Landscape Photography: A Field Guide to Light, Composition and Place
Landscape photography is the practice of making the land itself the subject rather than the backdrop: coast, desert, alpine country and forest photographed for what they are. In Australia the genre is defined by extremes, from the arid interior to alpine snow gums to reef coastline.
For more than twenty-three years that has been my working life. It has taken me from the sandstone cliffs of the Blue Mountains to the rugged coastline of Tasmania, the ancient deserts of the Northern Territory, the towering forests of Victoria, the beaches of Western Australia and the endless horizons of South Australia and Queensland.
Landscape photography is often misunderstood. Many people believe it is simply about visiting beautiful locations with an expensive camera. The reality is entirely different. What follows is how the work is actually made.
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What Is Landscape Photography?
Landscape photography is photography where the land, sea or sky is the subject rather than the backdrop. It can be a wide view across the Jamison Valley or a single rock pool at first light. Scale has nothing to do with it. What matters is that the natural world is the subject and not the setting.
The genre covers coast, desert, alpine country and forest. In Australia it is defined by extremes: an arid interior, alpine snow gums and reef coastline, often within the same week of travel.
What Are the 4 Types of Landscape?
Landscape photography is usually grouped into four broad types.
- Coastal and seascape. Ocean, headlands, rock shelves and rock pools, where the tide and the swell decide the shot as much as the light does.
- Arid and outback. Red earth, scrub, dunes and inland ranges. The hardest light in the country and the most rewarding colour.
- Alpine and highland. Snow gums, high plains and cattlemen’s huts. Photographed in winter it is the least crowded landscape in Australia.
- Rainforest and bush. Closed canopy, waterfalls and creek country, which works best on overcast days when the contrast drops.
What Are the 4 Pillars of Landscape Photography?
Light, composition, timing and patience.
- Light gives the photograph its mood, and no amount of resolution replaces understanding it.
- Composition gives the frame order and decides how the eye travels through it.
- Timing puts you in position during the few minutes that matter, which is usually either side of sunrise or sunset.
- Patience is what brings you back to the same place a fourth time when the first three trips gave you nothing.
Technical skill sits underneath all four, but on its own it produces a correct photograph rather than a memorable one.
What are the golden rules of landscape photography?
1. Shoot the hour either side of sunrise and sunset, and keep working through the twilight after the sun has gone.
2. Put something in the foreground worth looking at, so the frame has depth rather than just a view.
3. Keep the horizon level, and keep it off centre.
4. Use a tripod, so you can choose the aperture and shutter speed the scene needs rather than the ones the light allows.
5. Simplify. Ask what can come out of the frame, not what else can go in.
6. Let the weather be part of the picture instead of a reason to stay home.
7. Shoot the same scene horizontal and vertical, wide and tight, before you move on.
8. Come back. The best photographs are rarely made on the first visit.
The rule underneath all of them is to be there early and stay late. Light decides the photograph. You decide where you stand.
Planning A Landscape Photograph
Almost all of the work happens before the camera comes out of the bag.
I start with the forecast, but not the part that tells you whether it will rain. What matters is cloud cover, and the number worth chasing sits somewhere between thirty and seventy per cent. A clear sky gives you nothing to light. Full overcast gives you a grey lid. Broken cloud is what catches colour twenty minutes before the sun clears the horizon.
After that it is wind, because wind decides whether a long exposure is possible and whether a reflection will hold. Then tide, if the location is coastal, because a rock shelf that works at low tide is under water six hours later. Then the position of sunrise and sunset, which shifts along the horizon through the year, so a headland that lines up in June will not line up in December.
The last check is access: gate times, park closures, fire restrictions, and how long the walk in takes in the dark.
Get those right and you have given yourself a chance. Skip them and you are relying on luck.
Reading the Light
Light is the difference between a record of a place and a photograph of it.
The hour either side of sunrise and sunset does the obvious work. It is low, warm and directional, and it throws the long shadows that give a landscape its shape. But the most useful light often falls outside that window. The twenty minutes before the sun appears, when the sky already carries colour and the land is still in shadow, has a softness you cannot get once the sun is up. The same is true after sunset, by which time most people have packed up and left.
Overcast is not a wasted day. Flat light is the right light for rainforest and waterfalls, where direct sun blows out the water and breaks the canopy into blotches.
Storm light is the best of the lot and the hardest to plan for: a break in heavy cloud, a shaft of sun on one ridge, and everything around it dark.
The skill is not photographing every scene. It is recognising the moment the light becomes extraordinary, and being in position when it does.
Composition, and What to Leave Out
A strong composition is usually a simple one.
The question worth asking at the tripod is not what else can go into the frame. It is what can come out. Most landscapes that fail are not badly lit, they are cluttered: two subjects competing for attention, a bright edge pulling the eye out of the picture, a foreground that adds nothing but distance.
Start with that foreground. A wide view with nothing in the front third reads flat no matter how good the country is. Rock, water, grass or a fence line gives the eye somewhere to enter and gives the scene a sense of scale.
Then the horizon. Keep it level, and keep it off centre. Set it low when the sky is doing the work and high when the land is.
Then look for a line. Rivers, coastlines, ridges and tracks all lead somewhere, and the eye will follow them without being asked.
Everything after that is subtraction. Change the lens, change where you stand, or wait until the light takes the clutter away for you.
Where to Photograph in Australia?
Australia offers some of the most varied landscape country on earth, from alpine peaks and ancient rainforest to desert ranges, waterfalls and sandstone escarpment. You can see where these photographs were made, region by region, in the Australian landscape photography collection.
The Prints
Every image is released as a numbered limited edition. Prints are made on Pearl Metallic Crystal Archive, a polyester based stock with the clarity and depth that fine detail needs, or on Canson fine art paper rolled for those who prefer to frame their own. Acrylic pieces are face mounted to solid 6mm high lustre Shinkolite Perspex with diamond polished bevelled edges, then float 20mm off the wall on aluminium channels. Float frames are designed and made here in Sydney.
About Mark Zissis
Mark Zissis has been photographing the Australian landscape for more than twenty-three years, working in panoramic format across every state and territory. His work is held in private and commercial collections around Australia. To talk about a print, a size or a commission, call 0424 390 971 or get in touch.
