P#13 Q1: What Is the Biggest Mistake People Make When Taking Landscape Photographs?
The most common mistake made by those learning to take landscape photographs
Everyone makes mistakes, and people who take landscape photographs are no exception to that rule. That doesn't, however, mean that you shouldn't try to avoid the most common mistakes landscape photographers run into.
Jennifer Wu shared what the most common mistake is in landscape photography and how to avoid it during her 7 Photography Questions interview.
Exposure is Everything
Jennifer Wu: There are several different mistakes people make when taking landscape photographs, but the one that I see the most is that of improper exposure.
It's usually either too bright or too dark, and learning to get the proper exposure is really a key to getting right landscape photographs.
One of the problems with exposure is that the camera reads 18% gray tone, so that's what the camera's meter is trying to do. Then people's images are too dark or too light. If they can meter something that's 18% gray in the scene, then they can get a good exposure for their image.
Instead of metering at the sun, if you meter the sun when taking a sunset, the image is going to be too dark. Instead, go away from the sun and meter something that's 18% gray like the sky, the sidewalk, or some rocks -- something like that. The general idea is to get it gray in color.
Composition Matters
The other mistake people most commonly make is that of composition. Usually there is way too much foreground or too much sky in the image.
It is really important to make use of the whole frame. Crop out the foreground or the sky. There's nothing going on there. This simple step can really help make your landscape photographs more dynamic.
And the thing with foreground is that in places where there's rolling grass and just tons of rocks or a lot of beach space, photographers will usually use a wide angle lens. The problem is, there's just not enough going on in the image to really make it interesting with that approach.
If you move up closer to your scene, then you can crop out that empty space and really focus on the interesting details of what you're shooting.
In Conclusion
According to Jennifer Wu, avoiding the most common mistakes of landscape photography is a matter of proper exposure and composition. Pay mind to gray tones and crop out unused space from your composition if you want to capture truly dynamic landscape photographs.
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