MY 6 or 7 Top LANDSCAPE photography TIPS

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hello hello everybody I hope you're all doing really well Thank You violent wrath Trevor Provincial Park you know I have never taken any photographs here it's only about a kilometer away from from where we live it's absolutely beautiful here but photographically it's just a big beach which is great for holiday goers and that's what this area is popular for a lot of people come here for holidays with their kids the campground supposedly is probably one of the busiest in British Columbia I come down here quite often running but I've never actually taken any photographs down here there is a quite an old forest here I don't know if it's first growth but it's it is quite old and right now of course the tide is out so the beach just goes for probably a kilometer or so this is the Strait of Georgia which is the body of water in between Vancouver Island and what's called the mainland so often we'll see cruise ships go up through the Strait of Georgia on their way up to Alaska and of course in in-between there's lots of little islands some of which I've taken video of Hornby Island being one of them so why am i walking on rath Trevor Beach well it's pretty obvious I don't have my camera with me I'm not taking any photographs but I decided to finally do a top tips video and I know that some of you probably don't oh no yes I'm going to do a top tips video and the reason why I'm doing a top tips video is because I've just got back from the Rockies I had a number of workshops out there and whenever I do these workshops I always seem to talk about the same thing so I thought I would share those themes with you now these are kind of things that I've just noticed observations over the years as many of you know I've been taking photo for an awful long time now professionally my with 25 years now which is a long time so I figure since I've been a photographer that long I might have a few tips that I can share with you that might benefit your own photography everybody does five tips or seven tips so I'll try to keep it to six but I can't promise anything okay my very first tip is slow down now I know for some of you that might be really hard to do because you specially if you're a Type A personality where you like to just run around and take as many pictures you can and and hopefully get a good one kind of run-and-gun type of shooting and and that's fine I mean if that works for you then I would just stick with it but personally I find that especially with landscape photography if you slow down and just take your time setting up your shots then you have quite a better chance of getting the images that you want all too often we tend to you know just go out there and we get good light and we'll see a composition here we'll see a composition over there and maybe one over here and our first instinct is to run over to each of those and try and get a shot of each one without finessing that one composition that's going to really shine above all the rest and you know that's fine I mean some people can do that but personally I find that if I just concentrate on one composition and keep finessing it until I've got it then you're probably going to be much happier with that one composition than you are with several that are kind of mediocre for me one of the best things that I ever did was learn photography on a large-format camera and the reason why it works so well for me is we could really forced me to slow down and take notice of what I was photographing because 4x5 well first of all the film back then was expensive and now I think it's really expensive everything was manual so f-stops shutter speeds ISO filter compensation I mean the list goes on and on you had to think about everything so it really slowed you down and it helped a great deal now I'm not suggesting that you go out buy a four by five although that would be a great way to learn about photography I will say that it really did slow me down and made me think a lot more about composition so slow down take your time and just keep finessing you have a digital camera you can look at the back just keep looking at the back scrutinize it and if you have a friend there let them scrutinize it and learn from that oh dear looks like I'm surrounded by water maybe the tides coming in okay tip number two now this somewhat relates to what I was just saying about slowing down and that is get to know your subject matter so what do I mean by that well if you live in an area where you have a local park or you have a nature reserve or something that's close by where you can practice your craft then you'll really get to know that area intimately and become an expert you'll become an expert on that small little area you'll know exactly when to go there you'll know exactly where the lights coming from and so on and that will really help your photography now unfortunately most of us don't have the luxury of time and that's why a lot of people come on workshops with me or tours is because you know I've done the homework they just want to come along and they want me to show them where to make their images and that's and that's fine but if you do have enough time then I would highly recommend that you get to know your subject matter become a better naturalist as an example say you're into photographing plants if you get to know when those plants are flowering what their behavior is or wildlife anything like that then you'll definitely know where to set up your camera and you'll definitely have a better chance of getting the photographs that you want if you just show up to an area like like I have here and expect to get great images straight away it's it's pretty rare that you can just show up to camera out and and take great images it takes time and a little bit of knowledge of your of your subject matter alright tip number three and I know this is going to cause some people to get all their knickers in a twist but I'm gonna say it anyway stop fussing over your camera gear and processing it really doesn't matter what really matters at the end of the day is whether you or your audience like your photograph now I've heard this over and over again and I say the same thing camera gear really doesn't matter and it doesn't but then people will look at the camera that I'm using which is a Nikon d80 which is probably one of the better cameras on the market these days and people say well that's easy for you to say because you're using a top-of-the-line camera and that's true but the thing is is that you have to really define well what is it that you you're going to do with your photographs it's funny I ask a lot of people on my workshops well what are you planning to do with your photographs and they have a hard time answering because I say well are you gonna make large prints with them and they say well no and I said well what do you do with them and 99% of the