📷 7 ADVANCED COMPOSITION TACTICS for Landscape Photography

There's a waterfall that I want to hit that's going to be cascading down on one of these side creeks up here. So I want to shoot that on the way up to Appleton pass. If it stays like this, I might actually camp down low tonight along this river Valley, shoot some more forest and river stuff, and then hike up to Appleton tomorrow. But that's the best part about these trips, living out of a backpack, got five days of food packed up. So basically do what I want. Just chase the light and try to get the best shots possible. So the first thing I'm always doing when I get into these scenes is I just walk around with eyes, visualizing compositions. And one thing I noticed when walking into this one, see this rock right here, see how it's starting to get in the way of the bottom of the falls, hitting that stream. And if I drop down, see how it really breaks up the middle of the falls. So what I want is I want to get high enough back up there where this fall drops down. And then the leading line continues down into there. Right now that's getting in the way of it. So watch when I hop back up here, it's a little bit more separated. Now ideally it would be nice if that rock wasn't there. So that's why before I even bust my camera, you can do this with your camera in hand, but I'm pretty good at it now because I've been doing it for a long time. Just eyeing it up, get all different spots. So maybe this one, with this one, this tree is starting to get down and break up the top of the waterfall. So anytime I'm shooting anything, the main center of attention, I don't want anything jutting out into the middle of it. But now I have to decide, do I like the one down low or the bottom is broken up a little bit, or can I maybe clone stamp that out? I'm going to try both. I was also thinking about climbing down there and trying to get a view up the side of the stream. So let's give that a look as well, but spend a lot of time. Woo. I'm going to stall there. Just walking around before you get your camera out. Now if you're new to photography, you might want to get your camera in hand and do it because it lets you visualize the composition. So it's really up to you. All right, so now I'm down on this moss. Now down here, it doesn't look anywhere near as big because you can't see all the layers. They're compressed down into the center. So the higher up you get, the more parts of the scene you can see. Notice if I drop way down here, the waterfall looks even smaller. So I'm going to get my camera out. I'm going to shoot that first spot, dial in a composition and then try some of these other spots. But I always like to just explore around a little bit, brainstorm ideas for the composition and doing that, kind of get the juices flowing of what I want to shoot. So I got down even lower and got my first shot set up. Hopefully you guys can hear me. It is super loud down here. But what I like about this is I thought I was going to be shooting straight on into the falls, but instead of doing that, I use the falls to balance the back right of the image. And then I use all this water down here to pull the eyes up from the bottom left, back into the bottom right of the image. What I like about this shot is I have first leading lines. So you can just follow these transitions where they go from dark to light and you can use those transitions between dark and light to create lines. So that pulls the eyes into this area. And then we can also increase the contrast here and this will create another leading line into this area along that dark to light. And then if we increase the contrast here, this will shoot the eyes in here. So I'm always looking for lines that come out of the side of the image into something with detail. Now this section does not have detail, but we can work it in using one of the other shutter speeds here. And detail is something that also grabs the eyes. So if we have detail here, it'll move our eyes from the edges with these leading lines, grab them here, and then we need to shoot them up here in some way or another. So if we look at these other shutter speeds, we can see if we like any of these. Now anything that has a lot of detail is going to grab your attention. I don't think this area is interesting. And since it's not interesting, I'm going to leave it at this longer exposure. Notice how the shorter exposures really grab your eyes right here. Things that are light will also grab your eyes. Things that are dark will push them away. So I'm going to use this longer shutter speed here. Working up through the image, we have another transition right here. It's saturated to desaturated. You can see we have this very green area, but then it's black in the background. Anything that's saturated, it's going to grab your eyes and pull them into the scene. So we can use the transition between saturated and desaturated as a line coming out of the edge this way. And you'll also see the same kind of leading line here with saturated and desaturated. These rocks are desaturated and this moss is saturated. So this can be used to pull your eyes up along this way into the scene. Along the tops, we also have more leading lines. Also use these leading lines to pull your attention into the middle of the scene. Remember we have detail here that we worked on. So anything that has detail you can also use to pull the eyes up into the scene. All you want to do is control the viewer's attention with all these different transitions, dark to light, high detail, low detail, high saturation to low saturation. Along the top here, we have saturation and then we have a more desaturated area. So we could darken this down right up in this area where the trees are and right here and desaturate it and use the saturated line to pull the eyes in here. The same thing that goes here. You can move the eyes along the saturated line there and then we can also do some light painting up here and that'll grab the eyes and move them down into the scene. Anything that's light is going to grab the eyes. So if we do some quick light painting there, that'll really help out that area. So for this shot, this is my standard technique that I always use. I'm