When arriving at a new location its always tempting to grab your wide angle lens and try and fit everything you can into a single frame. While this may work in some cases and dont get me wrong I am a big fan shooting with wide angle lenses, however a much stronger composition can be often created by taking a step back and looking at the landscape in a different light.
Next time you are staring at the wonderful landscape stretching out in front of you, camera at the ready ask yourself what it is about the particular scene that appeals to you. It may be the flow of water between rocks; it may be the line of trees and the pattern it creates with the distant mountains, maybe its the patterns caused by the dry stoned walls intersecting a field. It may be just one small element in the much bigger picture that your eyes keep coming back to.
You can often create a much stronger composition when you include fewer elements as opposed to shooting a wide angle shot and trying to fill it with different things. For instance if you are shooting a waterfall you may have the waterfall itself, the river above and below the falls, the banks of the river and of course the sky. Now most tourist guides will show you a photo that includes all those elements.
Ask yourself which elements appeal to you strongest, maybe its a small section of the waterfall and the rocks in front of it. If this was the case I would get down low to the ground and create a composition that just included these two elements. You may still use a wide angle lens but can create a bold composition by getting down close to the object.
Sometimes it may be easier to use a telephoto lens and pick out a tight crop from the scene to photograph, when using a telephoto lens the depth of the shot will be compressed meaning that objects further away in the photo will appear more in proportion to those in the foreground. This can prove very useful if shooting rows of buildings on the other side of a valley for instance, the compressed perspective means that the buildings will look even tightly packed.
One big distraction in a photography especially if it is flat grey or blue with no clouds is the sky, so ask yourself again if it is really needed and does it add anything to the shot. My main aim when creating a photograph is to remove as many unwanted elements from the scene leaving a simple photograph, I always prefer this approach rather the seeing how much I can fit method.
