I often come up to a landscape that's just begging to be photographed. However, when I just point the lens at the landscape without any thought and take the shot, I often find the shot wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be. One of the reasons for this (in my opinion) is the lack of a foreground. Let me explain...
The foreground is the part of the image that is close up while the background is the part that is far away. So for example in the image below I have shaded the foreground (roughly) and not shaded the background.Make sense?
But to get back to my tip... A photo that only has a background and no foreground can be good but will never (ok...maybe 99% of the time) be astounding or brilliant. Adding a foreground to your landscape shots will great improve your shot. For example, here is a shot that I took that has essentially no foreground.
Try this technique out and show me what you get!
All too true. I find this is almost a subconscious thing for me now after having far too many incredible views slighted because of no foreground. Some additional examples from when I was in Barcelona
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The idea though of the foreground probably seems counterintuitive to novice/casual photographers as your instinct is going to be to make the subject of the photograph the focal point; that is, in a landscape the whole picture is your focal point (not technically but still). Rather, when taking a picture of a mountain scene or beach or what have you while you're taking a picture with the intent of capturing the beach or sunset, you've got a shell, tree, small plant, or something similar that your camera sets it's focus on, resulting in a much better picture that still is of the landscape (provided it's far enough away, it should still be in relatively good focus. To get it right takes practice, though).
My two cents.
To add to what Nathaniel said, there are different types of techniques for achieving this. Some people like to use a small f stop so that the landscape is blurred out and only one object is in focus while others set a large f stop and keep both the foreground and the background in focus.
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