The natural world can be a chaotic place. If you’re a landscape photographer, you’ve probably found yourself taking pictures of scenes that seem too disorganized and overwhelming to work right no matter what you do: forests, canyons, coastlines, and so on. You’re chasing the elusive gem of simplicity within a landscape that is anything but simple. How do you make sense of things and capture good photos anyway?
The Importance of Balance and Simplicity
To me, there are two elements of composition which – implemented properly – are enough to take your photos beyond ordinary levels of quality. They are balance and simplicity. Both of them play into the topic of this article: capturing good photos even in the most chaotic of landscapes.
Balance is about the arrangement of elements in your composition. A photo is balanced when the image’s “visual weight” is evenly dispersed from left to right, as if the photo would stay perfectly level on a fulcrum. Balanced photos feel peaceful and harmonious, as well as deliberate. Although balance is not necessarily better than imbalance – you don’t always want a peaceful, harmonious composition – it is one of the better ways to distill a complex scene into a meaningful image.
Simplicity does not mean that the photo has a small number of elements. Instead, it means that every element included in the composition exists for a reason; you’ve removed as many distractions as possible. The more complex a landscape is, the more distractions there may be. You have to be ruthless about eliminating elements of a photo that take away from your emotional message – even if that emotional message is one of chaos and complexity.
Working with Complex Landscapes
No matter what scene you are photographing, the first question you ask yourself should be the same: What message do you want to convey? That leads to a second question: What decisions do you need to make in order to implement that message?
Every decision in photography – balance or imbalance, over- or under-exposure, f/2.8 or f/8 – tilts certain emotions in your photo one direction or another. If you know clearly what message you want to send, it is as though the perfect answer to all your decisions presents itself immediately. Don’t let the complexity of the scene make this any trickier than normal. Start by choosing an emotional message, and go from there.
In a chaotic landscape, that emotional message might very well be one of chaos. After all, it’s easier to implement your message if it doesn’t wildly conflict with the scene in front of you. Not to mention, of course, that your whole reason for choosing an emotional message usually hinges on the emotions the scene itself made you feel. A tangle of patchy mountaintops is more likely to inspire a feeling of intensity and discord within you than calmness.
So, if you choose to embrace the chaotic nature of the scene, you must remember that simplicity still applies. Viewers are going to look at your photo; as much as you may want to convey a sense of overwhelmingness, you don’t want them to turn away from the image. It still has to be compelling in some way. Even a message of chaos – in fact, especially this sort of message – is easy to ruin with a careless composition.
But what if chaos is not your message, yet you are in a busy landscape? This happens to me most often with forest photography, where I want to capture a peaceful scene, but end up with overwhelming detail that detracts from the photo. Cases like this require a lot more work than usual to simplify the scene.
First, ask yourself if there are any details you can capture that represent the landscape. Rather than focusing on the scene as a whole, pay attention to smaller parts of it. In a difficult-to-photograph forest, maybe it only takes one branch and a few leaves to convey the essence of the scene. Move around to frame that smaller subject rather than the whole.
You can also wait for different weather or lighting conditions to be more conducive to your goal. Although a mid-afternoon forest can be wildly difficult to capture in a straightforward manner, the same is not true at other times. Maybe a single beam of sunlight is landing on a tree, or the background is enveloped in morning mist. And don’t forget to face different directions; you may be able to replace a jumble of shadows with stark silhouettes that work much better in an image.
Beyond that, try using the technical side of photography to your advantage. Use a longer lens to isolate small segments of the whole, or use a wider aperture to blur the background and focus attention on a particular subject. Even shutter speed can be a big help here; try panning if you are photographing a moving subject to melt away its surroundings, or turn the whole photo into beautiful streaks of color.
If all else fails, you can still take pictures with many elements that have a harmonious message. It’s just a bit harder than normal. But think about certain famous photos you’ve seen – photos like Ansel Adams’s “Clearing Winter Storm” or Andreas Gursky’s “99 Cent.” These are complex photos, but the photographers didn’t lose control of their compositions, and the images don’t feel overwhelming as a result.
This is largely about framing a deliberate-seeming photo. Some of that is down to balance, one of the best ways to create harmonious images in an inharmonious place. But other elements of composition also help here. Pay attention to things like exits/entrances in the photo (i.e., keeping the edges relatively clear and non-distracting) as well as “visual puns” that make the photo more than just the sum of its parts. This is something you’ll often see in good street photography, like in the guide Elizabeth wrote a couple weeks ago.
