7 Simple Composition Tips to Improve Your Landscape Photos

Landscape photographer Nigel Danson made this helpful 20-minute video in which he shares 7 simple composition tips that you can use to instantly improve your landscape photos.

“Composition is often the area of photography that people struggle with,” Danson writes. “So I have broken down how I go about composing an image into 7 simple areas. These simple tips and tricks will help you take better landscape photos and aim to demystify the art of composition.”

Here’s a rundown of the 7 tips covered by Danson (watch the video to hear him elaborate on them while showing examples from his own portfolio):

1. Look for a Composition. Danson created an acronym for this point: FLICS, or Focus, Light, Interest, Corners, and Simplicity.
2. Look for Patterns. Use patterns to create pleasing images that help add power and guide viewers’ eyes.
3. Use Lines and Shapes. Lines and shapes can help guide your viewers around through the composition.
4. Move from 3D to 2D. Elements within the scene can help you convert your 3D view at the time into a 2D photo that helps viewer see what you saw.
5. Tell a Story. Your goal is to tell the story of what you were experiencing when you captured the photo with your camera.
6. Use Negative Space. Negative space allows viewers to rest their eyes and provide contrast against your subject.
7. Remove Distractions. There are different ways to remove distractions, including with camera settings (e.g. using a shallower depth of field) and by cropping in post.

Do yourself a favor, though, and watch Danson’s video to see him bring these tips to life by using his own photos as illustrations.

He’s also finishing up a free ebook on landscape photography composition that you can sign up to receive on his website. And if you’d like to see more of Danson’s videos, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel.