Outdoor Photography How To

If you carefully analyze a selection of outstanding landscape photos, you'll realize that contrast plays a big part in their impact. Yet, discussions of outdoor photography techniques often ignore this essential component.

There are numerous reasons why landscape photos of a pretty scene just don't make the grade. Perhaps you used the wrong camera settings, or poor weather blew in before you got the shot and the light became flat, dark and gloomy.

Let’s face it: Processing images is often an arduous time-consuming task, regardless of the software you use. Another truth is that most photographers would rather be out shooting than sitting behind a computer.

I’d been looking for a nature photo—a grabber with a story behind it. I found it on the cover of The Killing Lessons, a compelling, disturbing crime novel I was reading. The photo had obviously been manipulated to serve the novel’s plot, so in addition to a likely story behind the image, there’s a story ahead of it as well.

We often discuss how to fix distracting backgrounds in outdoor scenes, and one way to do that is by using small apertures to minimize depth of field. Another approach involves blurring the background in post processing. But if you’re looking for a more creative approach, read on.

Serge Ramelli is not only a superb landscape photographer, he’s an expert at teaching his shooting and image-processing techniques to others. In this video Ramelli starts with an intentionally poor image, explains the camera settings he should have used, and then dramatically rehabilitates the photo in Lightroom.

Serge Ramelli is a professional Paris-based landscape photographer who’s always willing to share his “secret sauce” for creating better images. In the tutorial below he provides some great advice on composition, camera settings, and retouching that will definitely improve your results.