In this blog I will share five in-depth tips for advanced landscape photographers. These cover selecting workshop destinations, finding original compositions, knowing how the light works, using gradients filters and how to add mist in post-processing. This collection of tips is what I consider most valuable to those of an advanced less in photography who want to either elevate their portfolio or a are already running tours or considering photography tours. Of course even as a beginner or intermediate landscape photography you will still learn valuable information in the article that can only improve your approach to landscape photography and your skill-set. If you haven’t done so already. No one is so advanced they cannot learn something from the basics or revisit them from time to time.
Exploring the Himalayas of Nepal – not suitable for a workshop due elevation and hiking distances.
Tip 1 - Workshop Location
When choosing a new workshop destination, I usually think in terms of three options: explore an area that’s rarely been photographed, head to a location that’s already been heavily documented, or pick something that falls somewhere in between.
Let’s start with the first option: choosing somewhere completely new.
Imagine you head into the Andes in South America. The photos you bring back are just as strong — maybe even stronger — than the Dolomites images you’d normally use to fill a workshop. On top of that, no other photography company is offering anything similar. Naturally, you’d think photographers would jump at the chance to join, since you’re the only one providing it.
But a brand-new tour like this comes with challenges. The biggest one is discoverability. How will people actually find it? Because the location is so unknown, no one’s actively searching for it. Instead, most people are Googling “Patagonia,” “Dolomites,” “Iceland,” and other well-established names.
Second: connection.
The photos themselves don’t carry much weight yet, because the landscape is unfamiliar. This ties back to the first challenge of discoverability. People can absolutely form a connection to a place they’ve never visited — but it usually takes repeated exposure over time. If you’ve been seeing breathtaking images of Patagonia for years, your imagination starts to place you in that scene. You begin to dream of standing there yourself. By contrast, a brand-new location hasn’t yet had the chance to build that emotional bridge. It needs time before people feel inspired and excited enough to go.
Third: perception of safety.
Even if you know a destination is perfectly safe, what matters is how safe it feels to potential participants. A country’s reputation plays a huge role here. Take Saudi Arabia for example: by many standards, it’s safer for tourists than much of the world. Yet its global image is colored by past — and ongoing — human rights controversies. That perception is difficult to overcome, no matter what the statistics say.
This issue is particularly relevant because totally new areas for landscape photography tend to be outside the Western world. These regions often lack the infrastructure or the perceived level of safety that travelers expect when booking a tour. Even if reality is very different, perception is what drives decisions
So, what’s the best way to deal with this then? My advice is to still explore new areas. Try to find regions that are either completely new or are just starting to gain traction among serious landscape photographers but haven’t yet reached a mainstream audience. Once you have explored that area over numerous seasons and know the location inside out. Then, start offering your tour well in advance so you have time to find clients. You can even list it for two years in advance. If the location gains popularity over time, you'll already have a head start in Google Search rankings.
For example, I went to the south of Greenland about ten years ago. I stayed there for two and a half months and, after exploring the area, decided to organize a workshop. To make it work, I had to rely on a mix of locals and companies to ensure the tour ran to its best efficiency. It turned out to be a great success when Greenland became more popular and my tours were filled. This is because I took a chance on a relatively unknown and unexplored area and that chance paid off when Greenland became known to mainstream audiences for landscape photography. I was the only one in that part of Greenland offering any sort of photography tour. As a side note, eventually I decided to stop running tours there — the transport, weather, and wildlife situation just made it too difficult. For me, it wasn’t worth it anymore, but I did have many years of great tours there so still consider it a huge success.
I also went to Peru six years ago. That location had already been photographed by people like Matt Jackisch, Jacob Moon, and others. After my first visit, which focused only on hiking spots, I decided to go back and explore more non-hiking areas. That’s when I managed to organize a workshop — and I’m now running some of the best photo tours you can imagine in Peru. The location is getting more popular every year, and more photographers are starting to offer tours there.
