Ever wonder why your landscape photograph doesn’t have the same visual impact as the scene you remember seeing live & in person? It might be because you didn’t take into account the element of perspective. A photographer needs to understand how perspective works and how to use it to plan a composition that creates the illusion of depth.
In photography, perspective gives the impression of three-dimensional depth and distance in an image. As landscape photographers, we have to work at creating this impression because while we naturally view a scene in 3-D, photographs are a two-dimensional representation of that scene. Think of it this way: The world around us has real depth & distance, while a photograph is a representation on a flat surface (whether it’s a print or an image on a computer screen). In her book Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography, Brenda Tharp gets to the heart of the challenge we face as photographers when she says, “It’s all about translating a three-dimensional world into two dimensions while still expressing depth.”
A photographer has two major means of “creating” perspective. The first trick in our bag is to arrange a visually interesting composition that takes advantage of the spatial relation of objects. Most often, the best way to do this in landscape photography is to include some foreground interest in the shot. In the photograph at the top of this post, I didn’t just take a picture of Longs Peak & upper Glacier Gorge. I hunted along the shore of Mills Lake until I found this interesting boulder perched on the shore, and then I composed a shot that included the boulder, lake, and peaks. (Also notice how I composed the shot so that the lake makes a bit of an s-curve and therefore serves to lead the eye into the shot. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.) In the photo below, I had to do quite a bit of location searching before I found a spot where I could get some visually interesting foreground (houses) in the shot. I'd noted this general view a few times at sunset (silhouettes of skyscrapers & mountain ridgelines) and knew it would make for a dramatic shot in & of itself… but I also knew that if I found some interesting foreground to create an extra measure of depth & distance (near, middle, far), it would make the photo much more successful.
The second major way to create perspective in our photographs is to find some sort of converging lines that will lead the eye into the scene. Trails, roads, or (very visually pleasing) the s-curve of a stream or river all work well to achieve this effect, but any sort of line will do. In the top shot below, I had to search for quite a ways along the banks of the river before I found this pleasing s-curve. Notice how the eye follows the river into the shot, to the mountains in the distance. In the other shot, the eye naturally follows the trail into the shot, to the layered ridgelines.
Both of these compositional techniques require that you really think about how you’re putting together a shot, but if you take a little extra time to arrange compositions that include either foreground interest or converging lines, I think you’ll be very pleased with the results. Knowing (and utilizing) these tricks-of-the-trade will create perspective in your photos, and elevate your landscape shots to the next level.
Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed. ~Rich