going to use hyperfocal distance focus right here. F11 ISO. I'm going to go down to base ISO 64 and then I'm just going to expose to the right. So back and down really dark and aperture priority so I can see and then pushing it all the way up to the right. And I already dialed in my circular polarizer, just making sure the color looks the best on the back of the screen. That gives one over 1.3 seconds. So I'll fire the first one off there. And what I've noticed is the light keeps moving through and it's hitting all these trees. So what I'm trying to do is wait till the light hits perfectly on all that green back there. So let's look at the first shot here. And you can see it's clipping a little bit back there. So I focused right here. I'm just going to check the foreground focus nice and sharp. That clipping won't be blown in the raw file. So I'm good. So that water's really silky and smooth. I don't want that. I want to see some of this intensity and movement coming down through here. So I'm going to push my ISO up to 200 and I'm going to darken the image down two thirds of a stop. That gives me one eighth of a second. Then I'll fire that one off. Now what's nice about about a 20th of a second to a half of a second is you get really detailed water movement. I'm already starting to lose my voice. It's so loud. So nice detail. You can see that light's really touching nicely back there. Perfect lighting. I love all these trees and all these vines coming down the edge. So cool looking. All right, now I'm going to go with F8. That'll give me another stop faster shutter speed for this water movement down here. And then I'll try a different composition. I'm going to try a vertical as well. So there's the F8, F11. Those look good. So that's my first shot down. I'm going to get closer here and try the vertical. This scene is so big that it's hard to even fit it in my GoPro, but now I've got the vertical set up and I'm using all the flow of this water down here. I'm shooting at 14 millimeters wide and that's going to suck the eyes back up in here, right back into the fall. Then I'm using the dappled light on this rock and it's offsetting giving balance to that waterfall back there. The only thing I didn't like about this is that this rock in the composition is above the waterfall. See how it's higher than the waterfall. It kind of makes it look small. So I'll have to see what that looks like with a big screen on my computer and tell them I like it or not. I love the setup, but it's hard to tell if it's going to work or not on a small camera screen. The first shot, which is visible is three fifth of a second. That's the hyperfocal foreground. And I like how this one's creating leading lines here and then along here all the way up into the scene. So these can be used to pull the eyes from the side and you can also connect leading lines with other leading lines. So these will grab transitions in detail, dark to light, dark to light and dark to light right here. And then working on different amounts of detail that you could work in with this second shot that I took that I was at one fifth. So I like that one really for right here a lot and for the water detail right here. I'll probably use this one for this low detail area here because it's not that interesting in here anyway. And I'm already using this leading line to pull the eyes up into the photo. So things that are low detail are not going to draw your eyes as much. So that's, I'm going to use this set of foreground images. Then if we get into the mid ground right here, remember I said I had to refocus. So here's the foreground image and I said it was starting to drop off focus back in here near the falls. Then I took this next set of images which are labeled BG one and BG two. That's where I focus right on this rock and you can see the difference in sharpness here for all of that background, especially watch the detail in this rock right here when I refocus on it. So you have to get an eye for this over time of when you need to focus stack this one. That's the longer shutter speed for the back and this one's the shorter shutter speed. So I can decide which one I want to use there. Now for this area, this once again is not interesting as I talked about in the previous photo. So I'll probably leave that with the longer shutter speed. Things that are longer exposures are not going to have that much detail anyway. So you can get away if it's not perfectly in focus using this foreground focal point. So that takes care of the whole bottom of our image. The top of our image, I'm going to use this nice dappled light along the rock. This is going to be a transition of high saturation. It'll bring the eyes in here and then you can use this tree and these saturated lines between it to bring the eyes here. Just look for lines all over the image. You need to be doing this in the field and if you're doing it in the field, then you can really set up for a nice composition back at home. Also this water detail here is really nice. That can be used to grab the eyes cause it's light and detailed. Remember light and detailed things are going to grab the eyes and then we can shoot up to connect to that lady in line, which will take us around this way. I can label or I can leave this area dark and then I can leave this brighter and more saturated. Remember dark things push your eyes away, bright things, grab your eyes, saturated things, grab your eyes, desaturated things like this tree don't grab your eyes. And the same goes here. We can use this saturated transition between saturated and desaturated to grab the eyes and then we could use the same light painting technique up here. The last thing I want to know for this shot is what kind of detail do I want in the falls back here? So we have this background one and background two. That's focused specifically on the falls. So there's the longer shutter speed. I really like that especially for this area right in here. And then we have the shorter shutter speed and I'll use that right in this area and then right in this area and that's going to move the eyes around in this area as well. Remember to identify your main points of attention when you're out shooting and then everything