Basics of Landscape Photography

When learning photography for the first time, it shouldn’t matter what kind of camera you have, whether a DSLR or an iPhone. The basics should focus on lighting and composition rather than concepts like depth of field, which require manipulating settings associated with DSLRs.

Fortunately for landscape photography, it’s learning those basics which enable you to take great shots!

I’ll summarize some of the most important concepts in this article, followed by more in-depth explanations in future ones.

Lighting: This is probably the most important thing to consider when taking landscape photos. Not only does this mean the time of day – usually the beginning and end of daylight captures the best photos – it also means how you manipulate the light at any given time. If the sun is shining directly at you, the photos will come out differently than when it’s shining towards the landscape you’re capturing.

Composition: There are many ways you can set up composition which determines the quality of your shot. Concepts like rule of thirds, perspective, leading lines, framing and layering all play a part. Again, you don’t need a DSLR to learn these concepts, as practising with a simple point and shoot or smartphone is the best.

When I first started out with photography, I didn’t buy expensive DSLRs but rather practised these simple basics with my point and shoot. And since smartphones have come a long way, they’re also sufficient to practise. Once you’ve mastered these concepts, you can move onto upgrading your camera and learning new ones like depth of field.

Stay tuned for the next article on the basics concepts of light and how you can manipulate it for the best photo!