Have you ever wondered what that yellow wash on the Ordnance Survey Explorer maps denotes, or what the symbol shown below is?

It is open access land (or commonly known as ‘right to roam’) and in my opinion, it is the best thing Tony Blair did as PM. As well as benefiting walkers, it’s brilliant for photographers, as a huge amount of countryside has now become accessible. In the Yorkshire Dales National Park, 62% of the land is open access, and most of the high viewpoints you might eye up as potential photographic locations are included.

Getting on and off open access land is usually done from an existing right of way and it can be a lot harder terrain to walk in. Often finding crossing points in the walls is the trickiest challenge, although the YDNPA have surveyed the locations of stiles and gates on open access land which can be viewed or downloaded in a number of formats from here.

Open access land can also be closed for short periods of time for purposes such as preventing disturbance to breeding birds, land management or fire prevention. These will be signed if they are in force, or you can check before you go out by searching on the map on Natural England’s website.

Get out there and enjoy it!

The colour of the light varies throughout the day, most noticeably at dawn and dusk when it takes on a warm hue. Also at this time of day, a low sun angle gives deep shadows, which bring depth to an image. It is no wonder therefore that photographers aim to be out in the “golden hour”, the hour after dawn and the hour before dusk.

The three images below demonstrate how the light can change rapidly as the sun rises. These were taken at 6:13am, 6:37am and 6:49am:

Weather also has a big impact on the light, with clouds usually a must in any landscape photograph. Not only do they bring interest to the sky, they also break up the light falling onto the ground to give contrast between light and shade.

The next two images demonstrate the difference clouds make in a scene. They were taken 5 days apart and both around dusk. The scene without clouds has a calm feel about it, whilst clouds in the second scene impart a sense of drama.

The key to a good photograph is its composition. You can get everything else spot on, but if the image doesn’t have cohesion, doesn’t draw you into the view, doesn’t gel, then there is nothing you can do to it to make it work, except try again.

So, how do you get a good composition? That’s a bit like asking “how do you write the perfect novel?”. There are formulaic “rules” you can follow to improve your composition such as the “rule of thirds”, but there is nothing like the experience gained from taking photographs over many years and working out yourself what works. That is what works for you – all photographers develop their own style and what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. Deliberately placing your subject on the third intersection for every picture you take (search the internet for “rule of thirds” if you aren’t already familiar with this) may improve your images to a point, but it won’t help you to develop your own style and method of expressing your empathy with the landscape.

Saying that, I think there are some key lessons that can be learnt on how good images can be structured:

1) Uncluttered

If you have too much information (points of interest, or just general “stuff”), then the eye doesn’t know what to look at, wanders aimlessly around the image and then gives up and finds something better to look at.

2) Foreground interest

Having foreground interest is often the making of an image. How many times have you stood at a viewpoint looking at a fantastic view, taken a photograph, seen the results and they in no way live up to the experience of seeing it with your own eyes? Usually the problem is the lack of foreground to give the image a sense of scale. Combining this with the need to have an uncluttered foreground is where the search for the perfect viewpoint comes in.

3) Lead-in lines

Leading the eye into the image by having a feature (wall, river, bank of clouds, anything really) running from the corner of the image into the view helps the eye to know what it is looking at and dramatically improves a picture.

4) Avoid breaking the horizon

Objects (usually trees) breaking the horizon can spoil a good image. If you can, raise your viewpoint to avoid this happening.

The two images below show the difference this can make:

5) “Rule of Thirds”

There is plenty of information already on the internet about this so I won’t repeat it all here, but placing the objects of interest on a third intersection can improve your composition.

Certainly the placement of the horizon a third or two thirds down the image is usually better than in the centre and points of interest should almost never be in the middle of the image.

Rules are all meant for breaking though, so just keep trying. Critically acclaim your images when you get back (or preferably at a later date), work out what works and what doesn’t, try again.

The sky often makes an image, but the only time it will expose the same as the land is when the whole scene is bright and sunny. Now that may be fine for tourist brochures / postcards, but if you want some drama in the landscape it’s not the best conditions to photograph in as bright sunshine tends to give a dull flat image due to the lack of shadows.

If you want interesting light to add depth to your images, then taking them without any thought given to the difference in exposure between the sky and ground will result in either dark ground, or more likely, a white sky with any detail burnt out.

Our eyes balance out this light difference, but the camera needs some help to do this. A polarising filter can be used to darken the sky if the exposure difference is not too great. It has to be used with care to ensure it isn’t darkened too much to make it look unreal, but it can give a real boost to images and bring out the clouds.

When the exposure difference is large, there are two options available:

1. use neutral density graduated filters to block out some of the light from the sky and balance the exposure. This gets the exposure correct at the time of taking and so requires no post-processing, but you need to get the filter in the correct position and constantly check the light levels. If you have trees on the horizon on a windy day, or are struggling to keep the tripod firmly anchored, this option may be the only one.

2. bracket your exposures and combine the exposure which is correct for the ground with the one which is correct for the sky. This is quicker at the time of taking, but requires post-processing and fills up your computer with multiple images. If you have a sharp V-shaped valley, then this option may be essential to stop the tops of the valley sides being darkened by filters

When I used film, I used option 1 for 90% of the time. Now I use digital, I use both options depending on the situation.

Slide-show illustrating the combining of two exposures:

Yes, I do like my new “toys” as I’m sure many other photographers do. Yes, I have a camera make preference. However, I’m not going to go into that as whatever make or model of camera you own, there are more important items which are needed to make good images:

1) Decent lens

Spend the money on the lens in preference to the camera body – if one comes bundled in with your camera you’ll notice a big difference in upgrading.

2) Sturdy tripod

For landscape photography, no piece of kit could be more important than this. 99% of the time or more my camera operates with a small aperture, leading to exposure times too long to hand hold. If you want to blur water, or photograph at dawn or dusk, you can’t be without it. Even if you could hand hold the shot, putting it on a tripod forces you to slow down and consider the image you are trying to take. If you want to carry it around all day, then consider investing in a carbon fibre model. It’ll seem like a lot of money for a support, but it’ll be worth it.

3) Filters

Some may argue that in the age of digital photography, you don’t need filters, but there are cases when you do. I sometimes combine images to balance the exposure for the ground and sky, but you can’t always do this (for example when there are trees being blown around on the horizon). Other times I want to control the reflections from water. In these cases, filters are needed.

Graduated neutral density filters – used to control differences in exposure (usually between the ground and sky)

Polariser – used to darken skies (emphasising white clouds) and control reflections (i.e. to change water images between full reflection to seeing through the water).