else in the image is using leading lines and transitions to move the eyes to those main centers of attention and tell the story about what's surrounding the image. So I think this one's going to work out really well. Let's jump to the next shoot. So for this one, I'm just going to focus on hyperfocal first. Same thing. F11 base ISO. That's one sixth of a second and I'm going to use that for this fast moving water right here. So I'll fire that one off. And then I'll work a few more shutter speeds in here at higher ISO. You can see that really nice looking water in there. So let's go higher ISO again, focal points in the same spot. That'll really bring out the detail right here and I'll use that to shoot the eyes out of the side, back up. All right, so there's that one. Really nice water detail. And then I'm going to check my focus back here to see if the waterfalls in focus. It's kind of losing focus because this is such a long scene at 14 millimeters so I'm just going to refocus one just to make sure back here on this rock right there and shoot that at F11 and I'll drop the shutter speed a little bit to give me one over 10 to the second because I'm noticing there's some wind blowing off the falls hitting those leaves and I want them to be sharp. Fire that one off. I think this is going to be a really nice set of images. So this is just for the rock. So I'll check the focus there and the falls. Now I'm going to do one dropping the ISO back down to base just for the longer exposure of the falls right in there. Looks like these clouds are rolling through. It just keeps getting perfect lighting. You can see all just shapes right along the edge of that rock. All right, that's the one for the falls. Oh, that's perfect man. I love that right there. So that's that set of images. Now I'm going to look around and see if there's any other compositions. I'm trying to get like five in here because it's such perfect conditions right now. So I got one more set up and I think this might be my favorite one yet. That's what I often find when I get to a location. I eye everything out first then I start shooting and usually after my third or fourth composition work I really get in the flow of shooting and that's when I find my best compositions come in. So give yourself a lot of time to think through shots, set them up and really talk yourself through why you're taking them. So for this one, what I'm doing here is I'm using this line right here. You can see this rock and it's going to grab the eyes from the bottom of the screen and shoot them up through here. Now you can see this transition. I call these transitions. You want to put them all over your composition, transitions can be from dark to light things, from saturated to unsaturated, from high detail to low detail, from cool to warm. If you have transitions all over the place in your image, your eyes are going to move all over the image. Whoever's viewing it, it's going to be able to move all over the image while they're looking at it and they won't get bored. So right here is a dark right here. It's a light transition and you can use that as a line to move the eyes up through the scene. So I'm using that there and then I'm using this moss on the bottom right of the composition right here to shoot the eyes in this way and then fill in the middle of the scene is that waterfall. And then for this one, I placed this rock over here so it's now down lower than the top of the falls. So the first shot that you can see here is the first one I took. It's at four fifths of a second and that's focused at hyperfocal like all of But you can see I can once again use this transition line to move the eyes here and then I could use different amounts of detail here with these other shots that I took. So this is the most detailed. You can see I could especially bring this out with contrast using luminosity mass. So that can be used to bring the eyes up in here. Same with this detailed shot eyes up in here. And this is going to take the same kind of form as the other shots as far as setting up the composition. But in the foreground here, you can also use shapes that point. Notice how this is kind of an arrow going in this way. So this shape can point and then this could also be saturated. We can bring these greens out. Remember saturated grabs the eyes. If you have something that grabs your eyes like saturation or brightness down here around the bottom edges, your eyes will start at the bottom and move into the center. Then we can use this saturated desaturated transition to bring the eyes up in here. Same transitions here, saturated, desaturated, and same here as the other shot. So see how I'm kind of working all these in across multiple shots. And as I shoot more, I get the composition dialed in more and more. Once again, you could use light painting up here if you wanted. And notice as I shot the light in this first one, this is way more diffuse up here. See how it's kind of glowy. And then it gets more contrasted and especially better contrast in this rock. And the second one, see the difference there. And then the third one is overall way more lighting on the scene. And I don't like it as much as the other one. It's a little bit too much contrast, but that's okay because I'm going to be using this fastest shutter speed. One eighth of a second for the falls back here for this area of detail, for this area of detail, this one I'll use right along this rock. See how it's this really nice looking detail right in here. And then you can just scan through the image and see where else you might use it as far as lighting goes. I like how the light looks in this one back here. So that's the one nice thing about not changing shutter speeds. I really like the lighting on these leaves right here and all in this area. And this second one, then this first one, this is the longer exposure. I'll probably use it for these rocks in here. I might lighten this up and bring out some detail. So it'll grab the eyes right in here. Remember high detail. It's going to bring the eyes out. It'll shoot them into lower detail. And then I just flip through all these. I can see all this nice green saturation right here that can also be used to pull