In many photos, without a reference point, it is difficult to judge the size of the various elements.

1-K-703 As an example, in this landscape image from the Ladakh region of northern India, it is difficult to envisage how vast the valley's irrigated area is or how high the surrounding mountains are.

2-C_16_0371 The same can be said about this photo of Spotted Lake in the south Okanagan. This at least has something in the image which provides some reference to the lake's size - the foreground vegetation - but one still cannot fathom the diameter of the alkali rings.

3-T_09_0121 How high is this Icelandic waterfall? Only if you can spot the nesting birds will you have some idea.

4-T_09_0116-2 In this photo, the people near the base of Skogafoss provide a good comparison to judge its height.

As a landscape photographer I would usually try to exclude human figures in my compositions. I believed that people were a distraction from what nature offered.

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As I was setting up my tripod to make a photo of Seljalandsfoss in Iceland I was perturbed when this lady carrying her child walked into my composition. But I then realized the potential. Their presence in the scene could be a positive, giving the viewer an idea of the falls' grandeur.

That was my "ah ha moment". Now I intentionally often include people in my images.

While on a visit to California's Redwood Parks, the dilemma for me was how to photograph these giants. I was never going to be able to include the whole tree in one image. So here was my solution.

6-P_10_0065 By asking Seth to stand at the base of the tree and look up at it, I was able to convey to the viewer its enormity.

7-T_09_0254Skaftafellsjokull How gigantic is this glacier? When you see the hikers at the bottom left you get the picture (pun intended).

Here are two more images in which the presence of a human figure reveals the scope of the landscape.

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Showing a fellow photographer in the scene gives a reference to the size of Ontario's Cheltenham Badlands.

8-U_12_0226Sand Dune Arch, Arches National Park, Utah Having Veda stand beneath Sand Dune Arch in Utah's Arches National Park illustrates its immense size.

Note the difference in the next photo when I Photoshopped Veda out of the scene for comparative purposes.

9-U_12_0226 copySand Dune Arch, Arches National Park, Utah Including a human element also gives the viewer an idea of the size of man-made structures.

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The above four photos were taken in Lisbon, Portugal; Switzerland; the Corn Palace in South Dakota; and in Salzburg, Austria.

Scale can also be illustrated in other ways, if you include something that the viewer can relate to size-wise, like this highway scene in Alberta's Kananaskis Country. You get an idea of the bulk of the mountain.

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When you have people pose in your compositions it is important that you have them appear natural and not stiffly posed or have them interacting within the landscape, as the walker along this road near Stein-am-Rhein, Switzerland.

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