Fill a boring sky with something

Thursday 13 November 2025, 16:08 by Nando Harmsen | 1,602 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Do you have a boring sky in a landscape? Leave the sky out of the frame. Or fill the sky with something in the landscape.

A beautiful sky looks great in a landscape photo. But you do not always get a beautiful sky. Sometimes the sky is boring and uninteresting. You can decide not to take the photo and come back later. Or you can solve the problem.

One solution is to keep the uninteresting sky out of the frame. This produces a very different kind of photo. In fact, this solution involves photographing 'something else' in the landscape.

A boring sky. Editing partly solves the problem. But it can be done differently.
It can be done differently. Do you want a composition that requires the sky to be in the frame? Then choose an element that can fill the sky.

A tree offers many possibilities for this. Choose a spot where the leaves and branches fill the boring sky. You have plenty of freedom to adjust the shape of the filling to what can be seen in the landscape.

Leaves fill the boring sky. Choose your position and viewpoint until the leaves are perfectly matched to the part of the landscape you show.
Take the time to find the best spot, so that the leaves in the foreground are shown in the most beautiful way possible. This foreground also adds extra depth.

For these photos, I experimented with a colour gradient (cyan/yellow), but I am still not sure whether it looks good. What do you think?

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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2 comments

Liesbeth Verkade wrote on Tuesday 18 November 2025 at 13:07 | reply
Hi Nando. To be completely honest, I'm not very enthusiastic about the color gradient you've chosen. I think a 'regular' black-and-white photo would probably work better for me.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Tuesday 18 November 2025 at 14:14 | reply
That can be done. Something like that is a matter of taste and the photographer's choice.
But I myself am not enthusiastic either.
However, sometimes you just have to try things out. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. In this case, they don't.
Translated from Dutch.

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