• Spend some time getting to know the area

Great landscape shots don't just happen. The more time you spend in the location the better your chances of coaxing a great picture out of it. If possible, go to the site the day before you actually plan to take pictures and walk around without a camera, just looking for opportunities. Use a compass to estimate where the sun is likely to be at sunrise and sunset.

• Shoot during the golden hour

The best light occurs during the hour on either side of sunrise and sunset. That's the time you want to go outside taking pictures. With the sun sitting low in the sky, rolling hills have more definition and strong shadows emphasise the shape of the landscape. At midday you are much more likely to face problems with harsh lighting and your landscapes will appear ugly and flat.

• Don't place the horizon in the middle of the frame

The natural thing to do when you start out as a landscape photographer is to place the horizon in the middle of the frame. Don’t! Decide which part of your photograph is most important, the earth or the sky, and then give more emphasis to that part in the picture.

• Pick a detail to capture the eye

One of the most common mistakes in landscape photography is to climb on a hill and to try to take a picture of the whole world in one shot. It's much better to pick one small detail and give it prominence, thereby giving the viewer's eye something to focus on. Think, for instance, of a little flower: by getting in close and exaggerating its size relative to the background, you will have a much more interesting picture than if you stood back and shot it with a more normal perspective.

• Don't be afraid to get dirty

You can often get a much better shot by getting down on your stomach and looking up from a worm's eye view or by climbing a tree for the bird's eye view. Showing places people have often seen, but from a place where they haven't seen it before is often the key to success. Think about what will best allow you to tell the story of the place you are photographing and then do what it takes to get that point of view.

• Hold out for beautiful skies

Beautiful skies make beautiful landscapes. It's all good and well  to plan to shoot landscapes when it is convenient for you, but if the weather isn't playing along, your pictures will be drab. Leave your camera bag ready and batteries charged and when the sky lights up with dramatic clouds, head out to that perfect spot you've been scouting for the past few weeks. Your portfolio will thank you later.

• Use a tripod

Get a light but sturdy tripod. The aim in most landscape pictures is to get everything, from the foreground to the background as razor sharp as possible. This will mean larger apertures which will in turn mean longer exposure times, so a sturdy camera support is essential. Using a tripod will also force you to think longer about where you set up, which means more considered compositions.

• Learn how to use a polarizer

While the effect of most filters can be emulated in photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp, the one filter that is still essential for landscape photography is the polarizer. Amongst other things, it allows the blues in the sky to be darkened relative to the rest of the image, thereby emphasizing puffy white clouds, which could otherwise have disappeared in the background.

• Don't let your camera's light meter do all the work.

The slow, considered approach used in landscape photography provides the perfect opportunity to shoot in manual mode. Take a few pictures slightly darker than the camera's light meter suggests and then a few slightly lighter and see which you like best. The camera's analysis computer has no sense of aesthetics or drama and can't tell when an over or under exposed picture will look better.

• Think outside the box

While landscapes certainly can be beautiful pictures of rolling green hills and quiet streams, they can also be things like industrial sites and cityscapes. Not all great landscapes are of the postcard variety. Try to also photograph the grit and grime of the world. The road less travelled is often the more interesting one