Being in Colorado we have an abundance of amazing landscape to enjoy. Let’s not take those beautiful sunsets and sunrises for granted and capture a photo of them. Below are a few tips about landscape photography to help you capture nature’s magnificence next time you are out shooting.
Time of Day
The time of day can make all the difference between a good and a fantastic landscape shot. Generally, sunrise and sunset times are both ideal, though you will get very different results. For example, the sun may be behind you in the morning, shining onto your subject, but it might be in front or off to the side later in the day. Amazing light moments can happen at any time throughout the day though. Watch the clouds to see when light is about to break through. Clouds are also a good element to include in your photo.
Equipment and Settings
A wide angle lens is one of the best pieces of equipment for taking a professional looking landscape shot. If you are an amateur and sticking with your point and shoot camera then slow down the shutter speed and close down the aperture. A tripod, if available, is helpful to keep your shot steady.
Composition
A well-composed landscape shot can have a breathtaking effect. If your subject is off in the distance, do not place it in the middle of the shot, and look for an object in the foreground for juxtaposition, such as a rock, a tree, water, and so on. This creates depth, especially if the foreground object relates in some way to the background. Also, while it is perfectly fine to put a person or animal in the photo, that person or animal automatically becomes the subject, because the human mind connects first to things that we can relate to most. But, you can use a person to help guide your audience. For example, if a person is in the photo, instruct them to look away towards the background element as opposed to looking at the camera and smiling. The photo feels much more natural, and the person’s pose effortlessly guides the eye to the element in the background that you are trying to capture. 
Lastly, try to use natural elements in the photo to frame the photo and create a “window” to look through. Natural frames keep eyes on the photo rather than guide the eyes away from the composition. A tree is often a great natural frame in a photo. Railroad tracks or fences work as well.
After the Shoot
Play with converting the photos to black and white, and adjust the contrast levels to sharpen the tones. A mediocre color shot can look exquisite after it has been converted to black and white with some contrast adjustments. Don’t forget to print your work as well! Small prints are nice, but blow up some of your favorite shots to large prints, like 24×36, 30×40 or even bigger. They look incredible as framed pieces for your home or office, and are great conversation starters!
Marsha, owner of Leave A Legacy as a guest on Tom Martino on May 4, 2010. Here, Tom and Marsha show examples of the types of media that they can work with at Leave A Legacy. They give ideas of different things that can be created from various old media (and new media for that matter). A video clip of an 8mm film transfer is shown. Several examples of graduation projects are shown including a photo mosaic, chocolate bar invitations, DVD slideshow and video montage, photo paper fans and a school days book.
pages from Reta's Legacy Book
Here we show four pages from the Reta’s Legacy Book made for my Grandma Reta Washnok. Created at my Leave A Legacy studio in Denver.
Reta was about to celebrate her 95th birthday and I thought it would be nice to create a “Legacy” project for her. I asked all the aunts, uncles and cousins to contribute photos and captions for a special project for her. About 700 photos were contributed. It was quite a chore to organize them from all the different sources and keep their captions with them. Once I organized them all on the computer it was pretty simple to create the book (about 140 pages). I also created a DVD slideshow with the photos so that they could play it at her big party. I used a photo of her with some of her flowers to decorate the front of the disk. I attached the DVD to the inside of the back cover of her book.
It turned out to be quite a project but an invaluable one as well. I made additional copies of the book for her to give to her children.
It is a challenge for me to do any work at my studios for my own family but I squeezed it out between deadlines this time.
Note that the happy little baby in the red dress is me….Marsha (Washnok) Knackstedt…from just a few years ago.
Photo Mosaic
Leave A Legacy has loads of graduation day project ideas. One of them is to create a photo mosaic. This uses numerous small versions of your photos to create a single overall image. This image was created using 300 unique images of Clinton growing up to make 1000 tiles. We allowed the software to adjust the color of the original small image and allowed it to turn the image sideways. The single large image was Clinton’s high school graduation photo.
If your photos aren’t digital we are more than willing and able to scan in all of your print photos, slides, negatives and documents so that you can use them in your creations.
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