Basics of Landscape Photography

Class Preview

Explore essential techniques for breathtaking landscape photos! Learn how to confidently choose your subject, compose strong images and more.

The Camera’s View

Meet nature photographer Rob Sheppard as he highlights the fundamental techniques you’ll learn to capture the beauty and wonder of natural landscapes. Discover how a camera sees a scene differently than the human eye, and find out why it’s important to always set your white balance. Plus, get expert advice on gear!

Composing the Landscape

The ability to create compelling compositions is essential to landscape photography. Learn how to arrange key parts of the scene, while excluding any distracting elements. In addition, Rob shares tips on using tones and textures to emphasize interesting relationships within the landscape.

Exposure & Sharpness

Achieve optimal exposure and sharpness in your photos, regardless of the conditions. Rob shows you how to use your camera’s histogram and highlights warning to accurately expose for scenes with both light and dark areas. Plus, get simple tips on shooting sharp images.

Capturing Sky

Discover valuable tricks and techniques for capturing the sky — a key part of any landscape photograph. See how to effectively frame your shot, capturing the best proportion of land to sky. Then, practice using filters to manage exposure and control the tonal range of the sky.

Light & Time of Day

Learn how to use light and shadow to add visual impact to your images. Rob illustrates how the look of a landscape changes dramatically throughout the day, affecting the resulting composition. In addition, discover how to get the most out of your sunrise and sunset shoots.

Lenses & Perspective

Want to change the perspective of your shots? Rob shows you simple ways to use your wide-angle and telephoto lenses to create strikingly different images. You’ll also learn how to alter and control perspective, depth and space by moving the position of the camera.

Depth of Field

Gain more creative control over your imagery by understanding depth of field. Rob gives in-depth explanation on how to sharpen a scene — or emphasize certain elements within it — by changing the aperture, focal length or distance to the focus point. You’ll be impressed with the results!