Outdoor Photography How To

What makes a great landscape photo? According to landscape pro Mark Denney it must have at least two of three key things.

"Now depending on who you ask, you'll probably receive a slightly different answer, but from my experience, if your landscape photo has two of these three things then it could be a keeper," Denney says. "I just completed a fall workshop in Iceland and one of the more common questions that came out of that workshop was how do you decide which photos are keepers when you take hundreds if not thousands of images on a trip?"

In the below video, Denney shares the process he goes whenever he comes back from a photography trip. His system helps him determine which photos are keepers and which can be trashed.

"I've changed my culling process multiple times over the years, but my current process has by far helped me the most," he says. "If you've struggled with narrowing down your pictures to the best ones then I hope this week’s episode will provide you with some helpful information that you can apply to your editing processing moving forward."

So, what are the three key elements that Denney says you must have a least two of in a good landscape photo? First, he says, you need to have an interesting Subject. Secondly, you need a solid Composition. And thirdly? You need good Light.

"Now it doesn’t to have all three of those," he explains. "Obviously, if you can check off the box on all three of those key elements, that's definitely a good thing. But a lot of times, two of those will work just fine."

Watch the video below where Denney shares photos he captured in Iceland to demonstrate examples of these three key elements. Then go visit his channel and hit the subscribe button to get all his content.