Photographing a Familiar Landscape Through Different Seasons

A fixed camera position is actually quite a stringent constraint for a photographer used to roaming about to find the perfect shot. It gives however a clear visual grammar to a body of seasonal landscape work. Go back to the same spot on the landscape – that overlook, that field edge, that shore, that trail junction – and shoot whatever is going on in the scene in front of you. Your evolving series of images will show how the landscape has changed with the weather, how the plants and trees have got on, how the daylight has changed and so on – and you'll also see any human impacts on the landscape.

You don't have to make every image look the same. It's fine for them to look a little different from each other. As long as the viewpoint and the main boundaries of the image are generally the same from season to season, the varying weather conditions provide all the interest you need for contrast and comparison. This makes a great visual story.

Establish the frame before the weather changes

It is also a good idea to select a location with stable foregrounds and in the middle ground and a strong background such as the line of trees down to the river bend in the distance or a strong ridge in the background. Avoid shot's with fixed objects such as a car, or signposts, or single flowering plants, which can move out of shot or disappear early in the season.

Make a few notes of what you find at the location, eg what direction you are facing, how high up you are, what objects are near the edges of the frame. A small change in the location of the camera can alter the relationship between a single tree and a distant hill and therefore how much difference there is between the two images of the same location for different seasons.

A consistent viewpoint does not necessarily mean that exact repetition of a photograph is possible or even desirable. Other factors, such as the use of a different focal length, a flooded path or a scene that has been obscured by snow, all demand a slight adjustment to the original viewpoint.

Let changing light become the main subject

Of course, the sun doesn't just make a landscape any brighter or darker. The sun's position in the sky can accentuate or alter the form of and the amount of shadow on objects in the landscape. Low-side light will make sloping surfaces appear very tactile and structured while high, diffuse cloud will make similar areas look like featureless, lightweight tons of material.

It is also very important to note and record the quality of light. This can vary from a clear, sunny day to very dull, overcast conditions with high contrast. In low side light a landscape can appear very structured and defined while in high, diffuse cloud cover the same scene can appear as a mass of tone.

Don't wait for special weather to visit a location for repeat shots. Most of the shots for your seasonal landscape photography will be shot under normal conditions and not dramatic skies. These views will provide the best visual record of the seasonal changes of a location and show how the landscape looks under normal conditions and not with special effects.

Adjust composition without losing continuity

The same tree might form a good compositional line in one season but be lost among the foliage of other trees in another. High grass in spring may dominate the foreground of a picture; in autumn thousands of leaves falling off trees create vibrant colored patches of foliage in the same spot; in winter flooded fields or snowy surfaces may change the focus of a picture significantly.

When adjusting a shot to a change in the landscape's edge look for ways to remove objects of distraction in the foreground that have appeared since your last visit. A slight reframe or even a small crop will sometimes serve to make the point that you are making about the scene. Remember that excessive cropping of a shot will decrease its value for future comparison.

The horizon line. The simplest aspect of composition and the most prone to error. When viewing images shot on different occasions, check the horizon line first. If it's been shifted even slightly from one shot to the next the impression given is that the images were taken from vastly different viewpoints. Use a tripod, shoot from the same height every time and reference a permanent feature such as the top of a ridge to keep things locked into place.

Composition can differ from season to season. A low angle view may provide adequate insight into a scene's color pallet in the autumn but in the winter a shot that contains plenty of space could represent exposure and cold. In spring and summer shots containing lots of layers may need to be shot at a tighter composition to avoid the scene becoming too busy and falling apart.

Choose camera settings for the conditions, not the calendar

Camera settings will vary between seasons – very overcast conditions, very shady conditions, flooded paths and so on – but it's worth thinking about what you are trying to capture and so aiming to capture whatever is moving. So for example very still conditions for the trees in winter, but capturing the movement of leaves in autumn.

For static shots of landscapes taken with a fixed camera position, a slower shutter speed may be needed to capture very dark scenes. However, the need to show wind-blown trees, or flowing water, moving in the image means that in general a faster shutter speed is better to capture these elements clearly, and this can require a larger aperture, and/or higher sensitivity.

Similarly, try to keep the white balance consistent. While the auto white balance of your camera is usually good, in certain situations (like changes in the amount of cloud cover) it can produce unexpected results. This is especially the case when there are large changes in the color of the sky, such as when the landscape goes from snow to green.

Focus has to be set in a repeatable way – e.g. to focus on a distant fixed point in the scene and then check the focus on a specific part of the foreground. And so it is with aperture too – if you are working with a fixed depth of field then you have to set the focus and aperture for the specific photo in front of you, and not rely on previous settings for similar scenes.

Edit the series as a visual record

Look for pictures which share enough of a structure to form a comparison and in the meanwhile be different from one another in 1-2 points. This can be in terms of light (e.g. the position of the sun), surface color, plant growth, visibility of things that were hidden before, or of human presence.

It is important to edit all your images in exactly the same size display, so that you can view all the images in a series side by side. Then you can view the same scene in different seasons and with different approaches. In such a series it is important to be able to tell whether changes to the image have been caused by changes to the scene or by your technique. Notes of the conditions on the day will help to distinguish between these two.

A short sequence of images, shown as a diptych, a grid or even as a chronological sequence. The caption should then be brief and to the point, referring to the key element that has changed from one image to the next. For example, "Same ridge, low winter sun" rather than "A place that is changing".

In using a fixed vantage point the photographer is limited by the scope of his observations of that location but what he misses in terms of development or change can be so much greater than what he can capture. Thus, the photographer's observation of change over time will be of small but significant things such as a shadow growing across a slope, a path disappearing under the overgrowth of a season or even a familiar landscape be transformed for a time into something that is unfamiliar.