Great landscape photography is as much about planning, preparation and patience as it is about focal lengths, f-stops and filters. A few minutes spent checking the weather forecast, scouting the location and waiting for the right light can make an enormous difference to the final image.
Of course, your wait for the ‘right’ light will be a lot shorter if you head out at the right time of day. Shoot too close to noon in the summer and you’re images will be characterised by short, dense, black shadows and harsh highlights from the overhead sun, so that even a hilly landscape will look flat and uninteresting. However, if you shoot in the hour after sunrise or before sunset the sun is much lower in the sky, and the longer, softer…