time including myself we say well most of my images either don't see the light of day or I just post them on social media so why do you need a high-end camera well for me the reason why I have a high-end camera is it gives me more options so every now and then I'll get a request by someone or a company where they want a very large file for say a billboard or a large print or whatever and if I take all my images on say this little Sony that I'm using now it's a great camera but I'd have a really hard time blowing that image up large and the same can be said for lenses you know on a lot of my videos people always comment about the kit lens that I use the 24 to 120 yes it's not as sharp as a 21 or 272 8 but I really enjoy the focal length that's why I keep using it especially when I'm backpacking and some of you probably thinking well why would you bother having a nikon d80 and and somewhat of a crappy lens well it isn't really that crappy it's a great lens it's just not as good as the 24 to 70 and I'll challenge anybody or anybody if I put two prints up and say well this one of these is made with a 24 to 70 and one is with a 24 to 120 you'd have a really hard time telling the difference and sure if you blow it up to life-size then you might notice some difference but I would really challenge anybody to see that difference just in a regular size print or even a large print the other thing that I noticed on a lot of workshops and I'll ask people well what are you doing it with your images and a lot of time people haven't even got around to processing them and I think the reason is is that people just don't like post-processing so that brings me to another point but I'll keep it on tip number three and that is processing okay if you work all day sitting behind a computer challenges are the last thing you want to do is sit behind a computer at the end of a shoot and start processing images so if that's the case then don't do it you don't even have to shoot raw high it's funny I see some people that they'll shoot raw and they say well I don't do anything to it because I want it to look as natural as possible well a raw file does not look like the scene in front of you it looks very flat and boring so if you just want to take an image that looks very much like the scene in front of you then just take a JPEG why bother with a raw file also as far as filters go I see people some people love to use split neutral density filters and some people don't there's nothing wrong with either technique so if you're not into post-processing then stick with the filters try and do as much as you can in camera so that you don't have to do post-processing now alternatively if you really enjoy postponed sesang then I would highly recommend that you take a variation of exposures and just blend them in Photoshop because the the end results are going to look quite a bit more natural than if you use you know a split grad filter especially if you have mountains or anything like that so these are the things that you need to think about don't go out and buy a bunch of gear just because I or someone else is using it you know try and think about well what am I going to use this camera for what am I going to use this lens for and if you can't find a really good reason then don't bother buying it so don't fuss over gear you know if if you need something that's really lightweight for backpacking then go with perhaps one of the the smaller mirrorless cameras so I would highly recommend that you purchase your gear just from what you like to shoot and what you're going to use those photographs for it certainly doesn't make any sense to go out and buy the top-of-the-line camera with all the top of the line lenses if you're just going to post on Instagram there's there's absolutely no point you might as well just use a little Sony that I'm using to to take this video now I will admit that I am as bad as everybody else I have really bad gas and that's gear acquisition syndrome I get caught up in the frenzy and I get caught up in well I really need that piece of gear to make me a better photographer but at the end of the day you don't need that extra piece of gear just make do with what you have and then if you find that you're lacking in either a certain focal length or a fast lens for say Astro then yes go out and purchase a piece of equipment to cover those bases that you like to like to photograph alright the tide started coming in and I got wet feet so I decided to come inland a bit so I didn't get stranded on the sandbar somewhere tip number four now this one is a bit of an odd one but I'll say it anyway keep your options open and what do I mean by keep your options open well so many times and I do the same thing and I've said this in a number of videos well we'll go to a location that has a definitive subject matter that we're after and for whatever reason it just doesn't work out and actually my my video on on Tonquin valley which i posted a couple of weeks ago I'll just leave a link up here if you haven't seen it was just that we we were really expecting or hoping for a certain type of light and it just it just never happened and but we did get really good light but it wasn't the light that we were after and I remember that I think pretty much everybody was a little bit disappointed that we didn't get the light that we were after but when I got back looked at the images though I was actually really good a couple of times I've done videos where there was one recently in the Faroe Islands I'll leave a link up here again where we went to photograph the lighthouse and the light just never really materialized so I ended up photographing light beams hitting the ocean behind me and I was really happy with those images another example was when I went to the Canadian Rockies with Nick and and Gavin and Tom we're you know they were really excited about the bubbles on abraham lake in the rockies there and you know the bubbles are fantastic don't get me wrong but i photographed from so many times that i wanted to come home with something a little bit different so i ended up just photographing a bunch of aspen trees and they came home with an image that i have that I really like it's probably one of my my better images from that year so even though you know the light might not be great or for whatever reason the situation isn't working out the way you want it try to keep your mind open and your options open and just start to look for things that you may not have thought of before for me photography the most exciting part of photography is the exploration going to new areas exploring has absolutely nothing to do with photography now I admit you know I'm in a unique position because I have a lot of time or I make a lot of time for myself to go out exploring and taking photographs and actually I think next week's video I'll put out a lot of the areas that I've been to with with mostly with Gavin where I've