Outdoor Photography How To

It's good to include striking visual details in your images but a little bit can go a long way. This is particularly true regarding landscape photography when less really can be more in your scenes.

But how to do you tell when you've included too much detail in a landscape photo, whether it's too many trees, too much water, too much of a mountain range, etc?  In the below video, landscape pro Mark Denney shares five signs your photos are "way too busy" and then explains how to remove these distracting elements from your images to give them more impact.

"Throughout my years of landscape photography, I've finally come to the conclusion that identifying what 'too much' is can often be one of the most difficult aspects of photography," Denney says. "So, for instance, how do you know when you've added too much saturation or too much contrast to your photo - understanding what 'too much' is can be the hardest part of it all. In an effort to determine how I can better understand when I've added too much into my landscape scenes, I decided to dig into the archives of some of my past photos in search of images that I now feel are way too busy. In this video, I'll share with you the 5 most common signs of busy landscape images I encountered in my own photos and how best to resolve them."

Here are his five signs you have too many distracting elements in the frame.

#1 Edge Patrol

#2 The Subjects

#3 Bounce Factor

#4 Scene Stuffing

#5 Distractions Count

Check it out and then go subscribe to his channel to receive all of his landscape photography tips, tricks and advice.