Right – a few reads for you – this time a little about landscapes and composition.

We often grab landscapes whilst travelling, but those of you that remember Stavros Pippos’ talk to the club a few years ago will remember his story of going back to a location after he missed the perfect image – the light has to be just right.

Well there are several things to do like going to the place and checking it out, but we can also do something different.

The PhotoArgus has had some good articles on landscapes of late. First some simple tips on landscape composition – think about them. But there is more to it – and I think this article which talks about composition generally is more valuable.

While we are talking about composition, how about long exposures? I judged at Edwardstown over the weekend with themes of H2O (yes water), photojournalism and a photo essay (now there is an idea for a competition). A lot of the H2O images used long exposure to add to the impact, and some applied them to landscapes in both colour and B&W. So here are some ideas I came across in The PhotoArgus. Some of those water shots are brilliant – notice how the waves look like cotton wool in some of the seaside images.

But your long exposures landscapes don’t need to be just of water – how about the night sky? Get inspired by these images from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year . It shows that stars are not the only aspect of astronomy photography that can give you a wow image.

And finally, a bit of technical fun – making your image look like its shattered the ground! All you need are two good images – one of your object and a big bucket of flour – and Photoshop or GIMP (use layers)! F-stoppers shows you how to do it. In fact, if you have a look on our club Facebook page, Alberto did something very similar. Looks like fun!