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5 Top Tips for Taking Landscape Photos

13th August 2019

Categories: Visitor News

Devon has some of the most beautiful landscapes in Britain and areas like Dartmoor and Hope Cove are some of the most photographed places in the UK. To make your photos stand out, follow these simple rules to improve your landscape photography skills and up your Instagram game.

Shoot during ‘Golden Hours’

The golden hours are the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset. The golden rays of the sun give beautiful light and colour to your photos and will give beautiful reflections on any still water. The direction of the light will also help to bring out texture on landscapes and create layers of interest within the frame.

Use water to act as a mirror or produce movement

Water can create some of the most eye catching images in landscape photography. Still water like that of a lake or water trapped on the sand of a beach at low tide, will give you a mirror image, which can create a calm peaceful feeling when reflecting the sky or a dramatic mirror image of a landscape on the horizon. Moving water creates texture and movement within an image; waterfalls, waves and rivers can give interest to a photo by cutting through the stillness of an image and drawing the eye into the photo.

Create Depth

Adjust the focus on your camera or smart phone to have both the foreground and background in focus and try to have interest in both. Flowers in the foreground of a landscape photo for example can give a pop of colour to an otherwise flat image, or hills in the background can give height and interest to a flat landscape.

Remember the ‘Rule of Thirds’

Imagine 4 lines set in a grid across your photo so that the frame is split into three both horizontally and vertically, the intersection of these lines is the ideal area to put the focal point of your photo. Many cameras and smart phones have a rule of thirds grid built into their system which you can toggle on and off. Though putting your focal point in the centre of the grid is not wrong it is sometimes more interesting to have the focal point off centre, allowing the eye to wander across the picture rather than just focusing on the photo and moving on.

Use a Tripod

It may seem like an extra piece of kit to carry around but tripods come in various shapes and sizes now in lightweight materials that can fit in your bag, you can get them for any camera and even for smart phones. Tripods not only give you hands-free shooting (allowing you to be the focal point if you should so wish) but also allow you to set up the perfect composition and completely remove motion blur giving you a crisp image that is Instagram ready.

Devon is the perfect place to experiment with landscape photography, from peaceful coastal villages and reflective sandy beaches to dramatic waves and moody moorland you have a whole range of compositions to capture. Above all else have fun with it, try different times of day, different angles, switch up your camera or play with positioning until you get your perfect snap.