Nature Photography How To

Photographers tend to be very serious about eliminating (or at least reducing) noise in their photographs. These ugly digital artifacts tend to show up as distracting specs of grain, or random variations in color and brightness in areas of an image than should appear clean. 

Unless you’ve been living in a cave recently the amazing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have likely blown your mind. But did you know they’re available as a free download on a NASA website?

Because photography is a two-dimensional art, the images we capture—even those of moving subjects—can appear boringly static. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to “unbore” your photos by using the simple shooting method described below.

When professional landscape photographer Ian Plant says there are “five photo accessories I never leave home without,” we stop and pay attention. That’s because of his unique approach to shooting in the field.

One of the most difficult challenges when photographing landscapes is balancing the wide range of tones from deep shadows to bright highlights that often occur in outdoor scenes. In fact, sometimes the density range is so great that’s it’s impossible to precisely exposure the image.

Remember the philosophical question, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound”? Put in photographic terms, “If nobody notices your photos, do they really matter?”

We’ve all inadvertently shot cockeyed photos, and it’s usually because we weren’t paying attention. The most common example is a horizontal landscape image with a tilted horizon, but this problem can also occur with vertical lines when shooting in portrait orientation.