I’ve spent more Sunday mornings than I can count walking around Seattle with my camera, convinced that the more I shot, the better I’d get. And for a while, that was true. Reps matter. Time in the field matters. But somewhere around year four of doing this seriously, I noticed something uncomfortable: my photos looked basically the same as they did the year before. Same compositions, same edit, same feel. I was putting in hours and going nowhere.

That’s exactly what drew me to this video by Mark Denney, where he breaks down three specific habits that held his landscape photography back for over a decade. What struck me wasn’t just that he identified the habits. It’s that he explained why they worked just well enough to keep him stuck without realizing it. That’s the tricky part about a plateau. It doesn’t feel like failure. It feels like maintenance.

When “More Time in the Field” Becomes a Crutch

The first habit Mark addresses is the belief that simply showing up more often is the same as improving. More locations, more golden hours, more frames fired. It feels productive because it produces something. But volume without intention doesn’t build skill. It builds repetition.

The shift he describes is moving from reactive shooting to deliberate practice. Instead of arriving at a scene and waiting for it to look good, he started setting specific creative constraints for himself before he even picked up the camera. What mood am I going for? What single element do I want to anchor this frame? What would I have to change about my position to make this composition actually interesting, not just acceptable?

This hit close to home for me. I once spent an entire vacation in Iceland chasing one specific waterfall shot. I missed dinner four nights in a row. I got the shot on day three and kept going back anyway, taking essentially the same photo with minor variations. I told myself I was being thorough. What I was actually doing was avoiding the harder work of finding something new.

The Composition Habit That Looks Like a Style

The second habit is subtler and, honestly, the one I had to sit with the longest. Mark talks about defaulting to compositional formulas that technically work but stop you from seeing the scene in front of you. Rule of thirds. Leading lines. Foreground interest. These are real tools. But if you reach for them automatically, you’re not composing. You’re filling a template.

His advice is to slow the process down deliberately. Before setting up the tripod, walk the scene completely. Look at it from low, from high, from closer than feels comfortable. Ask yourself what a painter would do with this view, not what a photographer’s checklist would do. The goal isn’t to abandon compositional principles. It’s to arrive at them through observation rather than habit.

The practical version of this: give yourself a rule that you can’t touch your tripod for the first five minutes at any new location. Just look. It sounds almost too simple, but it forces your brain out of setup mode and into seeing mode.

The Lightroom Edit That Became a Preset in Disguise

The third habit is where I think a lot of intermediate photographers will recognize themselves, including me three years ago. Mark describes developing an editing workflow in Lightroom that became so automatic it stopped being a creative decision. He’d adjust whites, pull highlights, lift shadows, add a little clarity, warm the tone slightly. Every time. The edit was consistent, and that consistency looked like a signature style from the outside. But it was actually just a preset he’d internalized.

The way he broke out of it was by starting edits with the question: what is this photo actually about? If the answer is atmosphere and stillness, maybe clarity doesn’t belong in this edit at all. If the answer is drama and contrast, the shadow lift might be working against the image. The technical steps stay flexible because they’re always in service of a specific intention, not a routine.

A concrete way to try this: write one word at the top of a sticky note before you open an image in Lightroom. Moody. Bright. Quiet. Tense. Let that word gate every slider you reach for. If an adjustment doesn’t support the word, don’t make it.

Where I’d Push This Advice Further

I want to add one honest counterpoint to Mark’s framework, because I think it’s easy to overcorrect. When you start questioning every habit, you can spiral into paralysis. I went through a phase where I was so busy interrogating my process that I was barely shooting at all.

The habits Mark describes became habits because they worked. The goal isn’t to burn them down. It’s to make them conscious choices rather than defaults. Some days I still use my “template” Lightroom edit as a starting point because I’m tired and I want to finish a batch. That’s fine. The difference is that now I know I’m doing it, and I know when to push past it.

I’ll also say this: I’ve made some of my most freely composed shots on my phone, with zero setup time and no tripod to hide behind. Sometimes removing the ritual forces you to actually see.

The One Thing Worth Carrying Out of This Video

The habits that helped you get better early in your photography journey are not the same habits that will take you further. Recognizing the difference between a skill you’ve built and a crutch you’ve leaned on for too long is genuinely hard work, and Mark Denney does an unusually honest job of walking through what that looks like in practice.

Watch the full video for his visual examples from the field and the before-and-after edits that make the Lightroom section especially clear.