Thread: Snap scintillating landscapes - some tips

Everyone of us travels for some reason of other. And when there is travel, esepcially for leisure, can photography be far away. Here I suggest some simple tips to take interesting landscapes:

a) Use the 70:30 rule.
A common mistake which most photographers make is keeping the horizon at the center of the frame. The rule of landscape is "avoid symmetry like a plague". Apply the 70:30 (or maybe even 80:20) rule - this means sky = 70% and land = 30%.

b) Choose an offcenter subject.
Again the non-symmetry axiom. A subject should never be at the center. A subject could be anything like a solitory tree or quaint little hut or an animal or even a human. The subject should be on the side and the rest of the photo should accentuate the subject.

c) Always have a subject in the foreground.
A picture of the azure sea while beautiful will evoke no interest unless there is a subject. Even a solitory coconut tree will make it interesting.

d) Choose different dynamic angles.
Make the photo interesting by choosing a dramatic angle.

e) Don't wait for bright sunlight only.
Captivating photographs can be snapped even in rainy weather. Rain, snow, etc. can bring a lot of highlight and polish into the colours.

f) Use objects such as people or animals to emphasize the snap
A mountain cliff on its own may not appear majestic but if there are people or animals in the snap, the size will be accentuated. But such objects should not be too much in the foreground that make the snap look like a portrait.

Here are some examples: Photographing landscapes

yes can i add some more???


if you taking the pic of the sun with the mountains or ocean with it, try to take the half of sun,. let the rays come from the diagonal. the lens obviously must be cleaner so that the rays come in equal no.s and dont get distracted.

taking sunrises or the dusks will be great if sun is kept zoom out and zoomed in,. it leaves alot of sacrifice to hold the cam, so better a tripod must be used for this...


you can use Banyan(undershirt) for wiping the lens,. sounds weird but this is the greatest way ever. the cloth must not be dirty and should be thin, boblin free and not thick or thin,...


use imagination but take any pic as you want. because in thousands of pics comes out the greatest.

Thanks, mickey. You are most welcome to add more tips.

There is no hard and fast rule of taking the pic by rules..
taking photographs is not like acting that you have to go on with the words mentioned in the director's script.
photographs were the only medium of remembering the moods of people some years back, when there werent any video cams with people, nor the handy mobiles which are featuring the cameras so that you may delete and edit as many times one may want...


i never delete any pic. every pic has its own word. for ex. there is humor involved with a sleepy eye of a relative's pic.. so leave it as it is, if doesnt look very weird.

there is no hard and fast rule for not taking a nice pic with just a digital camera. a film camera (though very scarce nowadays) has the originality, vibrancy and contrast that the new digis can match up with.

there is no trick of getting nice pics. there needs no dedication according to me. a mere child can take good pics if he has discovered the finest angles.
there is fun involved with semi-horizontal pics. its just like you revolve the object and the background from its axis to something like north-east, north-west(only non-noobs will understand this)

there is no rule that only high lensed cameras take best pics. i would like to say, i have a Kodak SLR and a Yashica MF2(presented to me from Papa) and i am so conservative and i take the pics from it. yes its now very costly to paperise these film pics nowadays, but believe me, that 25 year old stuff takes best pics one can think of..


obviously, a nice terrain adds to the beauty of the picture. if you have a machine working around, or you have the cables hanging up on the walls and poles, that will never end up with beauty,.. but a tall windmill will(though they are scarse in India)

lush green forests mountains dark green grasses oceans and wildlife this all makes a great pic(wrote this all in one and without commas because thats a scene and not many objects, once again only non-noobs will understand:-). take them any angle, in any action, in any way. they will always look good.


and yes say cheese always works...

Taking beautiful photographs is an art. You can only refine someone who has the art. The skill can be honed and improved.

But the moot point is, the skill must be present.

I can read all the books I want on painting, take any number of classes but unless I have the basic skills to paint, all I can do/will do is apply paint to canvas.

yess thats the major thing... i am happy and lucky that i am brought up in paradise..
Nainital now is a ocean of concrete but some years back was the most beautiful country side.

some places i went my own in the hills. and every part has it own nature. the trees are not same, the mountains are different.

someone will think that whole of Uttarakhand is a terrain, but there are wide plains as well.

i saw beauty everywhere i went. Kolkata, Mumbai(though in 1996 only), Banguluru, Jaipur, Himachal, Darjeeling, Boston. every place was beautiful and artistic. yet the major problem in pic taking was oceans of human beings and modern machines which is irritating.

I have just started a thread with some of my recent clicks (Some of my recent clicks)

Has mickey been un-banned?

Originally Posted by Punch Bala

Has mickey been un-banned?

Yes moderator smoothvibes said his banned lifted.He has banned only for 24 hour.
(sorry for off topic post)
http://www.indiabroadband.net/showthread.php?p=227778

Anyway I have never follow any rule for take shot only when I feel that views are nice I have taken the shot but still this information will be important I will try to remember all such nice tips from just4kix ad mickey.

Just to add to Kix's list.

a. it's called the rule of thirds. you place a subject of interest a third
of the way from the end or top or bottom.

c. also helps a sense of scale. for example if you take a picture of a
mountain, having a person in the frame will enhance the size of the mountain.

e. actually the best light is early in the morning. the mid afternoon sun
is one of the worst times to take landscape photos.

and in addition have enough depth of field to cover your intended
landscape.