There are plenty of things that go into being successful in landscape photography. You might think of gear because of how technical it is or the connections to others in the profession whether art or influencers. However, I believe that the most important thing is persistence across everything you do. It is the pursuit of perfection (not necessarily always achieving it though) across various parts of landscape photography that makes you successful. 

Planning out future trips

The slow death of your photography can easily happen if you let it. If you don’t have plans for creating new images on a regular schedule then the passion for the craft can die out over time. I know of plenty of other photographers that have neglected their photography for so long that they lost interest. 

Taking some time at the start of every year to plan out time away to practice your photography in a favorite location or somewhere new is vital to staying active. Keeping the skills sharp and the images fresh in your mind helps as an artist. Book the trip! Go on an adventure or two every year to capture some images that inspire you. It is good for you as a landscape photographer and your mentality as a person to step away. So, whether or not the images you end up capturing achieve portfolio quality the idea of a retreat is going to be positive nevertheless! 

Chasing local compositions

Aside from the big photography expeditions or trips, it is equally important to chase local images. These are not only more attainable than international imagery or those long road trips, but you have the opportunity to own your own little space in the photography world. You might not have the best images of Mesa Arch, but you could document the area around a small hometown better than anybody else! The big fish in a small pond mentality is not a bad one to have!

Building confidence in knowing that you have a better understanding of the parks, woodlands, and trails than anyone visiting should help you gain a footing with your landscape photography. I have been very focused on my own niches over the last year and it has helped my own mentality. Knowing that I can be happy with capturing the small area around where I live better than most is enough. Finding the beauty in smaller landscapes is just as rewarding as getting that iconic image of a touristy spot.

Another advantage is shooting locally is the amount of control over when you go out. Understanding what the weather is doing and what light for different subjects works best is a massive advantage! Doing scouting hikes within an hour drive and then only going back when the light is likely best makes me a more efficient photographer with my time in the field. I can go out on a morning and capture multiple portfolio images because I already know where to go. Comparing this to when traveling where I am more likely to be scrambling to find just one decent image because of my lack of local knowledge and limited time to take advantage of good weather and light.

Learning new techniques/skills

Pursuing landscape photography does involve learning quite a range of techniques and skills behind the camera, planning trips/images on things like PhotoPills, and post-production. There seem to be shifts in the approach to the art every couple of years. It used to be HDR that was popular when I started which quickly switched to a darker more moody style. 

More recently, there has been a focus on luminosity range and masking out parts of the image based on that. More photographers are interested in abstracts and more intimate scenes. Staying on top of what is popular while also staying true to yourself as an artist is ever more challenging and important to staying relevant. Feeling like the quality of images that you publish are there with what others are putting out into the world is like a treadmill with no kill-switch. It requires a commitment to being persistent in landscape photography without which you will quickly fall behind.

Trying new compositional ideas

Along similar lines to keeping up with the rest of the landscape photography community in new techniques is constantly bettering yourself. Developing your eye takes practice learning in the field and trying new approaches beyond just the rule of thirds that are baked into most cameras. There are plenty of other options in composing images and making scenes work. There are triangles, framing, diagonals, patterns, rule of odds, negative space, and the golden ratio as a start to listing off different ideas. Most of these are not going to be optional overlays in-camera to utilize, but envisioning them through experience and reviewing images in post using the overlay options in post-production (crop tool in Lightroom “type R” > cycle grid Overlay “type shift+O”) can really help significantly when trying to leverage them in the field through understanding where subjects can/should fall in frame.

Always taking your best image tomorrow

Understanding that persistence in landscape photography really boils down to one key theme. You are always taking your best images in the future, and you are learning from prior work/experiences. The practice and effort you put into your photography from yesterday and today make you more capable tomorrow! So long as you are putting in the work now it will pay off in the future. Casey Neistat said it well in ‘Life Explained in 27 seconds’ that “Life is like going the wrong way on a moving sidewalk. Walk and you stay put. Stand still and you move backward. To get ahead, you have to hustle”.