the eyes into the center of the scene and I'll leave these areas dark. So that's why I like to layer these all up and I always layer them in the order that I shot them. And then you can kind of compare and contrast and put together a really nice overall composition. So I'm going to focus right in here on this main rock. Back button focus. Dial my circular polarizer in. I just watch the back of the screen and tell the color and light looks the best. That looks solid. I'm good with these settings. Let's just make sure it's exposed to the right. Good. Fire that one off. Get in the habit of being very, very methodical with how you shoot every single shot. Going through the same workflow every time, because while I'm out here, I'm thinking about composition and what will make somebody interested in the photo. Transitions will make them interested. We'll keep their eyes drawn into the photo. If you're thinking about what settings you should be using, you can't think about composition and you can't keep your eye on the light because you're so ingrained in thinking about the camera settings by shooting the same way every single time, having a workflow or a process. You can just think about the light and the composition. That's all that matters. So let's look at this one. Some dead space in here. I'll probably be able to bring out some of that reflected green light in there. And I might really bring out that green up there to kind of shoot the eyes down. And you can see it's kind of like holding together the whole top side. So anything that's bright, it's going to grab the eyes and pull them into the photo or move them along in the line where it's bright. So we can use that in the top. I'm trying to see if I, any way I can improve this one. I think it's okay. I'm going to take a little bit longer for a faster shutter speed here. A fifth of a second. And we'll see how it looks for this detailed water down here. So that looks good down there. And then let's check to make sure it's focused everywhere. Looks nice. Nothing's clipped. And then notice when I'm shooting multiple shots like this, how the light changes in the scene. When you're set up and you have dappled or diffuse light like this, take a lot of shots and a lot of different shutter speeds. And then you're going to have some really good light that you can pick out and put together in the final image. So take a lot of time for each set of shots you take. I'll be here for an hour shooting and the light will constantly change. That's why backpacking is so good because you're going to be out of here for hours every day. And you're always going to get chances to see different lighting scenarios. I'm going to take a little bit darker here just for a faster shutter speed. That looks good as well. So I've been hiking for a few more hours, constant uphill and the trees are starting to get less and less. And the size is getting a lot smaller cause getting up higher in elevation, still a beautiful day out, but the ecosystem is starting to change. Got about 1700 foot climb so far, seven miles. And I think the game plan is to find a camp up here because in about two miles, I'm going to hit snow. It's pretty late in the day. The snow gets pretty slushy this time of day, cause a lot of avalanche danger. And where I'm going, it doesn't look like it'd be too much avalanche danger, but I want to hit it when the snow is really hard in the morning after it freezes tonight. So I just finished eating dinner and doing an image review from the photos from the day. And there's nothing more fun than sitting in your tent after a long day of hiking and chasing shots. And then looking at them, you got some really good ones on there. So always makes me excited. But you guys like landscape photography and you're not into backpacking and hiking yet. I can tell you, it will completely change your life. It'll change the way you spend your time. It'll change the way you look at time because that's all you'll think about doing. And then the reward of it after you have to prepare for the weather, you have to scout out your route. You have to put the route together. You have to study GPS, study satellite imagery, everything else, pack your gear up, get ready for the conditions you're going to go in. The whole game of it. And then when it all comes together and you get a really good shot, that's going to be a portfolio image. Absolute best feeling in the world. So if you guys aren't into it yet, I have a full guide that'll get you into backpacking. I started backpacking about 15 years ago now, and I fully self taught myself everything because there was no information online. So I dived in on my own and said, I'm going to go out on a one night trip at first, make it really easy, right? And I'll just get some basic REI gear. I had crappy gear that was super heavy. My pack was way too heavy, probably 60 pounds. And then over the years, I just took these small baby steps. One more thing after that, one more thing after that. And then I pushed the trips longer and longer and longer. And then it got to the point that I was like, man, I'm going to do this full time. So I just wanted to do photography. I wanted to go hike and do backpacking trips. So baby step after baby step after baby step, I just built the whole thing out and it's just been a completely rewarding last 12 years. I've been doing it professionally for 10 years, but 12 years since I started mixing photography and long distance backpacking, and it's completely changed my entire life. Like it's all I can think about. It's never boring. It's always rewarding. It's the biggest highs and the biggest lows ever. You just get punished on the trail. You get punished with weather. And then you just train all year long for endurance, train all year long for weightlifting, for running, just to be better at getting shots out here and getting into locations that just make the dopamine fly through your brain. So if you're not into hiking and backpacking yet, and you like landscape photography, promise you it'll change your life. That's my rant for the night guys. I'm going to get a good night's sleep and then it's up in the snow to Appleton pass tomorrow. I'll see you guys in the next episode.