taken or made a vlog and I haven't taken a many images whatsoever so I don't always get images and I don't always get great images but what I'm saying is just keep your options open you know I think for a lot of people a lot of amateurs the problem that they have is that they just don't have the time the time to go exploring a lot of times we'll go to an area say the Rockies or a workshop and we want to come home with results and I don't blame people for that we just don't want to spend all our time exploring and coming away or coming back home with absolutely nothing but as I said for me the whole joy of photography is explore exploration and and finding new areas and and and just finding new compositions that I perhaps haven't thought of in the past ah I hate that I had a wardrobe change your may noticed but also the the battery ran out on my wireless microphone so now I have to record a bunch of it again oh the joys of taking video so my tip number five which is probably the most important one and it's one that I repeat over and over and over again like a cracked record and that is if you want to improve as a photographer any photographer concentrate on the light your best images are going to come when you have light that goes well with your subject matter and what do I mean by that well you don't have to take all of your images at sunrise or sunset I mean those are great times to make images but what I'm kind of saying you know try to concentrate on what's happening with the light and how it's affecting your composition I usually direct most of my photography not all but most of it around what's happening with the light like today it's quite sunny and it's not ideal light for landscape photography especially in the forest here generally speaking I like to photograph forests when it's quite gloomy out or flat lighting and I don't actually mind flat images because I can manipulate them a little bit in in Photoshop or Lightroom and that's the neat thing about digital photography that wasn't available when I was photographing with with film the big difference is that now with with digital you can create the illusion of light much easier by just a bit of dodging burning or whatever you happen to do in in Photoshop or Lightroom in the past it wasn't so easy if you had really poor light then chances are your photograph just wouldn't look good doesn't matter how good the composition is so that's why I always put light at the top of the list now something that I used to do quite often I haven't been doing as much lately but when I first started to really learn about light I used to look at what was happening to certain objects under different lighting conditions all the time and that you don't have to carry a camera to do that whether you're driving along a road or walking on a trail just try to take notice of the different types of light and how it affects your subject matter and eventually you'll start to learn that you know certain things look better in in one type of light over another something else that I do is I use quite a bit of manipulation in post-processing to give the illusion of light and the way that I like my processing is that I try to do it in such a way that it looks natural and I tried to follow along with what the natural light is doing as an example I mean if I look at this tree behind me here in relatively flat lighting you'll notice that even though the light is even there is definitely one side of it that's slightly brighter than the other and that's kind of what I go with a go with the natural flow of what the light is doing and just enhanced it a little bit to give it more depth okay so for tip number five I would highly recommend that you concentrate on what the light will doing and if you do that I can guarantee that your photography will improve tenfold I certainly helped mine a lot as soon as I started taking notice of what the light was doing on my subject matter right and my very last tip number six I guess this is inspiration how do you gain inspiration because a lot of times we're in situations where the weather might not be that inspiring or you know the subject might not be that inspiring it might be a local park which is we've been to a hundred times before we're kind of struggling to find a composition I mean that happens to me all the time so what I do for inspiration is look at other people's work and it doesn't necessarily have to be photography it could be any type of artwork it could be painting sculpture a lot of times those types of things will will give me inspiration and they'll also give me ideas for my own photography now I used to not so much anymore but I used to collect a lot of photography books and I actually have about 200 or so books in my library relating to photography and I used to scour those books all the time I'd go to the library get books from the library and just look at the images and I try to figure out which photographs I liked and which ones I didn't and then I try and figure out well why don't I like this photograph or why do I like it and if I do like it why do I like it and how did they do it where is the light coming from what is the subject matter and so on and learn from other people now I wouldn't go out and directly copy those photographs just kind of keep them in the back of your mind especially if you come across a photograph that has a really cool idea behind it someone like the the photograph that I took some time ago of the sand patterns on the beach there that definitely is not my idea it was from a photograph that I saw years ago and it just kind of kept it in the back of my mind and then of course I came across that situation I thought yeah I'll go for I'll look for patterns in the sand because the light wasn't really cooperating for anything else so I just started looking for close-ups that type of thing lately I for inspiration I definitely look at images more online than in books although I do enjoy looking at books quite a bit more than online I just like the tactile feel of books over just look into them on a computer kind of like playing LPS or vinyl over CDs right I hope that my tips have been somewhat helpful they might be a little bit haphazard so once again thank you ever so much for watching and if you enjoy the video be sure to give me a thumbs up alright everybody thanks ever so much for watching again and I'll catch you next week bye for now [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Adam Gibbs

Views: 81,511

Keywords: adam gibbs, adam gibbs photography, quiet light, landscape photography tips and tricks, landscape photography, landscape, photography, landscape photography tips, top landscape photography tips, 6 top tips, quiet light photography, top tips for landscape photographers, adam gibbs top tips, nature photography, MY 6 or 7 Top LANDSCAPE photography TIPS, top tips

Id: vh4IitBI6E0

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 05 2019