Composition is one tough cookie to crack. Once you've sorted out all the technical aspects of photography, it's the composition that really makes or breaks an image. Some people just "have it", they instinctively know what works and what doesn't. Others, like yours truly, have to work at it.

Sure there are 'rules' (better thought of as guidelines) and theories etc, but many of the *best* images break these rules, so what help does that give to those of us that don't 'get it'? 

Over the years, I've come to notice a certain style in my landscape photography. In fact, there are three things I often use in landscapes, sometimes all at once. The first is the most surprising of all.

Allow me to demonstrate: 

Yep, verticals. Who'd have thought it? A landscape is, well, landscape shaped right? Even the orientation of the camera is called landscape for God's sake! So what am I doing with these verticals? Well, it seems I see landscapes vertically rather than horizontally. It's something I've been aware of for a while, but I was looking back through some images recently, as well as some newer shots, and I was left with the over-whelming feeling that for me at least, vertical landscapes are where it's at.  So rather than fight it, I'm going to embrace it more fervently from now on. I can only guess that my brain works that way round... maybe it's a function of being tall and slim (*Ahem* sort of slim....ish!) rather than short and wide. Who knows?

OK, so that's one of the way; what else is there?

Next up is foreground interest. Now this is pretty well-known, but it's surprising how many people overlook it when composing their 'landscape' images. You NEED something in the foreground to give interest and help hold the shot together. It's something I do a lot of, and in some cases turn the foreground interest into a leading line as well. I know, get me! 

Two lots of heavy foreground interest and one lot of foreground interest with leading lines. See, I told you this was going somewhere...

And now for the final one, and another surprise: a bit of motion. Yep, movement in the landscape. Now it's not always possible and not always advisable. But as will a lot of images I take, I like to get some motion in the shot - a slower shutter speed, a pan, zoom burst, second-curtain sync... anything to stop the shot being completely frozen.

Here's a landscape with some motion. Vertically. With foreground interest. 

You may tell me the sea thrift in the foreground is out of focus, certainly others have said so. But you'll have to take my word for it, it's not! It's just blowing in the wind and some are blowing more than others. 

So there you have it. Dave's guide to how he shoots landscapes: Vertical, foreground interest and motion. Or any combination of the three. 

Interestingly, while thinking about this post and looking through some pictures, I realised that actually it's not just landscapes I shoot vertically. No, nothing is safe from the vertical treatment, not even birds in flight, GT1 cars and Moto GP bikes!

If any of you have views on why this might be, or indeed your own ideas about how you shoot landscapes, I'd love to hear them so fill up the comments! 

The modern EOS camera includes an orientation sensor that is typically used for several purposes, the most common and obvious is to put a marker in the images that the camera was in a vertical position and that software should display the image rotated. Since the days of EOS 30D Canon added a third option to the camera auto rotate menu, put the marker in the file but don't rotate on the camera screen, it's turned out to be the one setting I change to on all my cameras, here's why.

 If you shoot a lot of portrait images with the camera on a tripod or other support you often find you shoot some pics and want to review them. You hit review and the image is there sideways on the screen and not filling all the pixels. So you have to turn the camera round to landscape and start zooming in. With the 'put marker in the file but don't rotate on the camera' option the camera will play the image back not turned round, so keeping the camera in portrait orientation shows you an image that is filling the portrait oriented screen. But the image has the marker in it so photoshop and others turn it round when you get to the computer.

Some people don't realise that if you shoot with the 'put marker in the file but don't rotate on the camera' option set, you can change it back to rotate on computer and camera - that's what those icons mean in the menu - and when you plug your camera in to a TV for an impromtu slideshow then your images will be rotated correctly so you don't need to turn the TV on it's edge or lie on your side!

The original EOS 5D introduced the C mode to Canon DSLR cameras, and recent models such as the EOS 40D, EOS 50D and EOS 5D Mark II have included Custom modes, but few people use them to full effect.

There's a small 'wrinkle' with the C modes as they currently stand. The C mode registration takes a snapshot of the camera configuration including custom functions and actually quite a lot of other things.

First a common story of C mode usage is that of a wedding photographer who shoots a wedding in a church. Before entering the church for the ceremony he needs to set the camera to get shots of the guests and bride arriving so he sets the camera for a 'hopefully' brightly lit outdoor scene. At this point store the settings to a C mode. Now he enters the church to find it's lit by candles at the brides request and the stained glass window is blocking more light then an ND16 filter and turning it all a weird colour temperature. So indoors he needs a whole different low light setup which he sets on his camera in the normal way. So once the ceremony is over he's walking backwards through the church door, and simply switches to the stored C mode once he's outside to carry on shooting with his outdoor bright light setup.

If the tog had stored Av mode in his C mode then the camera will also store the aperture. Of course he can change it in the normal way, but if he is organising the formal groups and the camera powers down it will revert to the stored aperture once he touches the shutter, not the last aperture he was using so now all the groups are shot at f/2.8 instead of f/16! The best fix is to set the camera power down timer to off or at least say 15 minutes before storing the C modes. This setting is stored as part of the C mode registration. Now in C mode the camera won't power down, or will do so after 15 minutes, and he can make changes as needed without it sleeping. However use another mode and the camera reverts to it's battery miser ways and powers down after just one minute.

There is more you can do, a colleague bought an EOS 40D to shoot some indoor martial arts. It was fast, recommended for the job and fitted the budget. Only issue was that it seemed too slow and delivered poor results in the hands of the inexperienced photographer. He talked with a knowledgeable photographer about camera settings. The 'knowledgeable one' made several changes to the camera setting with high speed continuous shooting, AI servo A, small JPEG (for a website only), Tv mode, ISO auto and stored them in C1. Then the same settings with a custom function set to also allow safety shift in Tv/Av mode and this stored in C2. Now the martial arts photographer can quickly call back the wisdom of the 'knowledgeable one' directly on the mode dial.