Hi everyone. I would like some advice :) I come from a background in fashion/editorial photography and I’m satisfied with my works in this field, but recently I started taking my camera with me during my hikes and I’m never happy with the photos I bring home. They always have something “off”: I find them almost amatorial, sometimes plain. How can I improve? Can someone advise me some good resources to learn about this topic? Thanks!
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They say that the camera adds ten pounds and ten years to the subject. Also consider the phenomenon of “Hollywood ugly”: a typical good looking person before the camera often appears to be average or worse (that’s one of the reasons why I prefer being behind the camera). Fashion photographers put a lot of effort into making their subjects look perfect, and there are good, solid reasons why that should be so. A photograph is flat, lifeless, and typically small, and most everything about a person that makes them lively, charming, personable, and exciting is missing from a photo, or at least difficult to capture effectively; but we do see flaws.
It’s likewise for a landscape photo: an ordinary interesting scene will look flat and dull in a photo. It takes a truly epic landscape in real life to make an interesting landscape photo. Flaws totally overlooked in real life become apparent in a landscape: power lines, trash, parked cars may end up being seen for the first time in the photo.
in fashion you have a lot of control in the studio, in nature the trick is finding the vista then waiting for the weather and light then you have to be there. its a waiting game.
No matter the genre, photography is all about the light.
When shooting fashion, you generally have 100% control over that. I assume you’re using stuff like reflectors, strobes, etc.
When you’re shooting landscapes, you have 0% control over that. You need to be there when the light is good. What matters is time of day, time of year, the weather, etc. That generally means going out before dawn or after dusk or in “bad” weather.
Thank you for your input. I guess that’s one big problem for me, as I’m used to being able to control the light
how can anyone advice you when you don’t show examples?
If you don’t even know what’s off looking at the photos, how the fuck are we supposed to know?
I’ve stumbled upon this landscape photographer on YouTube a couple of times:
Thomas Heaton.
His channel might be a good resource. (I’m not into landscape photography specifically myself and I’ve only watched one or two of his videos so I can’t say for sure, but it might be worth giving it a try.)
Thank you!
Not really advice but a simple musing. Landscape photography is by far the most difficult type of photography to do well. I come from a portraiture background and find landscapes so so difficult
Thanks for this reply. I never imagined about how diffucult it would be!