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5 Tips to Unlock Your Creative Potential

By Dan Ballard & filed under All Articles.

One of the most challenging aspects of photography is learning to be creative and see creatively. It’s easy to believe that some people are born with natural ability and many of us assume that we just don’t have it. However, this is not an excuse not to aim for a high level of achievement. I’ve…

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How to Create Windows to the Outdoors

By David Johnston & filed under All Articles.

In the artform of outdoor photography, you have many options to choose from in terms of composition. You can create wild foreground features, or use leading lines to direct the viewer’s eyes around the frame. However, photographers should be striving to get beyond the expected shooting techniques and create images that provoke excitement and invitation…

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Using Triangles in Landscape Photography

By Ian Plant & filed under All Articles, Ian Plant, Landscape Photography Articles, Tips & Techniques Articles.

In my over ten years as a professional landscape photographer, I’ve learned that artistic composition—the positioning of visual elements within the picture frame—is vitally important to taking successful photos. A critical component of mastering composition is learning how to recognize and creatively use abstract shapes. When assessing potential landscape subjects, I always keep an eye out for objects that form a triangle shape, as I’ve found that you can make powerful compositions by using triangles in landscape photography.

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How to Photograph Shapes Instead of Landscapes

By David Johnston & filed under All Articles, Landscape Photography Articles, Tips & Techniques Articles.

I believe that the three biggest concepts in photography are gear, composition, and post-processing. The smallest of those three is gear, the second smallest is post-processing, and the one that is most essential is composition. If I had to attach percentages to them, it would go like this: Gear: 10% Composition: 65% Post Processing: 25%…

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Three Ways to Immediately Improve Your Photography

By David Johnston & filed under All Articles.

In this blog post we are going to discover three compositional guidelines that can immediately improve your photography in a very real way. Photography composition and the placement of things within your frame can elevate a typical photograph if organized correctly. This is going to teach you how to improve your photography without buying a…

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How to Use Leading Lines to Create Compelling Landscape Photos

By Ian Plant & filed under All Articles, Ian Plant, Landscape Photography Articles.

Leading lines are vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines that attract a viewer’s attention and lead the eye to critical areas in your image. Leading lines are an effective tool for landscape photographers looking to create depth in their photos, and to draw the viewer deeper into the scene. For the image below, I used a…

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Photo Composition Tip: One (Is the Loneliest Number)

By Ian Plant & filed under All Articles, Ian Plant, Tips & Techniques Articles.

In the previous articles in this series, I have discussed ways to make successful compositions using three and two primary subjects. Now we have arrived at one. One seems easy: just point your camera at your subject, right? On the one hand, photographing one subject has the advantage of being simpler than photographing multiple subjects.…

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Photo Composition Tip: Three is a Magic Number

By Ian Plant & filed under Ian Plant, Landscape Photography Articles, Tips & Techniques Articles.

I’m not a big fan of the so-called “Rule of Odds,” which claims that photographic compositions are more visually appealing when there is an odd number of subjects. Of course, depending on your subject matter and overall composition, sometimes an even number of subjects doesn’t work—but then again, sometimes an odd number doesn’t work, either.…

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