In today’s world of social media and YouTube, it is easy to think every time a photographer goes out, they come back home with portfolio-ready images. If you begin to believe this, it can impact your own landscape photography. This video looks at the real truth behind landscape photography.

It can be pretty depressing to spend a morning or day out practicing landscape photography and come home with no great images to share, especially when it seems like everyone else around you is capturing fantastic photos on every single trip or outing they make. In this video, William Patino shows the ugly truth behind landscape photography.

We follow as Patino makes his way through challenging terrain with several slippery scrambles to get a possible waterfall composition. As we follow along, we learn he’s already hiked several miles in and is even further from any real civilization just to reach this location as he works through several compositions.

Patino returns to the office and talks through three of the compositions that he is just going to throw away. He explains what was wrong with them and why they aren’t portfolio-worthy, but more importantly, explains this is the truth of landscape photography. Sometimes, we go on an outing, expend significant effort, and still don’t come home with anything.

I appreciate Patino’s perspective that the process overall can still be enjoyable. More importantly, his advice to evaluate what he calls the four killers of an unsuccessful outing can help you still learn something and improve your skills in the long run.