Autumn Landscapes

Woodlands offer great photo opportunities. This tree, nearthe Birks of Aberfeldy, Scotland, was shot with a Nikon D2x, 17-35mm f2.8 zoom

Autumn is unquestionably the most photogenic season of the year. It’s as if the beautiful colours and endless leafy carpets are nature’s way of compensating us for any sadness we may feel about the end of summer and the imminent onset of winter.

It’ll be upon us soon, so get ready to take advantage of the great but brief photo opportunities that autumn offers. To give you some tips and ideas, we’ve got eight pages of advice from top UK landscape photographer Jeremy Walker, while resident Photoshop expert Philip Andrews shows us how we can improve our shots in post-production.

Autumn can be a wet and stormy season and this can be very photogenic. Here the classic rule of thirds has been used to good effect, with the two trees positioned on the vertical intersections and the horizon on the lower third.

The wide view
The big autumnal view can be a hard image to capture if you haven’t the vast sweeping acreage of New England on your doorstep, but with a little bit of research and planning you should still be able to find suitable woods and forests somewhere in the UK.

There’s the New Forest, the Ashridge Estate, Birks of Aberfeldy to mention a few, and, although autumn colours are usually associated with deciduous trees, don’t overlook the potential of some types of pine and fir trees. If you are going for the ‘big view‘ approach with a wideangle lens, try to include some foreground interest – a boulder, rock or smattering of colourful leaves, for instance – and don’t be afraid to go and collect a carrier bag full of leaves before carefully placing them in your shot. Try composing your shot with something leading the eye into the main point of interest, such as a path, stream or stonewall. Another way of shooting the big view is to use a telephoto lens to isolate a point of interest, remembering to try to keep the composition as simple, neat and tidy as possible to lend eye-catching impact.

Top tips
• Keep it simple – Think about the essential elements within your image and omit anything which detracts from this.

• Get up early – Catch the early morning light and you’ll be rewarded with a softer ambience to work with.

• Use foreground interest – Think about what will give your image a sense of scale and dimension.

• Think about composition – Don’t always place your subject in the middle of the frame – be imaginative!

By using an 80-200mm to crop in close, Jeremy has emphasised the pattern of colour in these fir trees.