There’s a lot about landscapes that entice us to take a picture. The color, the beauty, the serenity, even the uniqueness of the land around us. Some photographers go through great lengths to capture the perfect photo, going on hikes that take hours. And some notice pretty sunsets from their 2nd-floor apartment window and reach for their phone.

 Either way, it’s important to know which landscape you’re trying to capture. Be it a bright and sunny ocean scene or a misty forest. If you’re looking for a more professional way of going about finding landscapes to photograph, this is a great resource. 

 Regardless of the photographer, the key to capturing beautiful landscapes is lighting. However, the perfect lighting is entirely dependant on the type of landscape you’re trying to capture. 

In short, there’s no universal lighting that will show off the best features of every landscape in a photograph. This source offers amazing tips on how to make different light settings work to your advantage. Here are a few examples of photos I’ve taken using these tips.

– Internal unity:
To put it simply, using natural lighting to work in your favor.
Using the sun’s natural lighting really helped with this photo, and at first, I was disappointed at how blurry this photo came out. The blur adds a certain eerieness to the photo that I like quite a bit.

-Scout for landscapes with good potential

While I didn’t have a chance to physically scout this location, I did manage to keep an eye on the weather and found the perfect opening to get this photo with the lighting I preferred.

The dim lighting in this photo caught the outlines of the glaciers on Mount. Rainier beautifully. The scouting I did for this photo was, of course, paired with the use of natural light settings provided by the weather and environment.

– Manipulate the light

This is a pretty challenging concept when it comes to landscape photography. For the most part, it just takes lots and lots of patience waiting for the sun to move.

Capturing this photo, I came back to this location on two separate occasions, the first was early in the afternoon when the sun was high in the sky. At the time I did not think it was a picture-worthy landscape, however, I got the chance to come back to this spot when the sun was starting to set and got this picture of the Columbia River with the hills glowing from the sunlight and the river in a somewhat eerie shadow.