Conclusion
As much as I think any scene can result in a good photo, some places are undoubtedly better for photography than others. The subject you pick matters, and some landscapes (even truly beautiful ones) are very difficult to photograph, often because they are so complex. That’s not to say it can’t be done – but that deliberateness and intention matter more in busy landscapes than usual (and they usually matter quite a lot).
One option is to embrace the message of the scene and aim for intense, chaotic, crowded photos. You’re toeing a tricky line here, with any lack of care turning the photo from beautifully messy to just… messy. The biggest tip I can give in this case is to keep asking yourself questions about the photo’s emotion and making decisions to serve that emotion. And keep in mind that viewers are looking at your photo without any context at first, and you don’t want their immediate reaction to be rejection.
The other way to go is to aim for more straightforward, harmonious compositions anyway. This often involves finding a single element of the scene and isolating it with your camera position, lens, aperture, shutter speed, or any other creative tool. Other times, you can simply wait for a convoluted landscape to simplify itself under new weather and lighting conditions. And, last but not least, you can try taking an intricate photo of the scene that includes a large number of elements – but doesn’t appear busy because you used tools like balance and breathing space to frame a highly deliberate composition.
Hopefully, this gave you some good ideas for photographing busy landscape scenes. If you have recommendations or ideas of your own, please let me know below in the comments!
Spencer,
Many thanks for this and other articles of yours.
It is refreshing to see that a technically savvy person is also a very talented and skillful photographer; we, sadly, became accustomed to stuff ranging from brick walls to, at most, dull and uninspiring snapshots (DPR galleries and diglloyd come to mind; images at the latter might be technically perfect — but only in terms of exposure, sharpness and such; compositionally, they always horrify me). Your images are works of art.
I’ve always been big fan of late Michael Reichmann, became subscriber as soon as he introduced paid membership; LuLa, sadly, lost a lot when Michael passed… Your site is the closest thing to LuLa I was able to find since then. Please keep up the good work.
Warmest (yep!) wishes from Russia,
Muscovite
Dana, Seek a little lower. Try to remember that we photographers go through years of training our eye before we can achieve our best work. There are no shortcuts. Your camera is a tool, and it has not failed you. But you must master it, because it is a very complex machine. You must learn to use it right, as well as train yourself in all the aspects of photography. I myself have just been deleting years of early photos where all my mistakes were made. But those mistakes trained me. It will be the same for you. Put in the time, train yourself, and you will get the results you strive for, but not right away. Photography requires patience. And you are spot on, read the many articles on PL and they will help you to your goal of becoming a good and competent photographer. Best of luck to you. Don’t give up, and don’t throw away your camera.
HI Elaine. I would first like to thank you for reading and taking time to respond to my posted message. Yes I will say to you I had many days of wonder why I was attempting to put the effort and expense into something that was frustrating and discouraging. So when I read your reply just now, you lifted my spirits and gave me an injection of inspiration to put away my crying towel and get back into the battle for the one thing that gives me hope. I will not shy or be weak from my lack of talent, no, for I will overcome and will prevail. I may never create the masterpiece that is only reserved for the gods. But to take your words and let it fuel me to where I want to be,,,,,,, in a happy place. My gratitude and warm wishes to you and may you inspire other people like me with your thoughtful and strong message of hope. Happy day to you Elaine.
Yes, been there too.
And added to that, l have the same problem when l pick up my guitar.
I once preferred my camera to my guitar because l thought l might take a great photo by accident.
And then l changed my mind, thinking that l might come up with a great riff by accident.
Have l done either … ?
But l do still have my camera and my guitar.
I come into this place we call earth like the rest of the rest. From the first day we open our eyes and until the last day our mind tries to interpret what we see though the lens of our eyes. Of course when we are too young to understand we still can see light and objects that have little meaning to why these images appear in our thoughts. As we grow and learn to understand contrast, textures and visual perception of what makes different colours that give us a clear picture of the natural world around us. As we grow older, most do not take notice of how or even care how to capture an image in a frame that tells a story let alone any meaning to themselves or for that matter, to anybody else. Then you have the rest of the population that take great joy of walking for miles to the far reaches of the earth to find that one image that they can extract from their mind and capture it and make it into a print that stops people in their tracks to take notice of this amazing scene.
