Lombok

I am trying to get better at landscapes. Namely surf lineups. I believe it is my greatest weakness. I suppose I just do not have much patience with landscapes. I am going to make more of an effort however. I would love to hear what people look for in a landscape photograph, what are key attributes to a well composed shot.

Cheers,

CC very welcome.

So there are a few things, in my opinion, that make a great landscape image.

1. Foreground interest: it can be just about anything, and it does not detract from the background.
2. Leading lines: whether it be an S pattern or a straight line pointing to the object(s) of interest, keep an eye for them
3. Balanced exposure: so many people do landscape work, and fail at keeping the sky from the 'pure white' of overexposure.
4. Creative exposure: don't just shoot at high speeds. Learn to shoot at lower speeds in order to get "movement" in your water, whether it be a wave breaking or washing on the beach. Also, if you're shooting surfers, learn to do "panning" photography for even wider variety of images.
5. Focus: this should be a priority always, and since you do surf photography, you need to figure out what is the focus of your image (the surf, the surfer, the beach, etc.) and how you can highlight it (with selective focus, narrow depth of field, frame of view, etc.)
6. Story: anyone can take pictures of surf, how can you differentiate yourself from them? What do you want your images to convey?

In terms of your image, the palm trees in the foreground either need to be in or out of the image (which is difficult to do, I know). The image itself is a little underexposed. Instead of shooting straight out toward the surf, you should consider shooting at an angle to build your lines (i.e. lines parallel to the edge of an image are predominately uninteresting). The mountain is a good backdrop. Regardless, I like the image.

I hope this helps.

John