Brick by Brick
Learning landscape photography, like everything, should be kept simple.
Landscape photography doesn’t have to be complicated
Like everything, we have made it that way to sell things: courses, books, and tutorial videos.
Through my tutoring approach, I strip photography back to its basics, keeping it as simple as possible, focusing on getting students up to speed with the fundamentals of the camera before moving on to the fun part: seeing photographs in the landscape.
When we stop applying a complex, rule-based, and formulaic approach to composition, it becomes much easier to find meaningful photographs.
Texture, colour, character, light, mood, and feeling become our guiding forces.
We learn to listen to our intuition, which leads us through the landscape to the places that speak directly to us, rather than over-applying mental energy to think our way towards the photographs that we feel we ‘should’ make.
My advice to anyone beginning their journey as a photographer is to be mindful of how much time you are spending consuming content.
Overconsumption quickly leads to overthinking, and overthinking quickly leads to creative burnout.
The beauty of the process is lost to the expectation of results.
And this is almost guaranteed to leave you feeling unfulfilled and is highly likely to put a premature end to what might otherwise have been a deeply rewarding, lifelong creative practice.
Instead, if you’re starting out, commit to drip-feeding yourself thoughts and ideas from a few photographers you admire; preferably those who value the process of creating over the resulting photographs themselves.
Go outdoors and put their little nuggets of wisdom into practice.
Slowly expose yourself to the next layers of learning, going deeper and deeper into the craft.
Rinse and repeat.
Your learning might be slow this way, but it will be integrated and, therefore, real and lasting.
You’ll avoid burning out from overthinking and overconsuming knowledge instead of gaining wisdom from your practical, lived experience.
Compounded over the years, the results (and rewards) will be exponential.
I know this process works because it is the same one I have been applying in my own life for the past 9 years.
My primary creative philosophy is this: brick by brick, we build kingdoms.
If you’re interested in learning more about my philosophies, you might want to check out the Finding Light Creative Academy. It’s a small, intimate educational community that is being built at the intersection of photography and personal growth. I’m searching for founding members who are committed to helping shape its future. You can apply within, and take a pre-launch survey at the bottom of the page.