelf in six months time and you haven’t used it… Save yourself some money!
New gear won’t make you a better photographer, I know that it’s a cliché thing to say, but the camera doesn’t take the images. You do. It doesn’t make the compositions, it captures what you tell it to, how you tell it to. The only way you can get better is the same as it is with anything else that requires it… by going out and practicing. Musicians have to practice, they don’t decide to learn an instrument, practice for a couple of weeks and then go “maybe if I spend £6000 on a pro-level trumpet I will be the next Louis Armstrong”, and if they do, they will quite quickly realise that this isn’t how it works.
Yes, a better capture will capture images that maybe have more resolution, better colour science and a bigger sensor, but if. you don’t know how to get the most out of it, you will be wasting your money - you only get out what what effort you put in dictates - low effort = minimal rewards.
Spending getting to know the camera you already have, save the money and then when the time is right, maybe consider investing in a new body or some new glass - you should only be buying stuff you need to achieve your outcome: a filter new filter might be a good starting place; if you need it for a long exposure project, this could be a worthwhile investment, but don’t be fooled into thinking that expensive, newer gear will improve your images. It won’t!
The point I am making here is enjoy what you have and learn to use it well - you’ll be happier with your images and you will have more money in your pocket!
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Image credits: Coffee Cup: Andre Afonso @louderthanfire / Unsplash | Typewriter: Markus Winkler @markuswinkler/unsplash