Right, so you want some nature photography ideas for beginners. Brilliant. But I’m betting you’ve already searched this and found a dozen articles telling you what the best camera or lens to buy is, to shoot golden hour, and master manual mode before you even take your first shot. Really helpful stuff like that.
Thing is though, the best nature photography ideas for beginners have absolutely nothing to do with expensive kit or being technically perfect from day one.
They’re about training your eye, learning to slow down and see things other people don’t, and actually enjoying the process. So let’s talk about what works in the here and now, not just when you can afford new gear.
Start With Flowers
Flowers are perfect for beginners because they stay put and you can find them literally anywhere.
The trouble most beginners have when they photograph flowers for the first time is that they photograph them from above.
Get down. Like, properly down. Knees in the mud, camera at the same height as the petals kinda low.
Shoot from the side, from behind, even from underneath if you can manage it.
Open your aperture wide (that’s a low f-number like f/2.8 or f/4) to blur the background nicely. And here’s the thing nobody tells beginners: photograph the slightly damaged flowers too. Perfect flowers aren’t everything.
Hunt for Patterns
This is genuinely one of the most useful nature photography ideas for beginners because it teaches you to see composition faster than almost anything else.
Nature is absolutely full of patterns once you start looking.
Trees in rows, symmetrical patterns on bark, or ripples spreading across a pond. Your eye naturally loves patterns, so photos that feature them just tend to work.
Start simple with photographing something repeated three or four times in your frame.
Then try filling the entire shot with nothing but pattern. Zoom in tight on the bark or zoom out to capture rows of flowers disappearing into the distance. You’re training your brain to spot these things automatically.
Pick One Local Spot and Shoot It Repeatedly
This sounds boring but it’s actually one of the smartest nature photography ideas for beginners you can try.
Choose somewhere you can get to easily like a park, a woods, a bit of canal, whatever. Then photograph it over and over in different conditions. Morning versus evening. Sunny versus overcast. After rain. During autumn. In winter when everything looks dead or snowy.
Same spot, completely different photos. You’ll learn more about light and weather from this one exercise than from taking random one-off shots of different places.
Photograph Water in Two Completely Different Ways
Water is everywhere and it’s endlessly interesting, which makes it ideal for beginners.
First way: freeze it. Use a fast shutter speed (1/1000 of a second or quicker) and capture splashes, drips, rain hitting puddles. You’ll catch moments your eyes normally miss.
Second way: blur it. Slow your shutter right down (half a second or longer) and make flowing water look silky and dreamlike. You’ll need a tripod or something stable to rest your camera on, but even a cheap one from Argos will do the job.
For more tips on photographing blurry water, check out the long exposure water photography guide.
Learning to control motion like this is a fundamental skill, and water lets you practice it without needing any special subjects.
Shoot the Rubbish Weather
Most beginners wait for perfect sunny days. That’s completely backwards.
Mist, rain, grey skies, wind… this is when you get the interesting shots.
Mist transforms ordinary woods into something magical, whereas rain makes colours pop and creates reflections and droplets everywhere, and overcast light is soft and flattering, not creating harsh shadows.
Yes, you need to protect your camera a bit.
A plastic bag with a hole for the lens works fine if you don’t want to spend money on proper rain covers.
Just go out when everyone else is staying in. You’ll have the place to yourself and your photos will actually look interesting.
Focus on One Single Subject
Here’s a brilliantly simple nature photography idea for beginners: photograph one thing against a clean, simple background.
One flower against the sky, one tree in an empty field, or one bird on a branch with everything else blurred out.
This forces you to make that single subject strong enough to carry the entire image.
Use the longest lens you have, or one with the widest aperture. Get the background as blurred as possible with the gear you have. The more separated your subject is from the background, the blurrier it will be.
Get Stupidly Close to Texture
Forget landscapes or pictures with context, instead try filling your entire frame with nothing but texture.
Moss and lichen are some of my favourite textures in nature to photograph.
You’re basically making abstract images from ordinary natural stuff, and it completely changes how you see things.
It looks completely different when you’re inches away from it instead of standing back trying to capture everything in one go.
Learn to Shoot Into the Light
When I was a beginner, I was told to keep the sun behind me but I very quicky learned that I didn’t always like that.
Shooting into the light is more dramatic in certain circumstances. Think silhouettes and rim lighting.
You’ll need to underexpose a bit (make it darker than the camera wants) to stop the bright sky from being completely washed out.
This one technique alone will make your photos look more intentional and less like snapshots.
Photograph the Bits Everyone Walks Past
This is possibly my favourite nature photography idea for beginners because it costs nothing and you can do it anywhere.
Don’t just photograph the waterfall.
Photograph the moss-covered rocks at the bottom.
Don’t just photograph the whole tree.
Photograph the twisted roots or the tiny mushrooms growing out the side of it.
Train yourself to notice what everyone else ignores, because these are often far more interesting than the obvious main attractions (which are usually photographed over and over).
Try Black and White
Colour is lovely, and it’s very tempting to keep all nature photographs as colour images, but sometimes stripping it away makes you focus on the subject more.
Black and white works brilliantly for any nature pictures with strong contrast or lots of texture.
This is excellent practice for beginners because it simplifies what you’re looking at.
You stop thinking “ooh, pretty colours” and start thinking about composition and light instead. Those skills transfer to everything else you photograph.
Create Depth With Layers
Here’s a composition trick that’ll instantly improve your nature photography: put something in the foreground, something in the middle, and something in the background.
Maybe it’s flowers up close, a tree in the middle distance, and hills behind. Or rocks at your feet, a stream in the middle, and woods beyond.
You’re giving the viewer’s eye a path to travel through the image instead of just hitting a flat picture.
This is what separates decent photos from ones that actually pull people in. Practice it until it becomes automatic. Look for opportunities to layer your shots everywhere you go.
Shoot at Blue Hour Not Just Golden Hour
Everyone bangs on about golden hour (the hour after sunrise or before sunset). It’s stunning, sure. But blue hour provides a lot of photo opportunities too, and hardly anyone mentions it to beginners.
Blue hour is the 20-30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset when everything goes slightly blue.
The light is softer, more even, and a bit eerie at times. Perfect for moody landscapes and long exposures.
Set an alarm and get up stupidly early, or stay out past sunset. It’s the price you pay for entry, but the light is genuinely special.
Document One Thing Obsessively
Similar to shooting the same location, pick something specific as a subject and photograph it repeatedly.
Not like wildlife in general, but more like one animal species in particular.
Shoot your subject in different light, different weather, different seasons. You’ll learn a hell of a lot about photography from doing this.
I personally am obsessed with photographing spiders, deer, and bees!
Use Negative Space
Don’t fill every centimetre of your frame all the time. Let your subject have some breathing space.
You could photograph a single flower against a field of green for example.
This is about what you leave out as much as what you include. It takes a bit of confidence to leave that much emptiness, but when it works, it really works.
Think minimal, and think about the space around your subject being just as important as the subject itself.
Final Thoughts on Nature Photography Ideas For Beginners
The best nature photography ideas for beginners aren’t really that complicated. They’re about experimenting and learning to see the world differently.
You don’t need better or more expensive gear to do that.
Pick two or three ideas from this list and try them properly, not just once but multiple times.
You might take loads of rubbish photos at first. That’s completely normal and actually necessary. The good shots come from learning from the bad ones.
Now stop reading and go take some photos.
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