A Couple of Tips to Create Depth in a Landscape

One of the problems you face in landscape photography is creating depth in an image.  Photographs only exist in two dimensions.  It has height and width, but zero depth.  Yes, a landscape can spread on the horizon for miles but without depth a photograph looks only as deep as the paper it’s printed on.  The lack of a third dimension means you have to fabricate an illusion for the viewers brain. One that will allow them to be tricked into a sense of depth and distance when viewing a photograph.

In my opinion, the simplest way to create a sense of depth in a landscape, is through leading lines.  Leading lines work the best when they start at the front edge of the image and go to the far side of the image and disappear into the horizon. Remember the leading line does not have to lead all the way to the horizon, however it is best that the line does disappear, sometimes over a hill or around a corner.  In the image above, the line is a winding road that disappeared around a curve.  I took the image at Red Rock in the middle of the day.  You know that midday sun is the worst time to make an image, but I saw the picture in my head, so I took it.  The image is about depth and perspective, nothing more. When a line disappears, the point at which it disappears is called a vanishing point.  In a nutshell, creating depth in any image is about leading lines and vanishing points.

Remember this is just a couple of tips on making images with depth to them.  My computer is still down (boo, hoo), this is why the post is so short.  I hope this quick tip will help when trying to make an image with depth.  Thanks for taking time to visit my blog. I hope you have a great day.  Thomas Shue