Compose and Shoot a landscape

Compose and Shoot a landscape the minimalist way.

With winter drawing the vibrant colours out from the landscape, it’s the perfect opportunity to capture some empty, minimalist scenery.

You don’t need a sweeping, dramatic scene in perfect golden light to create a compelling landscape image. Often the simplicity of empty land, focusing on the finer details and textures, can be just as intriguing.

Bleak weather and plain tones can guide our eyes to the focal point. Mist and fog are excellentat concealing backgrounds to minimize a setting. Overcast skies are, however, just as effective with the right environment.

Look for a defined lonely subject with a plain background. Seascapes with static objects poking through are a solid starting point.

We’ve photographed this tree contrasting against a neutral sky. With the right composition, even a fairly uninteresting sight can be turned into an alluring abstract image. There are some camera techniques that contribute towards a minimalist image.

A long exposure blurs the sky, creating a soft backdrop to emphasize the subject, while a low ISO and great depth of field will remove any distracting effects.

To add to the simplistic theme, we can then convert the image to black and white to really enhance the flat colours.

This helps when your subject isn’t in the greatest light or hasn’t got a good range of colour to begin with. We’re going to use Photoshop CC’s powerful Adobe Camera Raw plug-in to make the conversion.

 Dreary weather
This style of landscape lends itself to dreary, overcast weather. A cloudy sky will both add texture to the image as well as soften the natural light for a more even exposure. Find a lone subject with a perfectly clear background, such as a large tree on a hilltop.

 Leave it out
When composing a minimalist landscape, focus on empty spaces with simple patterns and textures. Shoot from down low, looking up at the sky, leaving out a lot of the land. Shoot at a wide focal length to keep the subject small in the frame.

The little details
Keep your image noise-free and sharp to reduce distracting details and effects. Push your ISO down to 100 for a fine grain, and close your aperture to f/16 so that everything  in the frame remains sharp. A tripod will be necessary to allow for longer exposures.

Slow down the sky
To give the image the a softer, simple feel, shoot a long exposure to blend the clouds into a pleasing blur. We’ve shot with a 4 sec shutter speed. To remove camera vibrations, disable image stabilization and shoot using the 2 sec Self-timer or a remote release.

Next we’ll talk about developing the photo.