Three Tricks for Unfamiliar-Looking Landscape Shots at Popular Spots

Thomas Chu Photo

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When traveling, we often arrive at popular attractions. If you shoot the classic postcard angle without thinking, the photos have no personal character — and rarely win over viewers or judges.

This article introduces three tricks landscape photographers use to create a sense of unfamiliarity even at popular spots.

Landscape photographers use these three tricks to make photos feel unfamiliar:

Unusual focal lengths and angles

Unfamiliar foreground, midground and background

Unusual moments or forms of time

Next, Thomas demonstrates with a real-world case:

1

Unusual Focal Lengths and Angles

Indonesia's Bromo National Park draws thousands of visitors every year. By 3 a.m. daily, the viewing platform on the hill opposite the volcano is already packed.

At sunrise, every phone and camera produces nearly identical photos like the one below. How do you make your work stand out?

First, try a different focal length. If everyone is shooting wide for the grand scene, try a telephoto instead — extracting clean, abstract geometric beauty from the chaos.

The image above uses a 400mm telephoto to abstract simple structural beauty. Step back slightly and you can weave in richer lines and color combinations.

Besides telephoto, try panorama stitching to capture sweeping scenes a single frame can't hold.

At the Great Wall, must you include the wall? At a volcano park, must the volcano be in frame? Not necessarily.

At popular spots, beyond the iconic sights, patiently observe other distinctive elements — a flower, a tree, a village, its residents can all become our subjects.

Above, I aimed at a village by the cliff at the mountain's foot; below, a telephoto close-up. Through different framing and focal lengths, popular spots can still yield distinctive work.

And with consumer drones, we now have a new weapon for finding fresh compositions from the sky. The image below is an aerial I shot with a Mavic at the volcano park.

2

Unfamiliar Foreground, Midground and Background

Grand landscape photography relies on a well-matched foreground, midground and background for depth. Search carefully around the spot and you'll find many unfamiliar foregrounds — flowers, trees, strange rocks, ice, people.

The three photos below use local trees I found as frames, composing with unfamiliar foreground-midground-background combinations.

The next two photos use flowers and grass as foreground — giving a popular spot its own character.

3

Unusual Moments or Forms of Time

Beyond daytime and the usual sunrise/sunset, shoot at other times of day to record different qualities of light and create unfamiliarity.

The image below was shot before sunrise — the pre-dawn light is incredibly soft, and the photos feel dreamlike.

At night, the Milky Way, the moon and star trails all offer different creative opportunities.

Beyond the moment itself, we can use ND filters to extend exposure time, giving moving clouds, water and traffic unusual forms.

Have you learned the landscape photographer's three little tricks?

Unusual focal lengths and angles

Unfamiliar foreground, midground and background

Unusual moments or forms of time