What is Landscape Photography?
Landscape Photography is a genre intended to show different spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic • Three styles of landscape photography are recognized - representational, impressionistic, and abstract.
Shooting Landscape
The main goal is to make landscape images the way you see or feel them. Keep things simple – technically, logistically, artistically – this will allow the clearest expression of your artistic goals.
What is the subject?
A landscape is a section or portion of scenery as seen from a single viewpoint. The scenery is the subject of a landscape image. Typically, people and animals are not shown in a landscape, unless they are relatively small in the image and have been included in the composition to show scale. • If natural scenery dominates an image, it can probably be accurately termed a landscape, even though there may be a farmhouse in the distance, a city skyline on the horizon or a road or path in the foreground.
Representational Landscape Photography:
Representational landscape photography is straightforward: The mountains. The beach. The horizon. As it appears in real life. The goal of representational photography is to present the landscape as realistically as possible.
But that doesn't mean that this is a simple type of photograph to make. The weather, the quality of the light, the foliage (or lack of it), the time of day — these are all important factors in creating high-quality representational landscape photography.
Impressionistic landscape photography:
Impressionistic landscape photography is aimed more at creating an impression of the scene in the viewer's mind than in conveying the actual scene exactly as it appeared.
Example: A field of flowers may be framed specifically to create an impression of a valley filled with nothing but flowers, or the rapids in a mountain stream may be emphasized to give the impression of a dangerous and raging stream. The impressionistic landscape photograph doesn't set out to deceive, but to emphasize some particular aspect or create an emotional reaction.
Abstract landscape photography:
Abstract landscape photography emphasizes shape, form, contrast, and color, and the particular scene may not even be recognizable. • One part of a landscape may be combined with another to juxtapose beauty and danger, or red and blue, or water and desert. Abstract landscapes aren't really intended to depict a particular scene at all but to create a piece of art that is only loosely based on a real scene in the real world.
Urban Landscape and Cityscape:
Some photographers consider "urban landscapes" or cityscapes to be part of landscape photography. Photographs of luxury Fifth Avenue buildings, inner-city slums, pedestrian-filled sidewalks — these are part of the "urban landscape," and as such may be considered another style of landscape photography.
Quick Hints For Landscape Photography
A foreground object will help to frame the scene and add a look of three-dimensionality.
Frame the scene so that it contains a center of interest:
An object that draws the viewer's eye into the picture.
Placing the center of interest off-center, in accordance with the Rule of Thirds, will create a harmonious composition.
Placing the horizon a third of the way down from the top or bottom of the frame is usually much better than having it in the middle of the scene.
Use a tripod to ensure sharpness, especially in low-light conditions.
The quality of lighting is perhaps the most influential attribute of a successful landscape.
Waiting for interesting lighting that is moody, dramatic, or diffused usually pays off in a memorable photograph.
Watch for unsightly or unnatural elements such as overhead wires, hydrants, poles, and garbage cans, especially in the foreground. If you cannot easily move them, reposition yourself to a camera angle that eliminates them from the frame.
First Things First: Be prepared
You need the right gear to do the job. So what goes in your bag?
A DSLR or Mirrorless camera
Wide-angle & a telephoto lens
Tripod is MUST!
Shutter release
Appropriate clothing for the season and weather for you
And extra batteries, memory cards, accessories, etc.
Landscapes are, by their nature, ever-changing.
There are three main factors that contribute to great landscape photography: Weather, Light, Season. What you have going on with each of these factors will determine your exposure, illumination of the scene composition including perspective and framing.
Exposure The most critical element
Your light meter can’t think. You can! Your meter wants the world to be neutral gray. It’s not. You will control for the difference. Bracketing is your friend.
You will find yourself in difficult exposure situations.
Front lighting, side-lit, and softly illuminated scenes will be fairly easy.
When you get a strong mix of bright light and deep shadows that’s when it gets tricky.
The lighting difference is corrected with a split neutral density filter:
It’s a filter that goes over your lens so you can change the exposure of just part of the scene.
Neither film nor digital sensors can record both the highlights and shadows of scenes lit from behind. You have to decide which you want most. Backlit!
Lighting is the most critical element in landscape photography:
Sunset and sunrise are the BEST times of day, The light is the most interesting. The colors are the most saturated. The sky often has the best texture.
White and light scenes:
Compensate with +1 or +2 stops over the meter reading to get the right exposure. Scenes lighter than middle grays, such as beach scenes, or bright sand or snow-covered landscapes, reflect more than 18% of the light falling on them. The auto exposure system doesn't know the scene should look bright so it calculates an exposure that produces an image that is too dark. To lighten the image so it matches the original scene, you must override the camera's automatic exposure system to add exposure. The snow scene here is typical of scenes that are lighter than middle gray. Most of the important tones in the scene are at the lighter end of the grayscale. The overall "average" tone would be about one stop brighter than middle gray. For a good picture, you have to increase the exposure by one stop (+1) to lighten it. If you didn't do this, the snow in the scene would appear too gray (bottom).
