The tough decisions of landscape photography and how to photograph empty space

 

 

Travel photographer Thomas Heaton is traveling in his camper van around North Wales. He's on the third day of his trip and he stopped in to Harlech Beach along the Snowdonia coast.

The beach is a very open and features a lot of empty space. How does Heaton go about photographing empty space? Calm simple spaces can work very well, even when you just have a singular subject, such as a lone rock or perhaps a pattern or texture. A good composition doesn't need complexity.

As he explored the area, Heaton was faced with a dilemma. Does he go south and try to find a small rock or tidal pool? Or, does he go north and hope that an estuary he knew was that direction would have nice leading lines? Landscape photography is full of many small, but very important, decisions. If you opt for one composition, you are by default excluding every other possibility. Which way did Heaton go? Find out in the video below.

(Via Thomas Heaton)