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Genres in practice3 min read

LESSON 37

Landscape

Land, water, sky and patience.

IN THIS LESSON

  1. A broad genre
  2. Pictures that changed policy
  3. Lens choice
  4. In practice: foreground, light, weather
  5. In practice: planning

A broad genre

Landscape photography shows the world's outdoor spaces, from vast views to tiny details. Most landscapes centre on nature: landforms, water, weather and natural light, often with little or no sign of people. Others look at what people have done to the land, and when the subject is a city the work is called urban landscape. Farms, gardens and roads can count too. Because the subject barely moves, landscape is close to still life, and it often overlaps with wildlife photography. The source notes that it needs fairly simple gear, and that a good eye matters more than an expensive camera.

Pictures that changed policy

Landscape photographs have shaped how land is protected. The work of William Henry Jackson in the mid-nineteenth century helped persuade the US Congress in 1872 to create Yellowstone, the first national park in the United States. Philip Hyde's photographs for the Sierra Club were used widely in the twentieth century to argue for protecting wild places in the American West. Ansel Adams received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his work's influence on wilderness preservation. The Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, born in 1955, photographs landscapes changed by industry, such as mines, quarries and oil fields.

Lens choice

A wide-angle lens is the usual choice for open spaces, because it takes in a broad view and makes the distance between foreground and background look larger. A medium or long lens picks out a detail at a distance and pulls layers of hills or trees closer together; lesson 34 explains why. Larger-format cameras record more detail but give less depth of field at a given aperture, so they need more care in focusing. A panorama function, or several stitched frames, suits very wide views; lesson 55 explains stitching. Macro and fisheye lenses have their place too.

In practice: foreground, light, weather

This section is working practice. A wide view with nothing in front often looks empty in a picture, even when it felt huge in person. Find a foreground, such as a rock, a flower or a line in the sand, and get close to it, so the eye travels from near to far. Use the hyperfocal method from lesson 53 to keep it all sharp. Light matters more than place: come back in the golden hour or after a storm, when the air is clear. Bad weather often makes the best pictures; lesson 60 covers how to keep your gear safe in it.

In practice: planning

Also practice. Check the direction of sunrise and sunset for the date, the tide times on a coast, and the forecast for cloud, wind and fog. Scout in daylight, so you can walk to the spot in the dark. Use a tripod: it slows you down, keeps the horizon level and allows low ISO and long exposures. Leave places as you found them, keep to paths, and respect closures and private land. The same view from the same spot many others have used is a start, not the goal.

Try it today

  1. 01Choose a view within an hour of home and check sunrise and sunset directions for this week.
  2. 02Visit in daylight and find three possible foregrounds.
  3. 03Return in the golden hour with a tripod.
  4. 04Shoot one wide frame with a close foreground and one long-lens detail of the distance.
  5. 05Return once more in different weather and compare.