One last tip: offering tours in these kinds of areas is never a guarantee for success. The region’s or country’s safety reputation isn’t something you can control. But if things don’t take a turn for the worse, you might have something really good for the future!
Now, what about a well-known location? Think about the Dolomites, for example — an area that’s been visited since landscape photography first became popular. There are many photography tours and workshops available there already.
Is it still possible to run successful tours here? Yes.
Is it difficult to start something new here? Also yes.
It’s difficult because of the competition. You really have to stand out — either by finding a unique angle or adding a different component to your tour. Think about offering a tour in a different season to the mainstream tours like a winter-focused tour. Or a night photography tour aimed specifically at astrophotography enthusiasts.
Or, come back with high-quality and unique compositions — but keep in mind, this often requires multiple visits and weeks (or longer) of exploring to get the banger shots and finding those special locations which will make you stand out from the crowd.
Tip 2 - Find Your Own Comps
Ok, this one sounds obvious. But how good are you really at finding high-quality bangers? How much do you rely on existing comps and well-known spots to make your work shine?
Every photographer I know who’s great at this — and I mean really great — is out there constantly practicing it. It sounds obvious again, but the point is: this skill comes only through repetition. It’s a matter of experience, and it takes a lot of time to sharpen.
Because finding your own compositions isn’t just about arriving at a popular spot and tweaking the angle. It’s about developing the ability to recognize potential in a broader area — sometimes an entire landscape — and narrowing in on something unique. It’s about discovering scenes that haven’t been photographed a million times, or at least finding a fresh way to frame them so they feel new.
In other words, it’s less about showing up at the right place and more about learning how to see differently. The more you train that eye, the more likely you are to stumble on the kind of shot nobody else has made.
Take the Dolomites, for example — one of the hardest places in the world to find something truly new. Almost every corner has been photographed thousands of times. But this particular stream? It hadn’t been shot before. Same with another location I scouted nearby.
What you don’t see are all the failed attempts that led up to those wins: the hours spent exploring, the test shots that never left my hard drive, and the edits that didn’t make the cut. Not every location is “workshop-worthy.” In fact, most aren’t.
That’s where selectivity comes in. A good workshop spot has to be accessible — ideally close to a trail-head, or at least reachable via a manageable hike. And if the hike is tougher, you can only afford to include a couple of those in an itinerary. Otherwise, participants burn out and the experience falls apart. Balancing novelty, quality, and accessibility is part of the real craft.
One tool that makes this easier: Google Earth. While it won’t reveal the fine details — a patch of wildflowers, a perfectly framed tree, or a hidden stream — it does give you a valuable sense of the bigger picture. You can preview how a mountain looks from different angles and get a feel for how light will interact with the mountain. It’s not the whole story, but it’s a powerful head start. (I’ll go deeper into using light in the next tip.)
Tip 3 - Know How the Light Works
Know how the light works in a landscape — especially on the mountains. I’m going to be honest here: I haven’t met many landscape photographers who have a complete understanding of this. But the light on a mountain is crucial for the success of your landscape image.
Let’s say you’re standing in front of a mountain, waiting for the sun to rise and illuminate it — but the sun is directly behind you. In that case, the light will be flat, and the mountain won’t show much depth. Everything will just look like bright rock.
When the light rises more from the side, you’ll get a combination of shadows and highlights on the mountain, which creates depth and texture. Each mountain is different and requires a slightly different angle of light — but in general, you’re good if the sun is between 30 and 90 degrees to either side of your shooting position.
Mont Fitz Roy in Autumn – the angle of around 40 degrees creates a lot of depth in the mountin
If the sun rises at an angle greater than 90 degrees (on either side), you risk the mountain being completely in the shade.
If the time of year doesn’t allow for ideal light — let’s say the sun angle is too flat (between 0 and 30 degrees), or there’s not enough direct light — you can aim for pre-sunrise or post-sunset light.
Here there is no direct light on the white mountain – it is the glow before sunrise. The sunrise light would create too much contrast.
