Book excerpt: Landscape photography can be a solitary experience, but award-winning landscape photographer David Taylor believes creativity requires a certain amount of peaceful contemplation to flourish. What skills or requirements, therefore, does a successful landscape photographer need? An ability not to mind getting cold or wet is one that springs to immediately to mind, but a landscape photographer also has to understand how the weather and the seasons affect the landscape. Beginning with a comprehensive guide to the choice of cameras, lenses and other equipment and accessories, Taylor goes on to discuss the fundamentals of exposure - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, dynamic range - and an appreciation of the effects of light on the landscape, at various times of the day and in all types of weather.