In my life I too got the bug that gave me the desire to walk the great Devine to find if I too could capture something amazing that would give me the right to call myself a landscape photographer. I thought I had all the right tools of the trade to get out in the great wide open and find my diamond in the rough, to stand on the great heap of less superior images that flood the atmosphere and be the king of the mountain. I thought all I had to do is buy a good quality camera and sharp lens and a few other gadgets like a tripod, filters, shutter release cable, phone apps and a pair of hiking boots to get me to the promise land. After all I had my vision to extract that one masterpiece to give me instant fame and fortune. It only took one hiking trip with a hundred images stored on my memory card to bring back my riches to put them into the editing faze of my creations only to find something was terribly wrong,,,,,,,,,, I didn’t get anything but a hard lesson in reality. As I sat with a blank look on my face I couldn’t help wonder what had happen and that I had to admit the truth, that maybe I don’t belong and that my next move was to take all my gear and head to the nearest pawn shop and never look at another mountain again. After struggling on why I should quit this dream of mine, I decided to keep my camera and all the rest of my gear and leave it for another day. I remember thinking how could this happen, after all I had all the tools and my vision was spot on. Was my mind playing tricks on me when I was out in the field telling me that what I could see though my eyes was a wonderful image?
So again I finally decided to try this again, just maybe I could get it right, or maybe it was my camera, but no matter, I was going out to do this thing proper this time. I remember climbing up the mountains of San Jacinto in southern California and looking over the great vast open plains of the desert floor below. The gods were with me this day for I had wonderful clouds of character and light that was soft with not hardness as the breeze blew the wild flowers in perfection for my 9 stop filter. I didn’t care what my camera could or couldn’t do, this great view that burnt into my thoughts was the one I knew would inspire me and I would never fail again. I remember going back to my home and downloading my gemstone into Lightroom that would finally show I had talent. It only took one quick look to see an image that I don’t remember taking but here it was staring back at me and saying I have failed again, and even more badly then my earlier attempts. One click off the computer screen and I thought that was it for me and my stupid idea of being a photographer.
But my curiosity for why I failed got the best of me and I started to do a little fact finding and I soon discovered that the image I capture in my mind is not what my camera interprets. I was wrong to think what my mind perceives is not what my camera sensor can capture. I guess it goes to the theory of the 3 dimensional aspect the human mind can see compared what a camera can. I will say now that I understand this concept I have my work cut out for me. I guess I should not have expected to put all my trust in a camera no matter how good it is.
So thank you for this wonderful article Spencer and I will take your advice on the two elements (balance and simplicity). Maybe one day I may find capture my promise land shot. Kind regards and thanks for the inspiration.
Spencer,
Thank you for another thought-provoking peace. I often fail the simplification challenge in the lush woodland of my home in New Orleans, and even the (somehat scrubby) Sonoran desert was hard for me at times. I need to work on my patience and persistence.
Perhaps I am alone in this, but I think that adding a couple sentences to the captions of your excellent example photos would be very helpful. To me, a quick description of why the example is being presented would be at least as useful a the EXIF data. For example (in reference to no particular photos here) “The composition was chosen to include the small conifer at bottom right and keep the sun ray at left away from the edge. Exposure was a compromise, allowing background highlights to blow out in order to capture texture of the bark on trunks.”
(As a former graduate student advisor, persuading young scientists to write useful captions was always a struggle. Hey, if a picture is worth 1000 words, how about giving me sqrt(1000) words in the caption?)
Thanks again for an article that helps me think!
Best regards, Chris
Thank you, Chris, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Good point about the captions – I’ll add more descriptions to images in future composition articles. At the same time, I do think it can be useful to study certain photos without an explainer to figure out how the concept applies, or why it is relevant to that particular image. It’s a bit of a balance.
FWIW it pays me to leave the shots alone for a few weeks in order to come back to them with eyes less affected by what I was seeing at the time and so more open to seeing what’s in front of me, those few selections of all those possible.
Yes! Same here. If I edit photos too close to the time I took them, it is harder to be impartial about selecting the good ones and making the right edits. Along the same lines, I find that when I’m editing photos for too long, looking away and doing something different even for a few minutes is enough to make me see the image with fresh eyes.