- The Secret to Shooting Sunsets
- Cutting Reflections in Water
- For Landscapes, You Need a Clear Subject
- Using Your LCD Monitor Outdoors
- A Trick for Shooting Great Rainbows
- A Timesaving Pano Trick
- The Trick for Using a Fisheye Lens
- When to Shoot Streams
- Don't Stop Shooting at Sunset
- How to Shoot Fog
- Getting Shots of Lightning (Manually)
- Getting Shots of Lightning (Automatically)
- Where to Focus for Landscape Shots
- Find the Great Light First
- How to Shoot on a Gray, Overcast Day
- A Trick for Great-Looking Flower Shots
- The Full-Frame Camera Advantage
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Landscape Photography
- Landscape Sin #1: Choppy Water
- Landscape Sin #2: Frozen Water in Waterfalls
- Landscape Sin #3: Bald, Cloudless Skies
- Landscape Sin #4: Harsh, Midday Sun
- Landscape Sin #5: A Crooked Horizon Line
- Landscape Sin #6: Distracting Junk Near Edge
- Landscape Sin #7: No Foreground Object
- And...Dead Trees and Tree Stumps...And...
For Landscapes, You Need a Clear Subject
One of the things that kills a lot of landscape shots is that there’s no clear subject, and for a landscape shot to really work, you have to be able to look at it and explain what you shot in one simple sentence. It’s a lighthouse. It’s that seagull on the rocks. It’s that old barn. It’s the palm trees on the beach. If you can’t explain your landscape shot in a short sentence like that, you don’t know what the subject is, and if you don’t know, people viewing your image won’t know either, and if that happens, the photo just isn’t working. Keep this in mind when you’re composing your landscape shots, and ask yourself the question, “What’s my subject?” If you can’t come up with a solid answer immediately, it’s time to recompose your shot and find a clear subject. It makes all the difference in the world.