The Best COMPOSITION Advice I’ve EVER HEARD! Wish I Did This Sooner (Landscape Photography)

What's the best photography advice you've ever received?

Awesome video. What tripod do you use? Can you send me a link?

Thanks, Mark. This is the most useful advice I have heard in a long time.

Thank you Mark. Your content is super helpful. I struggle in understanding metering modes especially spot metering. What is the most general metering mode you use in your landscape photography.

Hi Mark, I really love your videos, I'm always referring back to them, your very good at explaining in a way that I understand. Quick Question I love shooting panoramic, Do you shoot any? and if you do what size dimensions do you recommend to stay with in? Is there stander size they stay with in or does it matter in case I wanted one to print with out cropping? Anyway Thanks!! and keep up the good work..

Thanks!

Thank you very much, Mark, for helping to simplify composition. I am in a place of trying to improve the quality of my photographs, especially composition. I have read many articles on composition, and (due to mental illness-caused memory problems), have trouble remembering what I read! Forget about trying to apply it without taking along all the books & magazine articles with me to reference in the field. Yeah, like that is practical! :P But asking what I love about the scene & how do I fit those puzzle pieces together seems simple enough to remember. Also the advice not to rush. Thank you again. I hope you have a fantastic day! :)

This it what I have been doing subconsciously since I started taking photos, and I have only heard one other photographer emphasize this. When you start to do this consciously it just feel right. Also look through 360 degrees, the light might be doing something interesting behind or above you.

Awesome video. Thank you!

This really helps a bird/nature photog, tackling a new discipline. Thanks, Mark.

I like ! Simple, but so practicle and making 100% sense.

Good advice - thank you!

I love this advice. It makes so much sense!

Really like the idea of a few technical aspects coupled with intuition and feeling make a better photo. Mix both sides of the brain and we get better results.

Thank you.

I have done that from my beginning! I use a digital andI have had a great scene aspect.

Heya. Great video as always. I just have a small correction. I think you're saying salt columns when you mean basalt columns.

I've been a big fan of you but I found just too many clickbait titles.

This is such a simple and easy concept but so much effective. Thank you for sharing.

This is extremely helpful Mark. Many times I get on location and see that love what I'm looking and struggle with knowing what to take the shot of and end up just prematurely taking shots. I get back to the computer and realize that I liked this piece of this one shot and loved another piece of another shot and find them to be useless photos. I never took the time to put together the puzzle and ultimately never stopped to think about what it was that I really loved about the scene. So simple yet it makes perfect sense. Thank you!

💚🙏🏼 From India. Its good enough. I want more explanation about Landscape photography 🌷

Excellent video and advice. We need to optically and mentally ‘see’ the picture before we start taking it. Also take photos of the various elements that have attracted us, as well as the large vista. From this we can create an ‘album’ if you like from all the different parts. Printing these photos is a must and can be put in a physical album, or framed in one of those multi picture frames and displayed in the home to remind us on dull days - which we get plenty of in the UK, what adventures we have had. I continually rotate my home framed photos around the place to keep the mood fresh.

Thanks Mark for an enjoyable tutorial and great tips!

Good advice Mark. Thanks

Thank you for your advice. Great video!

Very good. Kind of using "first principle" approach. Respect.

Like so very many things in life...Photography is thinking. Change the work "photography" with whatever you're doing at the time, and you're probably going to be successful. Ahem...LIFE is thinking!

What do you like about the scene? Answer=aha, that's the subject you should compose around!

A good video, Mark. The one thing I would add is thinking about how different lenses can make different elements look in relationship with each other, just like moving around to get the elements aligned the way you want them, changing to a different focal length can also change the alignment.

I've been trying to find subjects in my landscape photography recently. I think that this video really helps to solidify that thinking. What is the thing that is going to be the main subject of the photo and what elements drive the viewer to it. Previously I was finding amazing locations and trying to fit everything in. Trying to show the scale and beauty of the location. But by thinking about the key subject of the photo it helped me to focus more on my composition and in turn create more interesting pictures!

