9 Tips For Composing Landscape Photos

When you’re taking a photo of a single entity, be it a person or object, composing the image is easier. But when you enter the realm of landscape photography, it can be harder to nail down what to focus on (and how to focus on it). If you’ve struggled in the past to get great shots of mountains, trees or the sky, this video from Toma Bonciu should help.

In the 10-minute clip, Bonciu covers what he believes are nine important factors in composing landscape photos:

Composition can be defined in many ways, but simply said it’s a way of organising the elements in front of us, in such a way that you form a visual structure that supports only one subject.

Points he covers include filling the frame; centring; negative space; viewpoint and colour, among others.

Wait… how can colour influence composition? Bonciu explains:

Colour is a really simple tool — or rule if you want — that you can use especially in moments when you have a spot of colour … and the rest of the photo is almost black and white … basically, you are doing this when your colour spot really pops out.

Of course, Bonciu also elaborates on more structural techniques, such as the “rule of thirds” and “left to right” (where you take advantage of how we naturally scan information).

All in all, there’s a lot of great tips to be found in the video.

9 Composition Tips For Landscape Photography [YouTube, via PetaPixel]