Pixiq

You are wasting your time photographing landscapes in the middle of the day under direct sunlight.  The contrast is so harsh and unattractive that no matter how dramatic the subject matter is, the pictures will never be successful. There are a few exceptions to this (such as when photographing Caribbean water and you want to capture the turquoise blue color), but not many.

This picture in Namibia was taken shortly before sunset.  Sunrise and sunset are the best times to shoot landscapes.  The low angled sunlight creates long shadows, pronounced texture, and golden lighting.  Make sure you shoot with daylight white balance and not auto white balance, though.  This will insure you capture the beautiful golden tones you see with your eyes.  AWB is programmed to ‘correct’ the yellowish light we love so much at sunrise and sunset, and it converts it to white light.  The colors in your images will look weak and unimpressive.  Only the daylight white balance setting renders the scene accurately as well as artistically.

 As I was shooting this sand dune at Sossusvlei, a paraglider took off from the top of the dune and floated through my picture.  It was totally unexpected, and it gave me a unique image where the lighting and the graphic design of the background worked together to give me one of my favorite shots of the trip.