Since the sun is still moving even when it's below the horizon, the effective position of the light can be 10 to 20 degrees further than the actual sunrise/sunset point (depending on your latitude — for example, the sun moves more horizontally in northern Norway compared to Arizona).
When you're on a trip — let’s say for a few weeks — take time to research each location and know when to visit which spot based on the ideal light.
For example, if you're visiting the Alps in July and want the sun to rise further in the east or west (rather than the northeast or northwest, where it typically rises and sets in summer early), then schedule that location for the end of your trip. The sun rises exactly in the east during the spring and autumn equinoxes.
For locations that need a sunrise or sunset more to the northeast or northwest, do the opposite — visit that location in the Alps earlier in your trip.
This photo was taken on the end of August during my 4 week trip in the Alps. The sun was in a better position during sunset compared to the beginning of my trip, when it was setting too close to the center mountain.
Tip 4 - Use Gradient Filters in Camera Raw / Lightroom
Ok, I could explain everything about my editing workflow — but that would be a bit too much to include here. Instead, I just want to share one simple thing I’ve learned over the last few years that has made a big difference.
It’s the use of radial gradient filters in both Camera Raw (or Lightroom) and also as a filter when you've opened your edited RAW file in Photoshop. This can completely change the light in your image.
You would use this technique when you have already done lots of editing to your photo, but the light still feels a bit average.
Step 1: Go to Filter
Step 2: Select Camera Raw Filter
Step 3: Select a Radial Filter - The exact location depends on your version of Camera Raw.
Step 4: Make the radial filter large enough to include the main subject (e.g., a mountain), the light source, and the surrounding area. It will usually cover 50 to 70% of the image, and will extend outside the frame.
Step 5: Make sure the adjustment is applied outside the radial filter.
To do this, click the small Invert icon. Then make the following adjustments:
• Brightness, Highlights, and Contrast → down
• Shadows and the color Blue → up
Step 6: Add a second radial filter.
This one will be much smaller, but still placed in the bright area. This time, do not invert the adjustments — meaning the changes will affect the inside of the circle.
Apply the following adjustments:
• Yellows and Brightness → up
• Dehaze → down (this adds haze)
Tip 5 – Adding Mist
When you want to add some atmosphere to your image by creating mist between the trees — or if you want to enhance an already misty scene — this technique will help you.
Step 1: Make a selection in your image where you have some trees or part of a forest. It’s important that the selection is small, but not too small.
As a guideline: if the total width of your image is 6000 pixels, the selection should be around 1000 to 2500 pixels in width.
Step 2: Go to Selective Color, then select the color Blue. Now go to the fourth and last slider — “Black” — and decrease the amount by 100%.
This makes the blue tones brighter. You should now start to see separation between the trees and the background.
Why does this happen? Because there are usually more blue pixels in the background than on the trees themselves. This trick won’t work perfectly on every image — but in many cases, it’s well worth trying.
Step 3: Repeat Step Two multiple times until you’re happy with the amount of separation.
Step 4: Use the Clone Stamp Tool to brush this version (with mist) into your original image. You can adjust the opacity to your liking.
In addition, you can add more mist on top of the trees and in between using a white layer and a soft brush.
See here a before and after slider.
Final Thoughts
Armed with the knowledge from this article you will be able to find better compositions, consider your workshop locations more wisely, know how light works on the mountains and in a scene. In post processing my advice on the use of gradient filters and adding mist is sure to enhance your final image and create those surreal landscapes photos that are both dramatic and dreamy at the same time.
Max Rive is most driven by seeking new perspectives in the natural world and capturing them in his own distinguished style. Max's powerful portrayals of his interactions with the mountains has earned him international recognition in the outdoor community.
Madison McCardle is a passionate landscape photographer driven by curiosity and a desire to capture the true essence of each place she explores. Through her lens, she seeks new perspectives that reveal the beauty and authenticity of the world.
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