Photography Tips: Taking Great Black and White Landscape Pictures

June 2, 2012 by

I can across the article "27 Black and White Landscape Images" and I wanted to learn more about how to take pictures like this. So here's a few of the easier tips I found that can help. There's more detailed tips for advanced photographers in the posts, but we'll keep it simple here. I'll also add a few other pictures to spice things up a bit.

Here's 3 tips from PhotographyGuide that helped me with the above picture:

Light is one of the most important aspects of black and white landscapes. You need to ensure there are different area's of brightness. For example, look for well defined shadows, contrasted with bright highlights (yet not overexposed). 
 
Clouds are great, but make sure they aren't covering the sun. After all, sunlight is what makes the different area's of brightness mentioned above. 
 
Nature Photography Center warns us not to forget about color when snapping the shot:
 
A yellow field of corn and the contrasting green of the surrounding fields will look dynamic against a stark blue sky, when we see it in color.
 
In black and white landscape photography, the colors will all “melt” into similar shades of grey, and your drama will be lost; like the black and white cube that is second from the right.
 
This is what I mean when I say don’t forget about color! Learn how color translates to black and white, and be aware of the tones and shades in your composition, so your final photograph will reflect the drama of the original scene.
 

One element that can set apart your landscape shots is to think carefully about the foreground of your shots and by placing points of interest in them. When you do this you give those viewing the shot a way into the image as well as creating a sense of depth in your shot.

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You drive up to the scenic lookout, get out of the car, grab your camera, turn it on, walk up to the barrier, raise the camera to your eye, rotate left and right a little, zoom a little and take your shot before getting back in the car to go to the next scenic lookout.

We’ve all done it – however this process doesn’t generally lead to the ‘wow’ shot that many of us are looking for.

Take a little more time with your shots – particularly in finding a more interesting point of view to shoot from. This might start with finding a different spot to shoot from than the scenic look out (wander down paths, look for new angles etc), could mean getting down onto the ground to shot from down low or finding a higher up vantage point to shoot from.

Here's a great slide show of a Flickr Group's BW landscape photos. Something to shoot for. Enjoy!! (if the Flash slideshow is not working for you, you can view the pictures here.)

Here's a link to the Yasin Hassan's picture on Flickr

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