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What do suggest when photographs in Marina area?

Thanks!

Great advise!! You have to have a photographer's eye, no matter the place your back yard or driving around or on a walkabout somewhere new, you just see it, like a snapper does not! It is like " You never know what you will get in a box of chocolates" First you have to be there, then you have to uncover what you see! I like planning apps for sunrise/sets and weather apps. From the longest day to the shortest day the sun rises and sets everyday in a different location on both the east and west horizon even the moon when full is at a different location all this and you visualize a place and mark it on a calendar and for all year long many places. There are places where the sun will shine through a rock formation every year on a date and you will find Photographers in mass there. It makes for many dreams and plans both day and night. Like a Milky Way in March/April early morning it arcs form south to north looking east with a panorama and finding a thing to center under and in Aug/Sept/Oct it goes vertical before midnight and finding a place to frame over or beside in just the right spot. Seeing colors on a cloudy day like fall/spring with foggy mornings. And you do not need to travel far it is all right in front of you, as a photographer you see it and your photos show it where the non lookers say "Where was that?" You capture time and put in a bottle, put the story on back of prints!

Great stuff! TY!

You have Dugger's Creek Falls in you video. Such a hidden gem! Most people only go to Linville Falls not even knowing it is there (much better of a fall as well imo).

You really are the Bob Ross of photography.

Thank you Mark for this video. Lots of nuggets!!

Thanks for simplifying the whole composition conundrum for me!!!

🇨🇦/🇺🇸... DECAAADES ago, I taught photography classes back in Hamilton, Ontario. One point that I would make with my students is that the average person with a camera takes an image from a point 5 to 6 feet off the ground, where they NORMALLY view a scene if they didn't have a camera with them. AS SOON AS you CHANGE the viewpoint to almost ANY OTHER POSITION... without having to do ANYTHING else... it will automatically increase the interest of the image. Crouching.... lying on your belly... climbing up a tree... standing on a picnic table... putting the camera directly up against a wall... ANY change of viewpoint, will increase the interest of the photo! 😃

What model camera is that? it's not an aps-c format, it's too big. Do you prefer it over your stills camera? Thanks

Good advice from you, Mark. “ A good photograph is knowing where to stand” A Adams. One could also say something about being “present” when it is time to decide how to make your photo, I.e. drop distractions about all the not important details you had to deal with before the moment of closing the shutter. Your videos are very good and down to earth, thanks!

That's precisely how I always shoot my photos, though only for hobby. Also, having the advantage that I'am an arts graduate, is a bonus for compositions and colours. :) Thanks for the video~! :)

Simply the best advice i've heard since a long time. It's relevant and also well explained. Really love that scene with the mushroom!

When I was a photography student in the mid 1980s, a lecturer told us of the (almost meditative) advice he received from a well known landscape photographer called John Blakemore. It was, ... when you get to an area you are interested in photographing, just sit down and wait until you can actually see the minute hand of your watch moving. Then you are ready to properly view your surroundings. Perhaps a little different now in our smartphone age, but 30+ years later, the point of taking the time to truly look and see is no less valid.

The best photos happen when we feel the scene, and then follow it gently and slowly. 🙂

Love this, Mark. I follow a very similar approach - settling into a scene, then identifying the elements that drew me to it. I then move about until they’re positioned where I like them, or, often times, use my telephoto to pluck out and isolate those elements. 👍🦘🇦🇺

I’ve heard this great advice from other professionals… I find that I’m making that list instinctively, but I am too quick to pull out the tripod and camera for fear that I will miss something. I’ve found, pulling out the smart phone and snapping photos of those aspects of a scene I like, from different angles, perspectives, etc., helps me gather my ideas for framing my subject.

Also, sometimes the iPhone takes a damn good photo too!

Is that the Sony Sport Walkman?

Another great video, Mark. It's something I try to do more and more, as well as taking my time, looking around, and especially looking back at the way I came on the way to the location!