Outdoor Photography Tips – Wondering how some people come back from national parks and other outdoor trips with great photos? Want to take the kind of photos that make people ooh and aah? It may not be as complicated as you think. The following outdoor and landscape photography tips that I’ve learned as a professional, trained and refined over more than three decades of shooting the most beautiful landscapes in America and around the world will help you take the best photos at home, whether you a beginner or beginner. Expert photographer.
Of course, equipment like a high-end camera with interchangeable lenses helps a lot, and the more time you spend shooting and learning to sharpen your skills, the better your photos will be. Shooting raw files – which record more data for each photo than jpegs and can be edited more extensively – and learning to use a high-end editing program like Adobe Lightroom will also greatly improve photo quality.
Outdoor Photography Tips
But the best camera equipment and editing software cannot create a great photo. It still requires skills, starting with understanding some fundamental rules of image composition.
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Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, the creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all my blog stories. Click here for my e-guide to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
Sunset sky over Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, along the John Muir Trail in the High Sierra.
I have compiled here what I consider to be the 15 most simple, easy to follow, actionable and effective tips for taking better photos, especially landscape photos, and improving your outdoor photography. Follow them and your family and friends will follow
Click on any photo to read about this trip. Some of the tips below can be read by anyone, but reading all tips requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you have comments or questions about my advice or your own to share, please do so. in the comments section at the end of this story. I will try to respond to all comments.
Tips To Capturing Better Outdoor Photos
We were on a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park, and after doing the sit-and-wait with the children – and several hundred other tourists – for the eruption of Old Faithful, we wanted to stop at the Midway Geyser Basin. I had made the trek over Midway before, thinking that then—in the late afternoon, with dappled, low-angle light coming through the thunderclouds—would be the perfect time to shoot the largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the multicolored desert aptly named . Grand Prismatic Spring.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect. The light emphasized the contrast between the dark mountains in the background; the steam rising from the water lit by deep-angled sunlight streaming in; the deep blue sky; and the incredibly rich and kaleidoscopic colors of the Grand Prismatic, whose water also reflects its surroundings perfectly in that light. In about 30 minutes of shooting, I got even more than the 14 pictures of the keeper in the gallery above – which is a big dream for a serious photographer.
The lesson: Dramatic light is what makes a landscape photo pop. Know your location and think about the best time of day and also the best season to shoot to achieve strong light.
Looking northeast of Mule Pass in far northern Yosemite. Click on the photo for my e-guide to “The Best Backpacking in Yosemite”.
Quick Tips For Better Outdoor Portraits
Pictures are two-dimensional, and if you only take a row of distant mountains, the picture looks flat. Shooting in dappled sunlight (described in tip #1) helps make a more three-dimensional photo.
But you can convey a sense of depth – of the three-dimensional aspect of the landscape – by shooting with a large lens and composing your photo with a person or object in the foreground, as I did in this photo of Mule Pass in Yosemite National Park from Remote north and the main photo at the top of this story of a beaver dam in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. Position the camera near, for example, a large rock, the shore of a lake or a wild flower and frame the image so that there is a landscape in the middle (perhaps a lake or forest) and far away (the mountain). Look closely and you’ll see plenty of photos on The Big Outside and elsewhere that use this basic technique.
The background may not be your primary subject, but it can make your subject more prominent or out of focus.
For example, if the subject is a person or people in the middle distance who appear small on a scenic background (see tip #5) – as with the photo above of a peak called Bláhnúkur in Iceland – place the camera ( itself) relatively. on your subject, so that there is a light background behind the person, such as a sky or lake water or light-colored rock. A person who is small enough in the picture will be lost in a dark background like in the forest, unless the person is wearing light colored clothes (another trick to make the subject in the background stand out).
Tips To Improve Your Outdoor Photography Game
Conversely, if your subject is very bright, like a wildflower in sunlight, like this geranium (right) in Jotunheimen National Park in Norway, position yourself to shoot so that there is a dark shadow behind the flower so that it stands out. better.
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Beginner photographers usually put the subject in the center of the photo (and too often crop a person’s feet – a no-no). Compose photos according to the rule of thirds: Mentally divide your image into thirds along the longest edge, that is, if you take a horizontal photo, the imaginary lines that divide the photo into thirds run vertically. Place your subject—person, bunch of wildflowers, animals, whatever—in the right or left third of the frame, as in the photo above of a backpacker on the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier. Place the person in front of or away from the camera or facing/above rather than out of the picture.
For the same reason, do not compose a photo with the horizon of the earth’s sky by cropping directly in the middle; give the sky one third of the image or place the horizon in the bottom third of the photo and let a dramatic sky dominate the image.
Pro Tips For Shooting Better Outdoor Photography
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You’ve seen many examples of this and probably done it yourself: Place a person or people far enough from the camera so that they are small to convey a sense of the immensity of the landscape, as I did in the photo above from the Grand . Canyon. Magazines often use photos like this because they know readers will identify with the person in the photo – the “I wish I was there” effect.
The trick to doing this effectively is to make sure the little person stays tall enough and visible on the background (tip #3) so they don’t disappear, and to remember the rule of thirds (tip #4). Having only one person in the picture also introduces a powerful sense of loneliness that reinforces the sense of wisdom.
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Essential Tips For Taking Stunning Portraits In Nature
Todd Arndt along Wanda Lake, along the John Muir Trail in Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon National Park.
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Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside and former northwest editor at Backpacker Magazine. Click on my photo to learn more about me and my blog. Click here to sign up for my FREE newsletter. Join The Big Outside now to get full access to all my blog stories. And click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Do you know how to take your outdoor portrait photography to the next level? If your answer is a big no, then this article is for you. You need to know how to click photos using daylight as the primary light source and modify the same to achieve perfection. You can outsource image editing services if you are a beginner and want to take professional help.
In outdoor portrait photography, it is very crucial to take photos at a certain time to avoid harsh shadows on the person’s face. The best time to take a photo is 2-3 hours before sunset or 1-2 hours after sunrise.
Tips For Outdoor Fashion Photography
Whether you are photographing your friend or a model, you need to have a clear idea about the purpose of taking this photo. Use professional photo retouching to emphasize this idea and add finesse to your story.
When you click photos of people, you need to set the perfect mood. It is the photographer’s duty to make the person feel comfortable and stress-free. Candid photos add charm depending on the chosen subject.
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